Running out of ideas to geek on? Fear not. The 13th installment of Ignite Boulder showcased the unique perspectives of fourteen local geeks who want nothing more than for you to hear their ideas. Equipped with twenty slides, presenters were allotted five minutes to deliver their views on topics ranging…
The top grossing movie of 2009 was, of course, Avatar, and this year the title goes to Toy Story 3. We’re calling that social progress, although there’s something a little too futuristic about computer-animated movies taking the crown back-to-back — we’re pretty sure it means there will be a robot…
Originally from China, Xi Zhang moved to Colorado seven years ago. He is an up-and-coming artist whose recent work confronts and explores identity and communication in our modern information age and globalized world. With many painting styles already under his belt, Zhang’s philosophical powers come to bear on a series…
People read novels for two major reasons: for a good yarn, first and foremost, but also to be immersed in a world that’s different from the one they occupy — not just to learn about how it works, but to feel it, to experience its dramas and to know the…
We’re all hearing a lot of talk this holiday season about shopping local and what it means to a community. But Talulah Jones shop owner Robin Lohre is doing more than that: Beginning December 1, Lohre will host a reception showcasing a different local artisan every night through Christmas Eve…
We’re still knee deep in holiday flavor over here, so this week we decided to catch up with a ballet dancer to help us better understand how one would go about dancing around on a stage as a profession. We talked to Kevin Gaël Thomas, who is originally from France…
If you can still stand sideways after riding in the powder all day at Copper Mountain today, stick around for the Grand Slam Bowl Jam skateboard contest in The Barn at Woodward at Copper tonight at 6 p.m. (registration and practice starts at 5 p.m.) There’s a $10 cash entry…
I think most people who attended last weekend’s Fancy Tiger Holiday Handmade Craft Fair — and there were a lot of them: we’ve heard estimates of 1,500 or more — left with a good feeling about the local handmade community. Not only were the 75 or so vendors on board…
Ah, the social justice film. We know this trick: They lure you in with their compelling story line and gorgeous cinematography, only to depress you with their social problem for which you are at least indirectly complicit. Today, we learn about the horrors of the fishing industry in The End…
The Colorado premiere of the Broadway hit A Christmas Carol, The Musical — with music by Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast) and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime) — stays true to Charles Dickens’s original story but does not take the Scrooge-as-super-villain approach. “So many productions of A Christmas Carol…
Of all the great female jazz singers of the mid-twentieth century, Nina Simone was perhaps the most distinctive, enigmatic, occasionally bewildering. And so it makes sense that An Evening With Nina, Shadow Theatre Company’s new musical about her life, would be similarly hard to describe. It’s a sort-of-musical about a…
Dixie is a booze- and sex-addicted, trash-talking, child-neglecting ex-con from Alabama who holds Tupperware parties in her trailer, and she’s invited you to this one. Dixie’s Tupperware Party really is a Tupperware party — you get a name tag and raffle number when you walk into to the Garner Galleria…
If you didn’t get all the holiday adrenaline out of your system fighting for your life on Black Friday, lace some jingle bells into your sneakers and make a run for it today at the nineteenth annual Jingle Bell Run in Washington Park. “We’re encouraging people to come dressed up…
ArgusFest will hold its 7th annual Fair Trade Holiday Bazaar today at the Mercury Cafe, bringing Fair Trade Organization-certified vendors together to showcase their wares. “We create stable partnerships with the artisans and think of the cultural significance of the product created,” says Christina Redwine, program director for People of…
You may not have heard of Pancake Boy or Captain Starfish yet, but if the kids from the Art Students League of Denver have any say in the matter, you will soon. That’s because superheroes of all shapes and sizes will be on display in the fifth annual Dendiggityopolis Superhero…
Sugar and spice and everything Christmas is the Santa song of today’s Candy Cane Festival, a merry, merry tradition that’s ho-ho-hosted every year by Hammond’s Candies, the iconic sweets factory that spins, twists, pulls and peddles old-fashioned candy canes, lollipops, ribbon candy and chocolates. The fest, now in its tenth…
Offering rotating special guests each night, the edgy variety show BALLS! A Holiday Spectacular is an opportunity to catch a cross-section of Denver’s creative class while giving back to the community at a relatively modest cost. Proceeds from each performance benefit a different charity. “It’s a chance for people to…
Revolution and art have always gone hand in hand, from the Bolshevik-era propaganda of the Soviets to the freak-out frescoes of the psychedelic ’60s. That’s why, for Zach Alexander, the best way to bring a bunch of disparate social-change groups together is under one big artistic umbrella. “The thing we…
“Flamenco is not folk art,” argues Natalia Perez Vel Villar. “It’s an art. I always try to make the point of how difficult it is.” She’d know. Having begun her training as a flamenco dancer in her teens (she started in ballet, but switched), Perez Vel Villar has spent most…
If you’re looking for Greg Warren while he’s in town for a five-night stand at the Comedy Works downtown, there’s an excellent chance you’ll find him at the Cheesecake Factory on the 16th Street Mall. “I talk a lot about restaurants because I eat two or three meals a day…
When Charles Dickens visited the United States in the mid-nineteenth century at Christmastime, the lack of traditional English festivities made him homesick for his native land — and inspired him to write his classic novel A Christmas Carol. “When he visited here for the first time, probably a lot of…
Entertainment options this time of year run heavily toward the red-and-green, candlelit, carol-singing, hall-bedecked end of the spectrum — but some of us are already looking for viable alternatives to light shows and syrupy story lines. Enter belly-dance company TribalTique and its annual Holiday Hafla, a student showcase/dance/performance/shopping extravaganza. “I’ve…
