East Meets West

TUES, 10/5 Composer Tan Dun unites sounds from Western classical music, nature and the East in Water Passion After St. Matthew. The acclaimed composer’s composition will fill Gates Concert Hall at the University of Denver at 7:30 p.m. tonight. Dun, who won multiple awards for the score of Crouching Tiger,…

Home on the Range

Some of the best art shows around are those unwieldy wide-ranging group presentations — though in truth, solos are the heart of the art-show business. What makes a group show interesting is its inconsistency and its multiplicity of visions, which, of course, are just the opposite strengths of a solo,…

Artbeat

There’s an extremely coherent twosome at the + Gallery (2350 Lawrence Street, 303-296-0927) called Manifesto Abstractos, which features non-objective paintings that are influenced by Hispanic culture. To put this excellent show together, gallery director Gilbert Barrera tapped the talents of an old friend from Houston, Ibsen Espada, and a new…

Now Showing

digital.movement.04. Tracy Weil, owner of the weilworks gallery, has a passion for computer-aided art. That’s why he organized digital.movement.04: Installations in video, sound & digital animation, the first in a planned series of annuals featuring art that employs digital technologies in its creation. Weil put out a call for entries…

Ring-a-Ding Dog

When musicals come to Denver, they often come without the A-list Actors’ Equity performers who made them successful in the first place. So we get the show that was lauded in London and New York, but with an inferior cast, and we’re left wondering why the critics were so impressed…

A Room With a Viewpoint

Playwright A.R. Gurney is angry. He considers the Bush administration a disaster; he condemns its boneheaded policies, its indifference to the plight of the poor, its preemptive war on Iraq. But Gurney is a kind-spirited, bourgeois, WASP kind of guy, and in The Fourth Wall, his anger is expressed through…

Encore

Cabaret. Cabaret is grim and distressing, and there’s not a hint of redemption anywhere in it. Quite the contrary. But this is a bloody good production, the kind of production that could attract all kinds of people who might never think of setting foot in a conventional dinner theater. Anyone…

Dead Good

Ash is feeling a little bit under the weather, so I’ll be taking charge.” So says Shaun (Simon Pegg) to his valiant crew of appliance salespeople, but if you don’t get the real meaning, you’re probably not part of the target audience for Shaun of the Dead. Ash, for the…

Mad Cow

According to the press notes, the title character of Gozu is “a demon said to exist in hell. It has the head of a cow and body of human .” Director Takashi Miike says he got this information from an authoritative Japanese dictionary, but it isn’t necessary to know the…

Empty Sex

The very best thing about A Dirty Shame, a giddy sex farce from John Waters, is the credits. What’s not to love about a list of characters that includes “Sylvia Stickles,” “Marge the Neuter,” “Fat Fuck Frank,” “Cow Patty” and “Tire Lick Boy”? The soundtrack, too, bears comic fruit, with…

Vile With a Smile

Essayist. Playwright. Radio personality. Librettist. Actor. Novelist. Now, with Bright Young Things, the inimitable British wit Stephen Fry debuts as feature screenwriter and director. Best known here in the colonies either as Jeeves (opposite Hugh Laurie) in Jeeves and Wooster, or as Peter in Peter’s Friends, or possibly as Oscar…

Flick Pick

The Boulder Public Library’s admirable and far-ranging film program is presenting “History and Development of the Documentary Film,” featuring works by such disparate practitioners of the non-fiction art as the father of them all, Robert Flaherty, John Huston (in his wartime role as a documentarian for the U.S. Army) and…

Last Chance for Change

“I saw the incredible creative potential of people in my age group and realized that, for the most part, we weren’t using it for social change,” says 26-year-old Jamie Laurie. “I wanted to change that.” Thus was born VoterCrews, a group whose agenda is best described through its unofficial mantra,…

This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks

Thursday, September 23 Don’t go to Crested Butte this weekend without a smile on your face: You could end up on the stake during Saturday’s Burning of the Grump, just one of many ancient traditions celebrated during Vinotok, the mountain town’s annual medieval fall fest, which gets its curious and…

Rock and Gold

Think vampires are the only ones allergic to silver? Try Paul Hamm. The famed gymnast exhibited Olympian-level lameness this summer, proving once and for all that poor sportsmanship can infect even the greatest talents. The Team USA superstar courted tons of controversy after refusing to give up his gold medal…

Mambo Italiano

SAT, 9/25 One of the big-city touches that Denver has always had down cold is the tradition of the downtown street fair. If nothing else, we know how to throw a party. And now we can add the Festival Italiano to all of the old faves. Things begin tonight, sort…

Kick In

THUR, 9/23 Ladies, the Commish is up for sale. Note his authentic Denver hipster look, complete with ’70s mesh cap and short athletic shorts. His muscular thighs toned from years of captaining the Denver Kickball Coalition. The nonchalant stare and devil-may-care attitude. For the right price — minimum $10 bid,…

Classroom Rebels

WED, 9/29 Rebels Remembered, a compelling chronicle of the civil-rights movement in Denver, overflows with heroes and heartbreak. The third installment, Our Neighborhood Schools, screens today at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. In a telling bit of footage from the latest chapter, Wilfred Keyes, an African-American chiropractor who was…

Radio Comedy

MON, 9/27 In his most recent online column, “Durst Case Scenario,” comedian Will Durst offers an Onion-like article under the headline “‘Stupid People Love Bush’ New Study Proves.” Quoting a fictional think-tank member, Durst writes, “It has to do with intellectual curiosity. Folks see Bush in front of a stream…

Rotogravure

Ronald W. Wohlauer, whom everyone called Ron, was one of those artists who always seemed to be at the top of the visual-art pyramid around here — until, that is, his untimely death earlier this year. During his long career, which began more than thirty years ago, he was a…

Artbeat

It’s surely surprising — if not shocking — to find one of the best ceramics shows of the year being presented at the modest and remote Lakewood Cultural Center (470 South Allison Parkway, 303-987-7876). But that’s exactly what’s going on now with Place of Mind, a solo show dedicated to…

Now Showing

digital.movement.04. Tracy Weil, owner of the weilworks gallery, has a passion for computer-aided art. That’s why he organized digital.movement.04: Installations in video, sound & digital animation, the first in a planned series of annuals featuring art that employs digital technologies in its creation. Weil put out a call for entries…