Brew Crew

To help celebrate Colorado Craft Beer Week, the Colorado Brewers Guild wanted to put on a truly special event. And that’s how the inaugural Collaboration Fest was conceived — because what better way to promote craft beer than through one-of-a-kind brews created by multiple breweries? “Breweries literally work together every…

No Borders

While on tour, drummer Shawn King of DeVotchKa found inspiration in fellow gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello’s relentless immigrant-rights advocacy and the slogan “No Human Is Illegal.” Upon returning to Denver, King connected with well-known local director José Antonio Mercado to collaborate on the original play Dreaming Sin Fronteras: Stories of…

A Walk on the Wild Side

In our city of wheels — cars, bikes, scooters, ’blades and skateboards — going for a walk has almost become an oddity. But the Colorado-owned business Walk2Connect works to remedy that situation by inviting people to just slow down. Part of the program is a series of community walks and…

Time Out

If there’s one thing science-fiction writers love as much as the idea of exploring space and meeting aliens, it’s traveling back in time and screwing things up. From H.G. Wells to the recent reboot of Star Trek, time travel is one of the genre’s most well-explored tropes, but authors keep…

Incredible Edibles

There’s a new food fest in town, and promoter Cat Kirk says A Bite of the Rockies will fill in the holes that some of the bigger events ignore — starting with its timing. “I’m a festival junkie,” Kirk admits. “I love Taste of Colorado and Cinco de Mayo, but…

Noise Makers

The Denver Avant-Garde Music Society has been hosting monthly open-call solo and duet performance nights for about a year now, says event organizer Kurt Bauer of Bangsnap Records, and attendees never know exactly what they’re going to get. For some performers, the nights represent a chance to try something new…

Lyrical Life

The cinematic quality of Goldfrapp’s recorded work has always been evident: Singer Alison Goldfrapp and musician/composer Will Gregory create breathy, synthesizer-heavy songs that could easily sweep across a movie screen. Tonight those songs get a chance to do just that in Goldfrapp: Tales of Us, five music videos that coalesce…

Concierge Service

Wes Anderson is arguably the most popular “underground” filmmaker of our time; although his films are widely distributed and avidly watched by his fans, he still maintains an indie sensibility through his whimsical settings and plots. “He definitely has a style,” notes Keith Garcia, creative manager for the Alamo Drafthouse…

The Long Journey

As an obituary writer for the New York Times, Bruce Weber contemplates mortality more than most. For example, in 1993, at the age of 39, he packed his saddlebags and rode his bike across the United States as a way to salute his youth and pedal into middle age. He…

Creating Utopia

Collaboration takes center stage at the Athena Project Festival, where 200 up-and-coming female creators will get together to showcase their plays, music, visual art and other creative endeavors through a variety of workshops, performances and programs. A highlight of the ongoing fest is tonight’s Utopia/Dystopia Fashion Show, a futuristic look…

Photos: Celebrating 25 Years of Printmaking at Open Press

Michael Paglia visits Open Press in this week’s review, taking in an exhibit made up of 125 pieces by 50 different artists. Much of the focus is on Mark Lunning, printmaster and owner of Open Press, celebrating his work from the last 25 years. Continue reading for photos from the…

DeVotchKa’s Shawn King on Dreaming Sin Fronteras, art and immigration

DeVoktchKa’s Shawn King may not think too highly of didactic protest songs, but he has devoted himself to Dreaming Sin Fronteras: Stories of Immigration and American Identity, a massive theatrical collaboration about “dreamers”: undocumented students who have been in the United States since they were children and are seeking a…

DIY gallery space Inca House closes up shop

When artists Taylor Boylston and Chelsea Bashford recently decided to officially “close” Inca House, their home gallery and show space, it was for reasons all too common to a DIY spot: the rent got to be too much and people weren’t respecting the venue. “We felt like people were taking…

Ari Kelman’s book on Sand Creek Massacre site wins Bancroft Prize

On Monday, Governor John Hickenlooper announced the creation of the Sand Creek Massacre Commemoration Commission, designed to further understanding of that dark chapter in Colorado history as the 50th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre approaches on November 29, 1964. And that process just got a big boost when Columbia…

Child’s Play: Climb your way to an afternoon of family bliss

So, you’ve got a kid, huh? Whether it’s your own rambunctious preschooler or the bratty nephew you’ve been charged with keeping alive for the next five hours, the most important thing is leaving your house where valuables are liable to be destroyed and seeking refuge on somebody else’s property. In…

Another 100 Colorado Creatives: Rian Kerrane

#98: Rian Kerrane Galway girl Rian Kerrane came to Colorado in 2002 to teach sculpture at the University of Colorado Denver, but her installations in mixed media and cast iron have an international reach, from the galleries of RedLine and Edge to others in her home country of Ireland. Perfectly…

Poet Yosimar Reyes on the power of personal narratives

Your story matters, says poet Yosimar Reyes, who denies the dominant narrative of United States citizenship, that “real Americans” are blue-eyed, blond-haired, white, upper-middle class men fully assimilated into the American Dream. This isn’t historical; this isn’t reality, he says:This is a nation founded on immigrants. Living in the United…