Like pine beetles, Boulder artist Jill Powers does some of her best work in bark. Her mixed media fiber sculptures and installations draw on exotic natural materials, from seed pods to a tough inner bark called Kozo that happens to be “sustainably grown” — and that’s good news, since Powers’s…
It’s not often that a performer lands a star role, yet no one recognizes that performer’s face — or, more accurately, three faces. But that’s the case with Joey, the title character of War Horse, now playing at the Buell. Joey is a life-sized puppet created by the Handspring Puppet…
If you’ve noticed more Western wear on your neighbors and coworkers than usual, that can only mean one thing: The National Western Stock Show is in town. Westword photographer Brandon Marshall stopped by the Stock Show Parade yesterday to capture the people and animals of this annual downtown event –…
Sure, fighting is archaic and cruel and immature. But sometime in your life you may wind up in an unavoidable situation that turns physical. And if you’re like me and you have no idea how to execute that arm-motion activity the English language refers to as a “punch,” you’re probably…
The beach-party movie has fallen from its former pinnacle of popularity, but it still has its fans. Take writer/director Zach Clark, for instance. His latest film, Vacation!, resurrects the classic beach-party film formula, updates it for the 21st century and then twists it into weird places that Frankie and Annette…
Though this weekend is tinted all orange and blue, there’s plenty of action in Denver that’s not sports-related. (And, of course, plenty that is.) From a mustache party to free zoo days to art openings, here are ten things you can do for under $10. Find our complete listings of…
High school prom was magical for some and less than spectacular for others, but the wonderful women of LUPEC — Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails — want to give everyone a second (or third) chance at the defining teenage moment. This Saturday, January 12, the group is…
Brooklyn-based playwright Michael Mitnick is a young phenom in the theater world whose play-in-progress, Ed, Downloaded was featured as a reading as part of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s Colorado New Play Summit in 2012. A year later, the fully produced play — utilizing sophisticated, cutting-edge visuals to tell the…
The classic romantic images of cowboys, tumbleweeds and sunsets will always be attached to the idea of the American West. But the art coming out of this side of the country encompasses so much more, as can be seen in the exhibition Rethinking Western at Gallery 1261, which opens tomorrow…
Whether she’s posting hilarious observations on Twitter, accepting calls from random strangers on her podcast, or performing her delightfully judgmental standup, comedian Chelsea Peretti does it all with sharp wit and magnetic observational humor. Peretti, also a former writer for the Emmy-nominated Parks and Recreation, will be in town starting…
Editor’s note: Mustaches are derigeur on uncles, cops and closing pitchers, but they’ve also become a fixture on the upper lips of the young and the hip. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a time since the Civil War when razors were so ignored. But the look can be polarizing,…
Editor’s note: Mustaches are de rigueur on uncles, cops and closing pitchers, but they’ve also become a fixture on the upper lips of the young and the hip. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a time since the Civil War when razors were so ignored. But the look can be…
Every year, Breckenridge pays fun tribute to Ullr, the Norse god of snow, with a week of celebration throughout the area. This year’s fiftieth annual Ullr Fest lasts January 6-12, 2012 — and we’ve got photos of the Ullympics and the crowning of this year’s Ullr Fest king and queen…
The Denver Center Theatre Company has long been a pioneer in the creative use of multi-media, and four years ago artistic director Kent Thompson commissioned a work from playwright Michael Mitnick. The intention was to have multi-media considered from the earliest conceptual stages rather than being “layered into a script…
Ed Baierlein, the founder of Germinal Stage Denver, has sold the building the theater moved into back in 1986. Juliet Wittman took a look back at Germinal’s impact on Denver performers, and Denver itself, in a story posted here yesterday that included an interview with Baierlein himself. “I don’t know…
On the cutting edge of the dance world, it’s not just about movement anymore, although the physical voyage through space is still an integral part. In Dance the Orange, a new performance created by Monica Dionysiou and Marc Devine of the the Umbrella Collective, the movement is suspended in a…
Contemporary painter Sharon Feder, a longtime resident at Ironton Studios and Gallery, is the subject of a good-looking solo there called Topologies, which represents both a continuation of her interest in urban archaeology and a change in direction. The subject matter — rundown warehouses — links her work to that…
Becoming van Gogh. Timothy Standring, the Denver Art Museum’s curator of painting and sculpture, is the brains behind the very compelling, very interesting and, most of all, very successful Becoming van Gogh, on display now. When we think of van Gogh, we are actually only thinking of the work of…
Although they almost certainly have plans for striking new projects that expand our understanding of what documentaries can be, Bill and Turner Ross — the co-directors, -producers, -camera operators and -troublemakers behind Tchoupitoulas — could do posterity a service if they simply resigned themselves to replicating this one-night-in-New Orleans documentary…
Just so you know, it’s going to take a while,” says the CIA officer to his newly arrived colleague at the start of Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. The year is 2003, the place a secret prison (or “black site”) somewhere in the deserts of the Middle East or Asia,…
What I like about Jack Holmes’s one-man play RFK: A Portrait of Robert Kennedy is that although it is in some ways hagiographic, it also humanizes its subject, showing his vulnerabilities and flaws. The Kennedys are generally seen through a haze of nostalgia: Jack as the charismatic leader who presided…
The National Western Stock Show has not been rustled away from Denver, and that alone is reason for Mayor Michael Hancock to be the grand marshal at the annual Stock Show Parade, which will stampede through downtown at lunchtime today. “Working with Mayor Hancock and his staff over the past…
