On Saturday, Westword celebrated its ninth class of MasterMinds — artistic adventurers who are changing the landscape of Denver. Here’s a look at our first winner: Self-proclaimed “farmer/midwife/DJ/producer/emcee/touring musician” Ietef Vita was born Michael Walker in Five Points in 1986, part of a family of artists and activists with “a…
Westword’s eighteenth Artopia celebration packed art, food, music and live performances into Vinyl, City Hall, Bar Standard, The Living Room and The Salty Dog on Saturday night. Photographer Aaron Thackeray brought back these scenes from the annual event. Continue reading for a few highlights, and visit our full slide show…
Update: The location of Roy’s upcoming set has been corrected below. If you know Denver comedy, you surely know Chuck Roy. The former anchor of the satirical newscast The Crop Report — an Onion News Network-style series of short sketches on marijuana, Roy is one of the most established names…
Westword’s annual Artopia event is a living, fire-breathing teenager. On Saturday, the SoCo celebration of Denver arts and culture rang in its eighteenth year with dozens of acts and artists at Vinyl, City Hall, Bar Standard, The Living Room and The Salty Dog, and we captured it all in a…
Black History Month wouldn’t be complete without an installment of donnie l. betts’s Black Radio Days, the live radio show that picks up where the first nationwide African-American radio drama, produced in Chicago by Richard Durham more than sixty years ago, left off. That boundary-breaking program, Destination Freedom, dramatized the…
With the 85th Annual Academy Awards going down this Sunday, February 24, you can certainly stay home and catch the Hollywood action from your couch and wallow in Joan Rivers’ bitter, pre-show fashion commentary. But while watching the Oscars with Joan and your cat may be fun, discussing the best…
Now in its 18th year, Artopia is a signature event showcasing a wide array of Denver’s music, art, performance, food and more. At several venues along Broadway this Saturday, February 23, from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m., dozens of the city’s cultural components will come together as they share their…
A recent study in Psychology Today mapped the most common locations of Craigslist Missed Connections by state — and Colorado’s isn’t glamorous. In the Centenntial State, the most likely place to fail romantically (and later document it publicly) is the gas station. Considering the amount of active outdoor adults here,…
A longtime Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitor, Shama Ko loved her sport, but she saw too much division and exclusion when it came to gender. After discovering Girls In Gis, however, a training and support community for women and girls practicing Jiu Jitsu, a whole new world opened up to the…
As a poet, Hoa Nguyen writes concise, lyrical poetry that mimics the quality of music, reflecting on grand themes of planetary grief and experiencing the numinous. Her other pursuit, as a reader of tarot cards, deals in many of the same archetypes and patterns. Nguyen will be in town Saturday…
Winter is finally here (for the moment, anyway), but there’s still plenty to do inside (and outside) in the Mile High City. From proms to late-night full moon-watching to adult skateboarding parties and more, we’ve rounded up the ten best events for this last weekend in February. And as a…
Martin Short means different things to different people. Elitist comedy nerds can discuss the merits of Short’s SCTV Ed Grimley versus the Saturday Night Live version, while suburban Rom Com fans recognize the name from blockbuster sweet-tarts like Father of the Bride. And you can always count on beer-pong bros…
Regis University’s Concert for a Cause series is dishing up a whopper tonight, all in the name of the Eating Disorder Foundation, which will benefit from performances by more than twenty acts, including professionals and students alike. Organized by student Zoe Vlastos, a psychology major who turns about to be…
The Denver Roller Dolls roller derby league expanded this week with the addition of a new local squad, bringing the home team total to five: the Orange Crushers will be joining DRD’s Bad Apples, Green Barrettes, Shotgun Betties, and Electrocuties (the 2012 DRD Home Team champions) for the 2013 season…
#89: Kym Bloom Working with resin, photography, digital mediums and candy, Kym Bloom’s work is a striking and unique take on pop art. A member of Zip 37 and co-owner of Kanon Collective, Bloom is also an integral to the creative community as both an artist and a supporter of…
Fuck Fox. Not for FoxNews or American Idol or any of the other questionable shit the network has thrown out there in the name of entertainment over the years. People like what people like, however inexplicable that may be, so I couldn’t care less about any of that. No, Fox…
Ben Roy, the subject of this week’s cover story, has worked hard to establish himself as a unique voice in the growing Denver comedy scene. We recently spoke with several local comics who have a relationship with Roy both on and off the stage, some of whom were there at…
Reading theater reviews in the New York Times, you often find yourself suffering intense pangs of envy for those friends living there. You’ll never see this fiercely confrontational drama or that hilarious but profound comedy, you think wistfully. Everything exciting is going on miles and miles away. But year after…
When River Phoenix died, in October 1993, he was three weeks from completing his performance in Dark Blood, an $8 million indie film that had already seen five weeks of shooting on location in southern Utah. In this lurid modern film noir, Phoenix was cast as “Boy,” a mysterious part-Hopi…
Some rock docs work because they document an important part of musical history. Some work because they tell a compelling, unique story. And some work just because their subjects are so completely and totally unhinged that you can’t look away. When all three come together, as they do in the…
Most people who got called “nerd” in high school probably didn’t get a lot out of their prom experience, but Bop Skizzum’s second annual Nerd Prom offers a chance for sweet redemption. Nerds can don their best garb — whether it’s that slick jacket with the Dungeons & Dragons patches…
The Denver Art Museum’s Untitled series is always an adventure in art appreciation, with its imaginative slates of hands-on cultural activities, demonstrations, entertainment and downright silliness. But until now, we don’t think it’s ever been dominated by a people-generated American Idol vibe. That’s about to change when Untitled #54: Turf…
