All dressed up and everywhere to go: Now that the Denver Botanic Gardens has unveiled its beautifully reimagined Japanese garden and mounted Kizuna, a summer blockbuster of massive, graceful bamboo installations placed throughout the grounds, it’s ready to celebrate. Tanabata Day, also known as the “star festival,” is a lovely…
Denver’s Running of the Bulls is both everything and nothing like its Pamplona namesake. To picture it, take Spain’s decades-old encierro, subtract the traditional heritage, reimagine it as a two-year-old fundraiser, and replace the bulls with horn-helmeted Rocky Mountain Roller Girls wielding pool noodles and waffle-ball bats. Then run before…
The latest ploy to get people to enjoy opera? Booze. As the local group Opera on Tap has shown, opera can sound better in a bar — especially if you’re young, drinking beer, and not overwhelmed by an auditorium filled with bejeweled folks in suits and gowns. And not only…
Two decades ago, Coloradans and Texans exercised their interstate animosity by throwing tomatoes at each other during the Colorado Texas Tomato War in Twin Lakes. Now an epic tomato fight has returned to the state, but with a completely different flavor. Tomato Battle founders Max Kraner and Clint Nelson combined…
When the Denver Art Museum opens its doors today for Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective, it won’t just be the fashionista crowd clamoring to get in, and there’s a reason for that: An astonishing collection of 200 fully accessorized haute couture garments (including forty classic YSL tuxedos for women) documenting…
Grab a Nalgene bottle, lace up your hiking boots, and get to the inaugural Trek to Table, a nine-mile hike on Arrowhead and Beaver Creek mountains led by hiking guides from the Beaver Creek Hiking Center. Today’s event is a fundraiser for the Vail Valley Foundation, and organizers want to…
“Colorado has a huge, mindful community of people engaged in yoga, organics, environmentalism and ethical consumerism who also love music and having a good time,” says Jeff Krasno, co-founder of the Wanderlust festival. The yoga-centric festival has grown into a four-stop summer tour, with events in Vermont, California and British…
There’s no fine-art showcase in Colorado more prestigious than this weekend’s 22nd annual Cherry Creek Arts Festival. And even though excelling as an artist there one year precludes you from coming back the following — 2011’s twelve award winners and poster artist were not allowed to participate in 2012, for…
Let’s face it: When most people think of lizards and snakes, they think of scales, slithering and potential poison. “A lot of people are creeped out by lizards and snakes,” says Brian Hostetler, educator for Lizards & Snakes, a new exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. “But…
In Colorado, the Rocky Mountains are notorious for attracting slightly crazy wilderness enthusiasts — especially along the ridge lines of its highest (and most treacherous) mountains, the Fourteeners. Last summer, physician Jon Kedrowski and meteorologist Chris Tomer took on those peaks with an approach that no one had attempted before:…
A slaughterhouse, long closed and abandoned, is remodeled into a trendy condo development. Problem is, the fear and death that marked its former incarnation lingers, and the new residents are in for something darker than your typical overbearing HOA. To top it off, the only person who knows what’s happening…
Want to know more about the science behind your favorite science-fiction films? Check out the Denver Film Society’s Sci-Fi Film Series. This program, produced in partnership with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, pairs speculative films with real-life scientists who explain what’s real and what’s not. “This is a…
In The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, the latest film by brothers Mark and Jay Duplass, two adult siblings go head-to-head to determine the winner of a long-lost childhood competition. But this isn’t just the revival of an old rivalry: Fictional brethren Jeremy (played by Mark Kelly) and Mark (Steve Zissis) use the backdrop…
Jenny Morgan: Kith and Kin, at Plus Gallery, will focus first and foremost on the painter’s work, but also on her longstanding relationship with Plus. Morgan happens to have been the very first intern at the then-fledgling space in 2003; since then, her relationship with gallery owner Ivar Zeile has…
The work of Miami-based Cuban-American art duo Guerra de la Paz (which translates to “war of peace”) first caught the eye of Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design gallery director Cortney Stell at Art Basel Miami Beach — so much so that she was driven to make a cold…
Private fireworks are banned in Colorado and many municipalities across the state have cancelled their fireworks displays this year — but the shows will go on in a few spots…
There are more medical marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks locations in town — and any number of publications that focus on the state’s booming MMJ business. The Auraria Library has an archive of these publications, as well as more historic materials dealing with cannabis…
The Clyfford Still Museum and Swallow Hill Music Association are teaming up to bring art enthusiasts and music lovers two free lawn concerts this summer, starting this Friday, July 6. FaceMan and Rubedo will provide the entertainment at the inaugural event…
Are we the only country in the world that dresses up like the country’s own flag to celebrate independence? It seems strange that we would honor the U.S.A. by draping ourselves with trashy, mocking versions of our own global visual representation — but that’s what we do. And while I…
In over 35 years of flying, pilot Buck Roetman had never put so much as a scratch on a plane — until recently. While flying at an air-show preview in Idaho a few weeks ago, Roetman’s plane suffered a system failure and crashed, wrecking the aircraft but leaving the pilot…
The Aspen Art Museum will unveil its “Levitating Mass” float, featuring the work of Los Angeles-based guest artist Mungo Thomson, in Aspen’s Fourth of July parade tomorrow. Thomson’s “Levitating Mass” is a playful take on artist Michael Heizer’s “Levitated Mass” installation, a 340-ton granite megalith at the Los Angeles County…
The tiny town of Glendale has been doing a bang-up job of celebrating July 4th for years — though its festivities never a actually fell on Independence Day, since that would have competed with other municipalities that shot off their own spectaculars on the holiday proper. And a few years…
