Best Established Female MC to Inspire Aspiring Female MCs 2012 | Bianca Mikahn | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Established Female MC to Inspire Aspiring Female MCs

Bianca Mikahn

In a town full of boys with ruffian rhymes, Bianca Mikahn has made a name for herself as a breakout MC. An award-winning poet on her own, Mikahn first attracted attention as a member of the live hip-hop act Paradox and has continued to progress with the release of Left Fist Evolution, her debut solo album. A lecturer and teacher of hip-hop, Mikahn empowers girls to stand tall with their lyrics amid other traditional roles. Poet and straight rhyme slayer, she has held her own on the same stage as the city's most vibrant rappers and left more than a few in her dust.

Best Fiber Show

Regina Benson: On Fire

Regina Benson, who lives in the foothills above Golden, was among those evacuated in the face of an approaching wildfire last summer, and seeing the bright oranges glowing in the darkness of night inspired a new body of work. The centerpiece of Regina Benson: On Fire was "Passage," a curving pair of walls hung from the ceiling, made from cloth that has been dyed in the orange-to-black range of the natural tones associated with fire. Using an elaborate method she invented, Benson discharged the dyes over and over until she achieved her desired effects on the ready-made synthetic cloth panels, the edges of which had been burned to seal them. Walking through "Passage" was meant to convey to the viewer what it must be like to be in the middle of a fire — and even if the experience could only approximate that horror, it was nonetheless compelling and visually rich.

Best Film Advocate

Keith Garcia

From cult classics to box-office blowouts, Keith Garcia makes sure that every film — even a dog — has its day. The program director at the Denver FilmCenter, he does exhaustive research, and he's willing to take a chance by booking movies that are unlikely to attract mainstream audiences. Garcia has put both the queer-advocate music documentary Who Took The Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour and the not-so-classic 1968 Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton flick Boom! on the big screen, as well as Mean Girls, Nightmare on Elm Street and more. And he curates his weekend late-night series, The Watching Hour, with incredible care, giving obscure, campy, serious, big-budget and art-house films equal play while pairing them with parties, special events, costume contests and other audience-participatory fun.

Best Film Festival

Mid-Winter Punk Film Festival

While other punk film festivals feature such predictable fare as The Filth and the Fury and The Clash: Westway to the World, capitalizing on the bands and the stories everyone has already heard, Mid-Winter Punk Film Festival organizers Sarah Slater and Molly Zackary embraced the true DIY nature of punk rock and gave us something completely unexpected yet ultimately delightful. Offering films like Downtown 81, Kill All Redneck Pricks and Born Into Flames, this series presented gems that had slipped through the cracks of history, only to be located by two true believers willing to forgo a commercial audience in favor of attracting those truly interested in discovering something new. Oh, and it all went down at the best little record distro in the city, Growler.

Readers' Choice: Boulder International Film Festival

Best Followup to Marvelous Mud

Katie Caron and Martha Russo; Jerry Morris

One of the star turns in the Overthrown portion of Marvelous Mud was the outrageous installation "Apoptosis," which was later reconfigured and deconstructed for Oxytocin: Katie Caron and Martha Russo at Ice Cube. Using ceramic blobs that were internally lighted and connected by wires, Katie Caron and Martha Russo made forms out of clusters of smaller shapes; the tangle of wires linked these different clustered forms together. The piece was meant to refer to the nurturing hormone oxytocin, which is associated with childbirth. This multi-part work played off Pendent Tendencies: Jerry Morris, a two-part ceramic installation by Morris, an art newcomer who created suspension pieces that defined environments — one about politics, the other religion. These displays were a fitting postscript to the "ceramaganza" displayed earlier at the Denver Art Museum.

Best Free Entertainment

Aurora History Museum

The Aurora History Museum is puny compared to the gleaming History Colorado, set to open in Denver this spring. But what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in honesty — and accessibility. Not only is the museum free to visit, it's also very free with the facts. Its exhibit about the city's founding, for example, is accompanied by explanatory plaques that reveal how cows would block traffic on "the dirt track that was Colfax" in Aurora's early days, and why an early-1900s town marshal assigned his pet parrot the job of protecting Aurora's only buckeye tree from "marauding children." The best plaque, however, could be the one that describes former Mayor Dennis Champine: "Rising from humble roots to become a successful businessman in Aurora, his term was marred by a minor criminal record, an investigation into nepotism and inappropriate behavior. In 1979, he punched the City Attorney in the face." Now, that's an honest plaque — if not an honest way to govern.

Readers' Choice: City Park Jazz

Best Gallery in a Garage

Super Ordinary Gallery

The trend in central Denver galleries, especially in RiNo, is to tout exhibit spaces as extensions of someone's home, as found at places like Hinterland and Pattern Shop Studio. But when Tran and Josh Wills rolled up the garage door on Super Ordinary last year, they inaugurated a new underground house-gallery: In the same space where their kids like to skateboard between exhibits, the Willses have launched a unique showcase for emerging and urban artists where every opening is an event and everything from cupcakes and beer to independent local fashions are rolled out along with the art. We like their homey hospitality and the DIY ambience, which fits right into the genre-jumping rhythms of RiNo.

Best Gallery Show — Group

Reclamation

Many artists are interested in environmental issues, and former Center for Visual Art director Jennifer Garner brought a bunch of them together for Reclamation, an exhibit dedicated to art made from trash. Though a group show, Reclamation zeroed in on California artist Ann Weber, who weaves cardboard strips to make big abstract sculptures that have a monumental presence despite their modest materials. To supplement the Webers, Garner invited five Colorado artists — Brian Cavanaugh, Yumi Janairo Roth, Jon Rietfors, Terry Maker and Sabin Aell — who all work along similar lines, at least conceptually. The show provided striking proof that one person's trash really is someone else's treasure.

Readers' Choice: Ice Cube Gallery at Ice Cube Gallery

Best Gallery Show — Solo

Myron Melnick

It was an off-the-wall choice on the part of Singer Gallery curator Simon Zalkind to mount an important show dedicated to an artist who quit doing work years ago. But Myron Melnick: Taking Shape: Works with Paper turned out to be a fabulous exhibit. Zalkind sampled both wall sculptures and monotypes by Melnick that showed off his two very different gifts: a sense for form in the sculptures, and an expertise in color in the prints. In addition, Melnick's elegant abstracts refer to a range of earlier art, everything from tribal pieces to works by the modern masters. The Singer, part of the Mizel Arts and Culture Center at the Jewish Community Center, has had a much-reduced schedule of late, with only a few shows a year, but with exhibits like this one, Zalkind is holding up his end as best as he can.

Readers' Choice: Clyfford Still at Clyfford Still Museum

Best Glass Act

Illegal Pete's

There are few more pleasant ways to give back to the community than drinking while doing so — which makes Illegal Pete's latest charity venture both sweet and savvy. The restaurant chain recently launched a series of collectible beer glasses dedicated to noteworthy (and Illegal Pete's-friendly) bands on the Denver scene, with local dance-punk outfit the Photo Atlas the first on its roster. For just $10, music/beer lovers can purchase a band-designed glass filled with Colorado brew — and while they get to keep the beer and the glass, the money goes to the band. Since each edition has roughly 200 glasses, that means each act could collect up to $2,000 to cover equipment, recording costs and other fees. And bringing it full circle, Illegal Pete's is presenting live shows with each band during its commemorative glass's run, so that you can drink up the sound and the suds at the same time.

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