An Incredible Journey

FRI, 9/23 The IMAX feature Mystic India: An Incredible Journey of Inspiration might not be as steamy as HBO’s new series, Rome — it’s a family flick, after all — but its visual pageantry, shown four stories high, can’t be beat. The film, opening today at the Phipps IMAX Theater…

Time Capsule

FRI, 9/16 “Pod is dead. Long live Pod.” That’s Lauri Lynnxe Murphy’s weary-yet-relieved refrain as she closes the book on Pod, the quirky artist-run and artist-supporting retail adventure she and a partner oversaw for two years in a Santa Fe Drive storefront. Pod and the partner are gone (though Murphy…

Talking Shop

THURS, 9/15 Fancy-ass limited-edition sneakers are oh, so in. You’ve got your retro snakeskin PF Flyers, your handmade ostrich slip-ons from Creative Recreation, your New Balance Classics and the Asics Onitsuka Tigers, a trendy retread of the legendary Japanese sneaks that first sported their trademark stripes back in, well, practically…

Listen Up

SUN, 9/11 Since its inception five years ago, Stories on Stage has been a noble experiment, blending the best of literature and theater into a series of transcendent moments, bringing words to life through a host of fine actors. And the series has stuck to its original community-building vision: Not…

Screening Room

TUES, 9/6 The metro area’s new Documentary Cinema Institute is still a young venture, but founder Carol Beeby’s hopes are high. She envisions the organization as a lifeline to local documentary filmmakers, eventually encompassing a study center complete with a film library, screening room and low-cost editing facility. For now,…

Bayer Assets

TUES, 9/6 The notion of the total artist — one who juggles many media and genres with ease — defines the career of Bauhaus master Herbert Bayer, who danced between graphic and fine art, architecture and sculpture. He created diverse works, ranging from stylish Aspen ski posters touting his adopted…

Defying Gravity

FRI, 8/26 The idea for AIResTANGO materialized over a cup of morning coffee three or so years ago, says Boulder aerial dancer Cathy Gauch. While she and her friend, tango whiz Deb Sclar, sipped and discussed their creative lives, the notion of mixing their respective genres suddenly seemed obvious to…

Talking Shop

SAT, 8/27 Everyone’s a dreamer at the non-profit Microbusiness Development Corporation in Five Points. People come with hopes of opening their own business, whether the service is bike repair or steel-drum lessons. They cook Laotian dishes and concoct and bottle kick-butt barbecue sauces. They are artists, candle makers, writers, seamstresses,…

Kitchen Politics

FRI, 8/19 You can get everything you want except “Alice’s Restaurant.” That’s been songsmith Arlo Guthrie’s refrain for the past ten years or so. For one thing, the silver-haired folkie royal felt the autobiographical, anti-war, marathon story-song that was his signature for decades was simply too long to remember or…

Remote Control

FRI, 8/19 When I was growing up, pretty much every kid I knew received a brand-new remote-control car for Christmas. This was not because of some vast improvement in remote-control-car technology, but because by the end of the year, our old cars were so devastated through use that they were…

Tasting Menu

MON, 8/22 Every year the Colorado Theatre Guild holds a fundraising gala, but this year’s offering, Theatre Night In, is a little different. To begin with, the guild intends to use the proceeds not for administrative purposes — the organization helps theater artists network and promotes the art form’s visibility…

Inside Outsiders

WED, 8/17 In 1947, the first Edinburgh International Festival — a post-war attempt to reunite Europe through art — was crashed by eight uninvited theater groups. They played ’round the fringes of the Scotland town, drawing crowds to their makeshift storefront and rooftop stages. Before long, their spontaneous act of…

Trained Eyes

FRI, 8/5 “You don’t need twenty thousand dollars to start an art collection with one piece,” says Charmain Schuh of Boulder’s Dairy Center for the Arts. “If you can’t afford the original paintings, like with Warhol, you can always have them in your collection through the print media. Printmaking is…

Off the Wall

Some think it’s ironic that young practitioners of graffiti — a stealth art form that’s as stylized as it is free-spirited — often end up working as commercial illustrators. One of the genre’s biggest names, Shepard Fairey, proudly sticks up posters by night dissing the very capitalists for whom he…

Spirit Quest

SAT, 7/23 Jazz percussionist and spiritual traveler Jimmy Hopps — aka Jimmi EsSpirit, the Spirit Man — has a mile-long musician’s resume and the chops to back it up: A boyhood friend of Motown’s Marvin Gaye and young piano prodigy who switched to drums later on, he boasts such career…

Dream Boost

THURS, 7/21 The urban landscape is inundated with hard-strapped creative kids whose dreams might just be a little harder to reach were it not for ArtLab, a branch of Denver’s Arts Street economic-development program that offers paid training opportunities to at-risk youth artists at the collaborating PlatteForum Gallery. It seems…

Come Together

SAT, 7/16 Responding to the death of John Lennon, punk sage Tesco Vee of the Meatmen sang his unabashed ode to the Beatles, “One Down, Three to Go.” By way of worship, the world has also seen such Fab Four interpretations as William Shatner’s “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,”…

He’s Back!

FRI, 7/15 Tonight at the stroke of midnight, the wait will be over. Two years of agony and despair will end as millions of wannabe wizards and witches speed-read to find out the answer to the burning question: Who is the Half-Blood Prince? Local booksellers are keeping the anticipation level…

Mum’s the word

FRI, 7/8 Two years ago, Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver boss Cydney Payton carried the Colorado art world on her shoulders when she single-handedly curated MCA’s biennial exhibition. This year, the curator is renowned London-based writer/artist/gallery owner Kenny Schachter, who drew talent from a range of Western states, not just Colorado…

Canine Pride

SAT, 6/25 How exactly do you outfit a dog in drag? Do you dress him up like a cat? Do you put Fifi in a muscle tee, squeeze Buster the boxer into a tutu? Anything goes, say organizers of the Dogs in Drag competition at this year’s PrideFest. So feel…

How Much Is That Kitty in the Window?

SAT, 6/25 Ever dreamed of bumping into a porn star and buying her (or him) a drink? Well, tonight’s your chance, at the Pleasure’s Second Annual Adult Film Star Ball, being held at La Bohme Gentleman’s Cabaret, 1443 Stout Street. “I think it’s going to be a crazy, crazy night,”…

Where the Sidewalk Ends

SAT, 6/18 For most kids, summer isn’t over until their bucket of sidewalk chalk is reduced to unusable nubs. You might think you’ve outgrown the pleasure of creating powdery masterpieces on cement, but the third annual KeyBank La Piazza dell’Arte on Larimer Square will prove you wrong. “It’s all about…