The pinnacle of Colorado’s beer culture didn’t arrive in 1979 when the state’s first craft brewery opened in Boulder, nor in 1988 when the first brewpub began pouring pints in Denver. The moment actually came generations earlier in the late 19th century — a forgotten era when lagers like Walter’s Gold Label Triple Brew and […]
Arts
Posted inArts, Culture
From Tinkertoys to avocado greens: Denver Art Museum show presents play as a serious form of inspiration
You can almost hear vintage America breathing a sigh of relief — the midcentury modern design exhibition at the Denver Museum of Art celebrates a time of post-War optimism, rejuvenation and experimentation. Architects and designers led the country in a giant exhale, welcoming a bright (if sometimes avocado-green) future in everything from decor to advertising, […]
Posted inArts, Coloradans, Culture
“I think I want to do this forever. How does that work?” For dancers, it doesn’t.
At the end of her very first dance recital, 4-year-old Sarah Tallman burst into tears. “I have no idea why I cried, but at the end, I said, ‘I’m not doing that again.’” Still, the next year, she was back. Thirty-eight years later, Tallman is finally going to stop dancing. Those years – from a […]
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An intimate improv rendezvous with an actor? A new Denver interactive performance draws you out — if you let it
Depending how far into it you let yourself fall, the Denver Center’s Off-Center production “Between Us” can be quite disorienting. If you are curious, I suggest falling all the way. Buy a ticket, await a text from your “guide” or your “date” or your “bartender” telling you when and where in downtown Denver to meet. […]
Posted inArts, Business, Coloradans, Culture, Technology
Talk QWERTY to me: A vintage typewriter shop in Glenwood Springs gets analog hearts racing
Tucked away in a Glenwood Springs alley, in a little shop of anachronistic wonders, the quick brown fox still jumps over the lazy dog. Yes, that essential bygone-era typing exercise — the sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet — lives on inside Raymond’s Office Machines & Supplies. When the wooden door at Raymond’s […]
Posted inArts, Culture, Opinion, Opinion Columns
Howie Movshovitz: A remembrance of Brit Withey, artistic director of the Denver Film Society
Brit Withey died last week. He’d been artistic director of the Denver Film Society since 2008, and he’d worked with the group in various ways for 23 years. He was only 50, and his death is a loss — most of all to his friends and family of course, but to the cause of film […]
Posted inArts, Coloradans, Culture, Energy
“It’s succeeded beyond our expectations”: Adam Lerner, MCA Denver’s chief animator, is leaving at a high point
When he leaves his post as head of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver in June after an acclaimed 10-year run, Adam Lerner will not be involved in the search for his successor, will not accept any sort of emeritus role if offered, and hopes to be merely a donating patron. Won’t he at least […]
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A monumental question: Can Denver’s Beat Generation fans create a tribute to a movement and its inspiration?
Mark Bliesener wants to build a monument. The 69-year-old fixture in the local music scene wants it to recognize and celebrate two men who launched a literary and cultural movement that influenced untold young minds — including his own — and still reverberates. And he wants it to remind Denver visitors that of all the […]
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Tattoo artist Amanda Wachob marks people — and canvases — for the long haul
Some 150 paying customers showed up for the Museum of Contemporary Art’s conversation with tattoo artist Amanda Wachob and museum director Adam Lerner to accompany the show, “Tattoo This.” It was a cold night so few tattoos were in plain sight. But it was clear from their questions that the crowd of artists, art students […]
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The very old (and very new) works drawing more young viewers to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts
With persistent talk in theater circles about the need to attract younger, more diverse audiences, it is perhaps ironic that the first big play of Chris Coleman’s tenure as Denver Center Theatre Company artistic director is an adaptation of an 800-page 19th century Russian novel. How many millennials were turned off by the mere title: […]