One of the late 20th century’s most influential composers, Glass has collaborated with everyone from The Talking Heads to Leonard Cohen. His work has ushered contemporary opera and symphony into experimental territories. He’s even found pop-culture fame, thanks to a parody in a South Park holiday special. But when Philip…

We’re a tech hub, an arts destination and a city willing to experiment. Tonight those qualities merge and surface at Aurora: Lights of Convergence, the multi-sensory spectacle set to illuminate the Arts District in a few, quick hours. 87 talents have created new media installations for the event. Some you’ll…

Aurora lights up the Arts District on Friday and Nasher Xchange puts the city on display Saturday, but beginning Thursday night the above-shown collection of house cats perform circus tricks in Fort Worth. There really is something for everyone. There’s more. Lot’s more. Like TEDxSMU, our local thinker salon; an…

(Click and drag the map around to find each Xchange location and project.) Dallas still faces a few hurdles before it can achieve its culture-hub destiny. The biggest of those are public perception and readiness: Until we want to be a city that engages with art, we’ll continue courting an…

We live under the assumption that cats defy training. That they are instinctively ambivalent to our desires. But that ain’t true, and should I know, because I’ve seen the mother-effin’ Circus Cats. This traveling crew of renegade rescue felines not only performs tricks, but does them on stage in front…

Some people are simply more interesting than the rest. You can attempt to deny that, but will eventually reach acceptance during TEDxSMU, the locally licensed branch of the global idea exchange. It returns to the Wyly on Saturday with its 2013 edition, “And Then …” where it will delight a…

The Nasher Sculpture Center decided to tackle its 10-year anniversary in the biggest, rowdiest way imaginable: It’s holding a multi-million dollar public art project called Nasher Xchange and it opens Saturday. Ten artists, each with a solid background in taking art outside of museum walls, have been selected for the…

“The Ring has awoken, it’s heard its masters call.” — Gandalf Attention Free Peoples of Middle-earth: an epic auditory journey will occur at the Music Hall at Fair Park. Appointed to task by Dallas Summer Musicals, the Dallas POPS will courageously bear the burden of The Precious and present Howard…

We live under the assumption that cats defy training. That they are instinctively ambivalent to our desires. But that ain’t true, and should I know, because I’ve seen the mother effin’ Acro-Cats. This traveling crew of renegade rescue felines not only performs tricks, but does them on stage in front…

Yes, pole dancing evolved from strip clubs. I’ll pause while your inner 14 year-old laughs awkwardly. Go ahead. I’ll wait. [Whistling…] Last weekend national talents converged in Dallas at the Miss Texas Polestar competition. And no, these ladies (and gentleman) didn’t accept any dolla, dolla, bills. What they did do…

The big news is that it’s TX/OU weekend, so I’ve stuck a bunch of great football parties in this week’s list. (You’re welcome.) There’s more. A lot more. Like the 26-year-strong Dallas VideoFest, a vinyl toy party at ATAMA, a Bonnie and Clyde bicycle ride and a screening of the…

Few artists have proved as influential (and poorly mimicked) as Robert Rauschenberg. He was kind of a rock star, an anti-conformist and a man with the ability to simply create masterpieces over and over and over again. You often look at his work — the “Glass Tires” sculptures, his trace-ink…

For 26 years this festival has brought Dallas some of the most unexpected finds in contemporary video work and video art. You’ve got curator/organizer/big brain Bart Weiss to thank for that. He travels to conventions that you’ve never heard of to find the movies you need to see. This year’s…

The Internet cracked open the publishing world. Self-publishing, an effort that just 10 years ago felt like an author’s last resort, is now a treasured pathway for bringing exciting new, DIY talent to the forefront. This is, of course, a mixed blessing. With the rapid increase in books and shorts…

A secret art world has you surrounded. Those hand-lettered signs that color our city walls are created by typography addicts. You rarely consider the artists behind the things, though. Sure, you love the folksy lettering that jells perfectly with the message it pitches, or the punctuating swirl of a clearance…

He created the Nasher’s gorgeous housing. (Yes, the one currently getting melanoma from Museum Tower’s death ray.) He designed the Kimbell’s sexy new wing. He’s even been called a “starchitect” — a side effect from winning the acclaimed Pritzker Prize. And for the Nasher’s 10-year anniversary, super stud structure designer…

Home is your safe place. It’s where you hold intimate conversations with loved ones and display meaningful objects. That doesn’t make you shallow, just human. Not everyone has that. Many, like the Dallas families transitioning out of homelessness and poverty, barely have walls. Imagine the increased feeling of pride that…

Remember back when they called our generation lazy and unimaginative? Well, whatever awesome parent dressed their daughter as David Bowie from Labyrinth for Comic-Con Fan Days just proved all of them haters wrong! Over the weekend thousands piled into the Irving Convention Center for a little facetime with sci-fi, magical…