In retaliation to, or complement of — depending on your view — the Dallas Art Fair, we get a few offshoot events that are decidedly Ours. The Fallas Dart Air 2013 Low and Slow is that kind of affair. Pawing haphazardly at the conventional niceness of the Champagne-soaked shopping bender…
Taking further the argument against creation’s flipped ignition switch is the Saturday night show at Oliver Francis Gallery (209 S. Peak St.), TINAY/IDNCTBH (SRTAMHMWF), or THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU/I DID NOT CHOOSE TO BE HERE (Schopenhauer recalls the abrupt moment his mother was fertilized). The gallery has culled submissions…
When it debuted a hundred years ago, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring caused a riot. It’s one of the most intriguingly bizarre stories in the history of classical music, one dissected on an episode of Radio Lab a few years back. Its assessment was that the public wasn’t ready for it,…
Converting a descriptively punctuated work of Henry James into an opera isn’t an easy task. But the Dallas Opera likes a challenge, and so it commissioned Dominick Argento’s Aspern Papers and presented them at the Fair Park Music Hall back in 1988. The overall reaction was: Great opera, so long…
Last week we welcomed National Geographic Explorer’s Boyd Matson to the Dallas Arboretum. This week, the Nat Geo hits keep on coming at the AT&T Performing Arts Center (2403 Flora St.) with Tim Laman and Ed Scholes. Laman, a wildlife photographer, and Scholes, an ornithologist at Cornell University, will tell…
On stage at SMU’s Bob Hope Theater, a young woman is isolated in a tiny, rolling greenhouse. The smallest of its stagemates, this transparent prop is only a few feet tall — too short to allow her any comfort. So she writhes, pressing her arms, chest and neck into the…
At the end of a 2012 interview with Maxwell Anderson, the Dallas Museum of Art’s Eugene McDermott Director, I asked him what he’d do for employment if he weren’t shaking up the museum world. He took a very short pause. Then, in an affectionate tone, he said he’d apply for,…
Sorry Schutze, and happy Tuesday to Alice and everyone else. Our favorite freaky-faced guardian of on-tap root beer, Big Tex, is under the knife. And according to this just released video from the State Fair, his face will stay creepy and long-nosed. Sigh, that’s the Tex we know and love…
When I was young, my father took a bite of every great meal I received. He called it “taking tax,” and declared it payback for keeping us alive. Pappa Bear Rawlings agrees, and has branded April 7 to 14 as Dallas Arts Week, or as press materials stress, #DallasArtsWeek. The…
One afternoon a year, Dallas hands over the keys to the Cotton Bowl, permitting the space to transform into a massive dog park. At Dog Bowl, every canine want is met: there are kiddie pools for soaking, vendors handing out healthy treats, and hundreds of wagging tails, all waiting to…
“Leaving the safety of Dallas allowed us both to really go for it,” says artist and dancer Danielle Georgiou. She’s referring to Pizzicato Porno, a mutlitsensory piece that she and her boyfriend, Ochre House’s Justin Locklear, recently assembled and presented at the Rogue Performance Festival in Fresno. Dallas gets one…
In mid-90s America, radio waves were clogged with impassioned blockages — most of which wouldn’t hold with time. Meanwhile, a 2,000 mile fence was being built to further separate America from an increasingly tumultuous Mexico, causing a historically unprecedented number of deaths via border crossing. Somebody, turn up the Gin…
If you’ve seen the new issue of the Dallas Observer, you already know that we’ve contracted DIFF Fever. Now, we want to help you catch it. We’re giving away two sets of super fancy passes this afternoon and winning them is easy. Just drop a caption for this picture into…
DIFF begins this weekend (see our guide here), and it takes over Klyde Warren Park on Saturday for Family Day, a too-cute community event and baseball season kick-off pairing that features a free screening of The Sandlot. Whether you’re hungry, excited about Rangers Opening Day, feeling adventurous, or craving art,…
Hemming together Dallas’ radical fringe is a Deep Ellum legacy. It takes balls for a community to create and perform on its own terms, just a DART stop away from the meticulously structured, high falutin’ Arts District. And still, it does. We’re all better humans because of that. Honoring the…
Taking our dogs to new, unfamiliar places and allowing them to go berserk is the secret passion of all dog owners. Occasionally, that backfires. It turns out that dogs do not love: art galleries, bowling or Rollerbladers. Just trust us on this. Their leg-shake dreams involve lots and lots of…
A duet of dysfunction. Love drowning beneath its own surface tension. Physical interaction replacing trust and communication. It’s the new, abstract and hyper-racy performance piece Pizzicato Porno, written and told by real-life couple Danielle Georgiou and Justin Locklear. As you might guess by the name, Porno isn’t for younger eyes…
As arts budgets reduce and grant money evaporates, we feel the absence of creative exposure. That buck then gets passed to families, who in turn have to fund cultural experiences out-of-pocket. This Saturday you’ll get some relief as ArtsPark returns to provide a whole afternoon’s worth of completely free and…
Gallery openings in Dallas can cause palpitations. With each space offering up a new collection, you’re forced to whittle down your path to several must-see shows. Saturday is that night, and we’ve picked through the lot and found three openings that you should visit during the magical free wine window…
Because you weren’t daunted enough, DIFF has added a few more selections to this year’s line-up. (Pro tip: Look for our survival guides, must-see recommends and a Matthew McConaughey paper doll in the next issue of the Observer, which is a film festival sponsor.) You’ve got eight new feature add-ons…
When kept up for a solid 24 hours, weird things happen. Soon, you’re constructing oversized balls out of tin foil and helmets out of salted, pliable meats. Or at least that was Team Observer’s experience when we competed in the Video Association of Dallas’ 24 Hour Video Race. Past years…
She knows the hide-a-key location at the Bush’s Kennebunkport compound. She served as the 66th U.S. Secretary of State and escaped with enough energy to teach at Stanford. She could even reveal which animal species Dick Cheney’s newest heart was harvested from — but she won’t. She’s Condoleezza Rice, secret-keeper…
