Ah, crush. Such a hard-working word, constantly doing double time conjuring up dreams of young love AND bringing to mind acts of gnarly violence, its meaning helplessly relying on that little possessive, or lack thereof. The Crush in Tim Best’s latest series of work happens to be the latter kind,…
Ann Williams has been getting her way for a long time. She was the first African-American to graduate with her MFA in dance from Texas Woman’s Univeristy; she started the city’s first resident dance company focused on creating opportunities for minorities; she spent 37 years teaching, producing and advocating for…
“It’s always been my dad’s dream to do something with the theater,” Katy McBride Reynolds says of her father, Glen McBride, part owner of Denton Fine Arts Theater. “I mean, obviously, he’s held onto it for this long. We’ve had offers from companies, individuals over the years that want to…
The Texas Pinball Festival’s attempt to take the Guinness world record for the most people playing pinball at the same time was not easy to pull off . Sure, it’s just a group of 200-plus guys and gals standing around new and vintage pinball machines playing as though they were…
Today is like Easter for would-be runners. Sure, church happens every week, but your bed is never more comfortable than it is on Sunday mornings. Similarly, sweating in the Texas heat will never sound as good as meeting your friends for happy hour. But if you want to extend the…
Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Know an artistic mind who deserves a little bit of blog love? Email lauren.smart@dallasobserver.com with the whos and whys. Amanda Austin had the crazy idea to bring long-form improv comedy to Dallas at a time…
OK, Google Glass, show me how to play Liszt like André Watts. The staff at the AT&T Performing Arts Center snagged a pair of Google Glasses from their partners at the International Association of Venue Managers and tested them out yesterday with pianist André Watts during rehearsal for his Monday…
Music saved Lev Aronson’s life. He told his students this countless times. Recalling songs by memory not only allowed him to sustain hope while imprisoned in concentration camps, it also allowed him to keep track of time. One of his vivid memories was having to load and then unload a…
If you haven’t been to King Spa & Sauna, you’re missing out on one of the most unique cultural experiences in Dallas. Called jjimjilbangs in Korea, these sometimes gender-segregated, sometimes co-ed bath houses offer an opportunity to detoxify (whatever that means) in ornately decorated saunas, eat Korean food, have a…
When the weather gets hot and sticky, schools start to close, and we all mentally check out and start dreaming of beers and beaches and sleeping until noon. But dancers never stop. The beginning of June marks the end of many companies’ spring seasons and the start of professional training…
Can you imagine Dallas without creativity? What would this city be like without its artists, thinkers, poets, dreamers, creators? Let’s hope we never find out. These cultural entrepreneurs are making life in this city worth living, vivifying the scene with art, dance, music, events, and so much more. We thought…
Last year at Austin’s experimental theater festival, Fusebox, the Rude Mechs workshopped a little show about wealth, societal expectations, and greed. It was two parts Pygmalion, one part musical, a little bit tap show and a whole lot of theatrics. This troupe of theater provocateurs would go on to premiere…
Most classical music organizations are on summer hiatus now, which means concert offerings in Dallas this month are slimmer than usual. That being said, there are a handful of concerts coming up over the next few weeks that feature an interesting break from the norm and a chance to explore…
Your week has begun. Get cultured. Monday, June 2 Andre Watts André Watts’ big break came when he was just 16 years old. In 1963, Leonard Bernstein invited the tall, lanky teenager to make his professional debut with the New York Philharmonic. Almost overnight the young African-American/Hungarian pianist was a…
Matthew Mahon had his first sexual experience with a prostitute at the age of 14, an encounter that was paid for by a friend’s uncle. At the time, he couldn’t have imagined that his career would someday take him to seedy motel rooms, where he would spend hours working with…
In 2012, CBS canceled Rob Schneider’s self-titled sitcom ¡Rob!. Rather than wait for another network to give him a shot at his own show, he decided to give himself one instead. “We averaged 11 million viewers and the premiere had 13.5 million viewers and it wasn’t enough for them,” Schneider…
Friend. Brilliant choreographer. Tenacious. Humorous. A fighter. Stubborn. Advocate for dance. Committed. Collaborator. There are not words to adequately and appropriately describe the man who helped to usher in this new era of dance in Dallas. Bruce Wood was a tidal force in the city’s culture, a man born to…
The beautiful thing about living in a conservative city like Dallas is that being a freak is still a subversive act. Pure, unforced weirdness sticks out like a dog turd on a well-manicured golf course or — in the case of Thursday night’s John Waters show at the Kessler –…
Chances are that your high school prom was so full of sadness and regret that it still comes up in dreams brought on by alcoholic blackouts and crying therapy sessions that can drive up the stock price for Kleenex. The Dallas Comedy House offers a chance to replace that memory…
The Western genre isn’t entirely comprised of spaghetti or John Wayne talking out the side of his mouth: From its earliest days, filmmakers were putting a comic spin on stories set on the dusty trail, with the genre hitting its apex between the mid ’70s and mid ’80s. We’ve gathered…
Sure, it started late, but this week has felt like a never-ending hangover from the three-day weekend. Maybe I’m just getting too old for Memorial Day Jell-o shots. It’s been a slow slog to Friday, but it’s finally arriving. You’ve barely touched your work this week, why start now? Let’s…
Bruce Wood, founder of Bruce Wood Dance Project and perhaps one of the areas most esteemed choreographers and advocates for the Dallas dance scene, has died of complications from pneumonia and heart failure. He was 53. His death was extremely unexpected. I just saw Bruce a couple of weeks ago…
