Shake it up: Spice things up for yourself and/or someone special with a few lap dance lessons in preparation for Valentine’s Day—or simply because you’re bored silly at home during a pandemic. Phoenix Dance Studio offers Playful Girl beginner classes to get things going, and for those more experienced with the bump ‘n’ grind, the […]
Big screen: One of the many gems of our arts community is the Virginia Film Festival’s year-round series Beyond the Screen: A Virtual Conversation Series, which offers more of what we love about VAFF’s programming: special access to film industry bigwigs who discuss their work. Writer-director John Lee Hancock and producer Mark Johnson log in […]
Nothing special Charlottesville’s fraught debates over how to address the city’s affordable housing crisis continue. At Monday night’s meeting, in a 3-2 vote, City Council denied a special use permit that would have allowed a modest number of new affordable units to be constructed in Belmont. The proposed apartment complex at 1000 Monticello Rd. would […]
By Sam Baars One of the best things about my cat is that he can’t read a newspaper. Nearly half a million people have contracted COVID-19, and the body count of this global health crisis continues to climb. The planet is warming at an alarming rate. And a certain white supremacist ex-president staged a literal […]
By Madison McNamee Ten years ago, Lesli DeVito created a unique birthday gift—an original painting of a friend’s dog. Things went from there, and now DeVito paints a dog a day. These aren’t traditional, stuffy pet portraits. DeVito, who is based in the area, has an eccentric style, blending bright colors to exemplify each pooch’s […]
By Lisa Provence Long before the pandemic further slashed advertising revenue, newspapers were in distress. Ad dollars are being sucked up by huge corporations like Google, which made $4.7 billion in digital advertising on news sites in 2018, almost as much as the $5.1 billion every single U.S. news outlet combined made that year. Add […]
Table manners: Agriculture in Virginia has a legacy of harm, particularly to Black and Indigenous farmers, and equitable access to nutritious, affordable, and sustainable food has been overlooked for a long time. UVA partners with Morven Farm for Food and Justice in Virginia, a discussion that addresses safety and equity in our current food systems. […]
Writer’s soujourn: Karan Casey has not let the pandemic quarantine keep her quiet. Since March 2020, the Celtic folk singer has been making videos and performing online, while continuing to promote her 2018 release Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale. The former member of Irish supergroup Solas brings her voice and experience to a special performance […]
Yes mA’am: Tiger moms, dragon moms, best friend moms—no matter the style of parenting, when mama is happy, everyone is happy. Playwright/actress Courtney Jett Walker takes on a variety of approaches to motherhood in The Mom Journals, weaving together the monologues of five women in an original livestreamed play that reveals unity at the heart […]
Ashon Crawley’s work as an artist begins with feeling. Growing up in a vibrant community of Blackpentecostalism, Crawley has a life perspective shaped by spirituality and rituals channeled through the body. He points to singing loudly, dancing, shouting, and speaking in tongues as influences in the way he expresses himself creatively, and these physical actions […]