ARTS Pick: Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestling

Small bills and big attitudes are the welcome norm for Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestling competitions, where the “arm wrasslin’ and acting foolish” pairs up with a local charity for a raucous balance of competition, camp and community support. Proceeds from this match go to Brave Souls on Fire, which provides expression through spoken word gigs […]

ARTS Pick: Dina Maccabee, Janel Leppin and Juliana Daugherty

Improvisation on viola, atmospheric cello and lush acoustics fill a unique bill of songwriters: Touring veteran Dina Maccabee (violinist, violist and vocalist) loops depth, space and complexity into the songs from her new album, The World is in the Work. Cellist, vocalist and composer Janel Leppin applies extensive classical training to her diverse collaborations and […]

ARTS Pick: Lyle Lovett

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band is no small venture—the 13-piece group backs Lovett on everything from violin to guitar to trombone, swinging through jazz and pickin’ out country with a variety of crowd-pleasers. With 14 records and almost four decades of touring, the four-time Grammy winner continues to define his own musical niche. Wednesday, […]

Unite the Right rally turns violent, three die

A 32-year-old woman died following today’s long-anticipated white nationalist assembly in Emancipation Park, and two Virginia State Police pilots perished in a crash late in the afternoon near the Bellair neighborhood. The Unite the Right rally erupted in violence and was shut down before it ever began when city and county leaders declared a local […]

Unite the Right counter events, businesses closing/staying open

“If equality and diversity aren’t for you, then neither are we,” say signs popping up on the Downtown Mall ahead of Saturday’s Unite the Right rally, which several groups have predicted could be the largest gathering of white supremacists in recent history. The rainbow-colored signs conclude with, “We are open in protest of the recent […]

Dispatches from the University of Virginia….

By Bonnie Gordon It’s getting really noisy here.  In a few days local and national news cameras will capture pictures of a large Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Right-wing spokesmen say they demonstrate against a City Council vote to move two statues of confederate generals. But really, the demonstration will transform generalized white resentment […]

ARTS Pick: Summer in Paris

Longing to escape the bright, hot, cheery sunshine? Violet Crown Cinema welcomes you into the dark by way of the first installment in its Summer in Paris film series. Focusing on crimes of passion and anchored by Panique, the 1946 murder mystery starring Michel Simon as a loathsome Peeping Tom framed for murder by the […]

ARTS Pick: Broadway at The Paramount

Sing along as 40-plus Charlottesville kids perform with theater pros in Broadway at The Paramount. Guest actors include Jennifer DiNoia (currently Elphaba in Broadway’s Wicked), Tony Gonzalez (former dance captain for Mamma Mia!) and Matthew Steffens, a UVA graduate who has performed in everything from Broadway musicals to film and television (including an appearance on […]

ARTS Pick: The Chris Robinson Brotherhood

The Chris Robinson Brotherhood began as a Los Angeles band that just wanted, in Robinson’s words, to “have a good time.” All in the name of having fun, the former Black Crowes frontman created a bluesy, quintessentially Californian psychedelic jam sound that central Virginia can’t get enough of. Five albums in, the Brotherhood stops by […]