Instrumental rejuvenation: Will Mullany builds a wall of sound at The Bridge

A small metal bucket. Segments of rough-hewn PVC and metal pipe. A coffee tin. A red British post box coin bank. A spool of piano wire. A tiny, wooden drawer. Light switches, control boards, dials, film cans, electrical sockets. Pliers. Wire cutters. Rings of tubing, spoons, forks, nails, springs. Motors, yarn, string. A matte silver Christmas […]

Convolution evolution: Updated “Pip & Twig” at Live Arts

Adult identical twins Pip and Twig live an insular, codependent existence. Wearing identical pajamas, they wake in their shared bed at the same time every morning and eat identical breakfasts before going about their daily childlike, tandem routine, clothed in identical dress-and-sweater outfits. So begins The Convolution of Pip and Twig, a play created from […]

President Sullivan’s candid reply

In a Facebook Live video posted to the UVA Students United Facebook page Sunday evening, a student who was present at the Rotunda on Friday, August 11, approaches President Sullivan to ask a few questions about administrative inaction the night of the white supremacists’ torchlight march. “Where were you Friday night? And why were you […]

They doth protest: Listen to Charlottesville’s protest songs

Everyone knows at least one protest song. There’s Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” which American Songwriter magazine says is “arguably more popular than our national anthem”; Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”; Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”; Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”; Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”; Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind”; […]

Poetic edge: Punk quartet Wild Rose is beholden to beauty

Climbing into your mom’s minivan when you’d lied only slightly about your whereabouts for the evening, reeking of cigarettes and blaming it on your friends when it really was you who was smoking. Claiming you’d only been drinking Pepsi and then trying to figure out how to throw away the beer bottle caps you’d stuffed […]

First Fridays: July 7

First Fridays: July 7 Photographer Ashley Florence experiments with materials, situations, emotions, narratives and curiosity in her show “Body and Bread,” on view at Studio IX this month. From a chromogenic print of Florence herself sitting in a traditional Madonna pose and wearing a full-body suit sewn out of blue book linen, to 19 Polaroids […]

UVA hip-hop professor contemplates the work ahead

When A.D. Carson was in fourth grade at Durfee Elementary School in Decatur, Illinois, his teacher asked the class to write a paragraph about a picture hanging on the wall. The picture was of children playing, and Carson asked his teacher if he could make his paragraph rhyme. She agreed—encouraged him, even—and soon after gave […]