Screens: We can’t separate art from the artist

The rise of Time’s Up, the movement challenging sexism, harassment and abuse against women in the entertainment industry, has led to a tone deaf, contemptible yet predictable backlash. Spend enough time on social media and you’ll see two main counterarguments: There’s a witch hunt by women seeking fame and money, or we should focus on […]

Review: Women work their way up in Live Arts’ Top Girls

Enter: a lively dinner party. Lots of crosstalk. Women in a startling array of historical costumes. There’s Isabella Bird, a 19th-century globe-trotter and well-educated author. There’s Joan the Pope, a ninth-century intellectual who lived as a man and briefly became the pope. There’s Dull Gret, a sword-wielding peasant and army leader lifted from the Bruegel […]

Noah Gundersen considers the distress of modern times

Noah Gundersen recently saw the world’s largest easel. He says that the roadside attraction, located in Goodland, Kansas, is a whopping 80 feet tall with one of Vincent van Gogh’s sunflower paintings stretched across it. That stop, like many, is just one of the perks of having a good tour manager, he says. There’s little […]

A View From Some Broads breaks with casting tradition

In “Bosom Buddies,” the famous duet from the Broadway musical Mame, eccentric bohemian and title character Mame Dennis gives her friend, actress —and famed lush—Vera Charles a bit of advice: “I feel it’s my duty to tell you it’s time to adjust your age / You try to be Peg O’ My Heart, when you’re […]

ARTS Pick: Bill Staines is a real hoot

Folk singer Bill Staines has been playing around the country for more than 40 years, from coffeehouses to nature centers. The New England native has blended subtle wit and imagination with the beauty of rivers, mountains, highways and backroads, over an impressive 26 albums. And if the mood strikes, the 1975 national yodeling champion might […]

First Fridays: February 2

Sigrid Eilertson likes to paint surrealistic images of creatures that straddle the line between the realistic and the fantastic, like larger-than-life goddesses and wild animals. She always works in a series, and she tends to work large—many of her paintings are 6 feet or taller. But for her most recent series, “Star Creatures: An Exploration […]

Movie review: Hostiles walks a new path in the Western genre

War has been a part of the human experience for all of recorded history. But what happens when the things that drive us to it are no longer a factor? Resources, borders, languages, religions; if we found ourselves in a situation where none of those things truly mattered, would we still find reasons to fight, […]

ARTS Pick: The Crüxshadows embrace their dark side

Formed in 1992, The Crüxshadows have been a longtime staple of dark wave culture. The Florida-based group’s gothic rock blend of synth- and dream-pop has been perfected while logging an impressive 1,000-plus performances, including one of the first gigs by a Western act in Romania and Serbia following the Cold War. The group’s addictive dance […]

Whistle Words helps women impacted by cancer share stories

Before she received a Stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis at 39 years old, UVA writing professor Charlotte Matthews lived on a cattle farm. Whenever the farmer found a dead cow in the pasture, he bulldozed a grave and buried the animal. Matthews remembers the farmer whistling to himself in these moments. “He was so authentic […]

ARTS Pick: The Black and Global Roots Music Project

The Front Porch teams with Appalachian State University professor and folklorist Cece Conway to explore West African influences and instruments through the folk akonting and the griot ngoni, which can be traced to the modern banjo. The Black and Global Roots Music Project will also feature Piedmont blues performed by Jeffrey Scott, whose mastery is […]