March First Fridays Guide

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com. Angelo 220 E. Main St. “New Work: Marsh […]

ARTS Pick: Frankenstein

During a stormy summer holiday, Mary Shelley and her companions were challenged by their host Lord Byron to see who could compose the best ghost story. After a few fretful days devoid of inspiration, the tale of Frankenstein revealed itself to her in a lucid dream. Gorilla Theater presents a modern adaptation of the thriller […]

Kate Daughdrill on the power of social sculpture

“Social sculpture is the idea that whenever we’re shaping our own lives to be more beautiful, it’s an intentional act to bring more beauty or well-being into the world,” said Kate Daughdrill, a Detroit-based artist, farmer, and teacher who graduated from UVA. Daughdrill is one of 20-plus presenters slated to bring social sculpture to Charlottesville’s […]

ARTS Pick: N.A.P. North American Poetry

When Juan Wauters emigrated from Uruguay to Queens, New York in the early aughts, he brought a love of music that was nurtured into maturity in the borough that brought us the Ramones. In his debut solo record, N.A.P. North American Poetry, Wauters delivers effortless hooks and sentimental lyrics with a heavy folk influence. The […]

Interview: Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn bring the family

Restless musical innovator Béla Fleck is known for taking the banjo on a wide range of sonic journeys. The 15-time Grammy winner brought his instrument to the outer limits of improvisational jazz with his lauded outfit the Flecktones and explored its roots in Africa through the documentary Throw Down Your Heart. These days, Fleck is […]

Locally developed app looks to fill a niche in a crowded market

I’m tinkering with a new free app, and I’m totally hooked. I’m looking at my iPhone every five seconds to see if there’s a number next to the app icon, evidence I have the all-important new “notification.” I’m opening the app every five minutes to see if my feed has updated. I’m telling all my […]

A grump’s review of the 2014 Oscars

There’s a line in the song “So Lonely” by The Police that seems relevant when discussing the Academy Awards: “No surprise, no mystery.” Was anyone surprised that Chiwetel Ejiofor, who gave the best performance in the most important movie of 2013 (that’s 12 Years a Slave), lost out to Matthew McConaughey, who gave a nearly-as-good […]

Future Islands finds its place in the EDM sea

Throw the word “post” before the name of a music genre, and it can pretty much mean whatever you want it to. The members of Future Islands, an act caught somewhere in the limbo between indie rock and electronic dance music, once called themselves a “post-post” band. Fortunately, the three-piece outfit is willing to get […]

Taking the story off the page

When Andy Friedman enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design, he devoted himself to Venetian oil painting, a skill so intricate that each work takes an average of three years to finish. “I knew that after college I would have to get a job, and I wanted to know the feeling of complete and […]

Film review: 3 Days to Kill may be three too many

By now we’re all familiar with Luc Besson’s oeuvre, right? You may remember him as the writer responsible for resurrecting Liam Neeson’s career with Taken, a movie in which young women can do nothing for themselves while older men beat the shit out of other men who would do the women harm. With Taken, Besson sort […]