Culture Gulch - The Durango Herald

50 shades of satire at Durango Arts Center

Satire rides on a spectrum from mild to wild – to borrow a line from a local rafting company. Last Friday, the sixth annual 10-minute Play Festival at the Durango Arts Center floa...

DATE: Jun 9, 2016 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

A body of work exhibited at the arts center

At first glance, Laurie Archer’s solar plate etchings look like random nature studies. In the three sections of “The Thread,” her exhibit now on view in the library of the Durango Arts Cente...

DATE: May 12, 2016 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

High drama to be had in Philadelphia

I hit a travel jackpot earlier this month on a trip to Philadelphia. I flew there for my annual conference of the American Theatre Critics Association. Seventy critics and their ...

DATE: Apr 21, 2016 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Exhibit is astute political commentary laced with outrage

“The best political art is always viciously negative.” British culture critic Jonathan Jones wrote that last week in his column in The Guardian. Jones pointedly asked...

DATE: Mar 10, 2016 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Catch one of the greatest comic operas ever

MET Live returns to Fort Lewis with the whimsical ‘Magic Flute’

DATE: Feb 11, 2016 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Gratitude and ‘the givens’in the new year

“It’s a given,” Denzel Washington said in an interview a few years ago. He was talking about racism in America. He calmly said that racist remarks and experiences were simply a given for Afr...

DATE: Jan 14, 2016 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

A traveling grand piano. Who would have thought?

A lot of people wanted to see, hear or maybe just touch Vladimir Horowitz’s piano. The nine-foot black Steinway grand, known as CD 503, came to Fort Lewis College as part of an unusual Ameri...

DATE: Dec 10, 2015 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Really, this requiem was marvelous

How do you avoid purple prose when reviewing a splendid concert? Answer: It’s not easy, and that’s the theme of this column. The concert in question is last weekend’s ...

DATE: Oct 15, 2015 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

The life of a critic: When art lingers

When music lingers in your mind long after a performance is over, it’s telling you something. It may be a jazz riff or a blooming Puccini aria. It may be a little nothing, or it may lead to ...

DATE: Sep 10, 2015 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Repertory companies rethink classics

How do you perform comedy for an audience with no sense of irony? In Jerry Seinfeld’s case, you don’t – because you’ve stopped performing on college campuses. America’...

DATE: Jul 9, 2015 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Summer lecture series is picture-perfect

As surely as the Snake River pulses through the Tetons, the bloodstream of the mythic West runs through Ansel Adams’s photographs. America’s most famous nature photographer died in 1984, but...

DATE: Jun 11, 2015 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

High-octane percussion rocks the Fort

“White Knuckle Stroll” is a title that makes me sit up and pay attention. Last Sunday, percussionist Kyle Hollerbach started his senior recital at Fort Lewis College with a solo ...

DATE: Apr 13, 2015 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch