The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities is far and away the winner by voters. The center has produced memorable plays for years and continues to raise the bar with difficult productions that require advanced staging such as “Miss Saigon” (complete with the iconic helicopter scene). READ MORE HERE

ARVADA, Colo. — Billed as the two-fisted art attack, painter Denny Dent made his name creating quick-draw portraits to live music, sometimes before thousands of concertgoers.

Using as many as three brushes in each hand, Dent splashed paint over sprawling canvases and himself, with subjects ranging from Jimi Hendrix to John Lennon to President Bill Clinton.

Dent was more a performance artist than studio painter…

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For the sake of civility and expediency, what say we dispense with (most of) the many reasons recycled tripe like the Elvis knockoff “All Shook Up” is the scourge of the contemporary American musical.

It’s also fun. Maddeningly and begrudgingly. And, as they say in both theater and youth soccer: “If you had fun, you won.”

Even though exploiting existing song catalogs from the Four Seasons to Green Day is the most bottom-feeding, laziest form of artistic creation, there’s nothing lazy — not a single thing —

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Elvis lives again in Arvada’s ‘All Shook Up’
July 14th, 2010, 4:38 pm · Post a Comment · posted by twallinger

Grade: B+

The press release describes it as “Twelfth Night” meets “Music Man” meets “Pleasantville.” As I was watching it, I was thinking “Footloose” meets “As You Like It” with some “Romeo and Juliet” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” mixed in.

No, the show is not exactly original. But it is a whole lot of fun. And that makes it the perfect musical for these lazy, laid-back days of summer.

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Arvada Center Presents Figurative Sculptor Esther Shimazu, July 20
Esther Shimazu, a figurative sculptor from Hawaii, will present a lecture and visual presentation on her work at the Arvada Center on Tuesday, July 20, at 7:00 p.m. in studio 24B. There is no charge and the public is welcome.

For information on the artist:
http://www.hawaiicraftsmen.org/EstherShimazu.htm

http://www.natsoulas.com/html/artists/estherShimazu/esther.html

“Most of the imagery is of bald, nude chunky Asian women, unconcerned about clothing and hairdo, comfortable in their own skins. There is the occasional male figure or companion animal. All invite the viewer to play, but underneath, there’s a hint that they might bite.” – John Natsoulas, Center for the Arts