It can be a dicey affair when an artist who operates in traditional songcraft decides to experiment. They risk alienating some of their audience, while the new audience segment they attract may not appreciate the existing back catalog of their more “standard” fare. Dan Tedesco’s excellent new EP, Morning Bells, manages to navigate this territory […]
February 2022
Posted inCommunity/News
Tomato mint and Tuscan tomato soup face off in DVIP’s 25th Souper Bowl
This year’s Super Bowl, pitting the Los Angeles Rams against the Cincinnati Bengals, will come down to field goals and who has the best kicker, according to Alta Medea-Peters, director of community engagement for the Domestic Violence Intervention Program (DVIP). Or at least, that’s her gut feeling. “I think the Bengals are going to win. […]
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Gov. Reynolds: COVID-19 is now ‘part of our everyday lives,’ no longer ‘a public health emergency’
Gov. Kim Reynolds announced on Thursday her administration will officially stop taking any action that treats “COVID-19 as a public health emergency” at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 15. That is when the extension of the state’s Public Health Disaster Emergency Proclamation the governor signed before her announcement expires. The proclamation was first issued on […]
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‘I can rock a baritone’: Transitioning helped Lucy Suarez reinvent herself and flout expectations
When Lucy Suarez decided to transition, the metalhead musician made the call to keep her voice as it was. “Obviously I still kept the low voice,” she said. “I can rock a baritone. … I know where [my voice] naturally resonates and I stick to it.” She studied composition at the University of Northern Iowa, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘There’s no right way to be trans’: One year into her transition, Madeline Trainor is her own woman
The internet is an incandescent sludge of information and toxicity, a vessel for boundless exploration and a minefield of odious rabbit holes. But despite what some may preach, no amount of Tumblr blogs or Twitter threads can turn a person trans. “Sometimes you get like trolls on your social media and they’re like, ‘oh, the […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘Trans man, any man — you are man enough’: How Oliver Wenman found gender euphoria through burlesque
“I shaved last Monday, and look, I’ve got stubble already,” Oliver Wenman says, leaning into his laptop camera during our conversation over Google Meet. “Being able to hear my voice and not cringe at it. Being at a public pool just in swim trunks, and being able to just feel the sun on me.” He […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Dinner is Served’: Feed Me Weird Things announces 2022 spring season
Get ready to explore new, unique sounds from a widely diverse group of musicians. Feed Me Weird Things (FMWT), Iowa City’s listening series highlighting rare, esoteric music, will return this spring and summer with eight performances from a mix of local, national and international artists. On Thursday morning, FMWT announced that the performances will “range […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Anaïs Mitchell and Bonny Light Horseman kick off tour in Iowa City
After performing in the Iowa Arts Festival in 2017, singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell is back in Iowa City, kicking off her tour with Bonny Light Horseman at the Englert Theatre. Her recently released self-titled album, the first after a decade of work on the Tony Award-winning musical Hadestown, is a quiet, intimate return to a familiar […]
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Riverside welcomes the community to its new space
The Little Village February Editors’ Event Pick in Theater: Eden Prairie, 1971, at Riverside Theatre, Iowa City Riverside Theatre is christening its brand-spankin’-new space just off the Ped Mall (119 E College St) with Eden Prairie, 1971, a brand-spankin’-new play having its world premiere in Iowa City. Riverside Producing Artistic Director Adam Knight directs this […]
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FilmScene’s Community Collaborations series gets a Black History Month start
The Little Village February Editors’ Event Pick in Film: Community Collaborations at FilmScene—Chauncey, Iowa City FilmScene is kicking off its Community Collaborations with two February offerings. The theater will be held to 50 percent capacity for both screenings and wellness protocols require a 72-hour (or less) negative COVID-19 test or documentation of a vaccine card […]
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Only 19% of the state’s 5-11 year-olds fully vaccinated against COVID; Iowa Republicans advance bill to ban vaccine requirement in schools and childcare centers
The number of new cases of COVID-19 in the Iowa Department of Health’s weekly update declined for the second week in a row, possibly indicating the surge driven by the spread of the Omicron variant in the state is now receding. According to IDPH, there were 22,730 newly confirmed cases of the virus over the […]
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UI’s LGBTQ Clinic, a ‘haven’ for trans and nonbinary patients, marks 10 years of breaking down barriers
When Dr. Nicole Nisly met her first transgender patient, she didn’t know what to say. It’s common among healthcare providers. What name should I use? How should I refer to them? Should I ask? Her patient was a trans woman who had transitioned 10 years prior, and Nisly could feel the tension in the air. […]
