By any measure, Leslie Charipar has lived through a couple of lousy years. “Lived through” is no mere turn of phrase. Charipar has been in the grips of not one, not two, but three cancers — breast, lung and thyroid — not to mention blood clots in her brain. At the moment, she’s on the […]
Rob Cline
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Flaherty and company elevate ‘Billy Elliot the Musical’ at Theatre Cedar Rapids
For a story set in Thatcher-era England, ‘Billy Elliot The Musical’ has surprisingly strong connections to Eastern Iowa. There’s Alex Ko, an Iowa City native who played the title character on Broadway. And there’s the late Basil Thompson, a renowned dancer, ballet master and instructor who taught in the University of Iowa Department of Dance, whose life story mirrors that of Billy Elliot (though the creators deny any connection).
Posted inCommunity/News
Museum Takeover Day will take kids behind the scenes at Cedar Rapid’s Czech and Slovak Museum
An idea with its roots in Europe has become a summer tradition at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (NCSML). For the third consecutive year, the organization is hosting Museum Takeover Day.
Posted inCommunity/News
Murals and More unveils new Cedar Rapids skywalk mural by AKACORLEONE
A small crowd gathered for the unveiling of a big mural in downtown Cedar Rapids on Monday evening. Murals and More, which is steadily creating the Cedar Rapids Mural Trail, dedicated the organization’s first mural of 2017 on the east side of the skywalk on Third Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues.
Posted inCommunity/News
Five for Five Seasons – Disc Golf Edition
Wanna throw some discs into some baskets in the greater Cedar Rapids area? Of course you do. There are two upcoming events and three courses to get you started.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
District Disc promises to be an above par event
When you think of the Czech Village and New Bohemia areas of Cedar Rapids, golf probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But an upcoming fundraising event will bring golf – disc golf, that is – to the area.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Five for Five Seasons — Conductors of the Cedar Rapids Municipal Band
The Cedar Rapids Municipal Band is entering its 67th season, and over that period it has only had a handful of conductors. Here’s a list of five folks who have waved the baton since 1951.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Cedar Rapids Museum Week to entice visitors to explore arts, culture and history
Seven days. Seven museums. An opportunity to explore some of Cedar Rapids’ treasures.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Slayton Thompson, well-known drummer, to join Cedar Rapids Municipal Band on harmonica
Years ago, Slayton Thompson was playing drums in the Marion Community Band. After a performance, he clapped the teenaged piano player on the back and told him, “When you grow up, I want to be in your band.”
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Features
A-List: Out Loud! Author Series welcomes the rapid-fire flow of Kwame Alexander
When he’s excited about a subject, Kwame Alexander speaks in a rapid-fire flow, an improvised musical line that takes a theme and mines it for meaning and possibility.
Take, for example, his answer to a question about cultural references — to jazz, hip-hop, books and more — in his novels-in-verse The Crossover and Booked.
“I’m a big fan of exploring what’s going on in the world and our place in it,” he says. And then he fires off a list as I scurry to keep my pen flying across the page of my notebook: books, music, police brutality (I didn’t see that one coming), first love, how to imagine a better world — probably more that I didn’t catch.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Hijinks ensue in Revival Theatre Company’s beautiful production of ‘Victor/Victoria’
Revival Theatre Company Presents: Victor/Victoria Dows Fine Art Center at Coe College — through Sunday, June 4 The 1982 film Victor/Victoria and the 1995 Broadway musical of the same name were both star vehicles for Julie Andrews. This, of course, sets a high bar for anyone stepping into the title role. Nina Swanson, well known […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Love, loss and the keeping of secrets infuse Moorman’s ethereal family portraits
When you step into the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art’s second floor gallery filled with Tara Moorman’s watercolors, the first thing you might notice is that these paintings seem to emanate light. What might be less obvious is that the paintings are themselves emanations from the past.
