In 2016, Cedar Rapids’ 319 Fest took a year off. Their goal was to refocus, redevelop. Organizers changed the location of the festival, and were determined to make it always free, organizer Jason Zbornik said in an email, “in hopes that it would allow more people access to new original music.” Now in its third year back
A-List
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Feared and revered’: Zen Cohen’s new exhibition at Public Space One explores queer history and cultures
I’ve had a recurring dream since I was a teenager about an ocean contained in a room. In the dream, I always try to peel back the layers of my experience with the water; to experience it in a more authentic way. I had this dream again for the first time in a long time, and it must be because I’ve been thinking about Zen Cohen’s art.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
You should see her in a crown: Katy Hahn leads Riverside Theatre’s ‘Henry IV, Part I’
In Iowa, there is a small, but growing, community of artists who have no “day job.” It’s into this mad amalgam of a gig economy that theater artist Katy Hahn found herself thrust several years ago. “A question that people ask me a lot is, how do I do it? I say, don’t try to take the same path!”
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Egyptian musician Nadah El Shazly on her fight against ‘musical political correctness’
There are songs of great sadness, written in the early 20th century by Egyptian Arabs and recorded mechanically. They’re written in a forgotten style, slightly grating on the ears, but evoking a sense of melancholy and nostalgia. These are the sounds which guide the latest musical ventures of experimental multi-instrumentalist Nadah El Shazly
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Neko Case discusses her ‘bad luck,’ blue-collar ethic and musical superpowers ahead of Englert performance
For the first time in over a decade, Neko Case will perform at the Englert on April 29, in support of her new album ‘Hell-On,’ with Shannon Shaw (of Shannon and the Clams) opening at 8 p.m. ‘Hell-On’ provides an insightful, beautiful understanding of how to remain humane despite the almost continual wave of tragedies
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Stephanie Burt prepares to see her poetry in motion with Mission Creek’s visual poetry synthesizer
Adulthood is complex. Often, as adults, we leave behind the people we were in childhood, and focus our identities forward to who we think we should be. Dr. Stephanie Burt, poet, literary critic and professor of English at Harvard University, would say “Fuck that.”
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Jaime Hernandez reflects on 38 years of his influential ‘Love & Rockets’ comics series
Los Bros Hernandez — Jaime, Gilbert and Mario — self-published the first issue of Love and Rockets in 1981. Since then, they (primarily Jaime and Gilbert) have created a substantial body of work. So substantial, in fact, that it can be intimidating to new readers. But don’t ask Jaime Hernandez where to start. “I throw […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Art exhibition reclaims fairy tales from Disney and reimagines them for our ‘anxious world’
There’s something lurking below the surface in most fairy tales — a stereotype or expectation threatening to shatter the sugar coating. These unsettling lurkers, including questions about race and gender, come into focus in the traveling art exhibition Dread & Delight: Fairy Tales in an Anxious World, on display through April 27 at the Faulconer Gallery in Grinnell.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The White Privilege Conference, originated in Iowa, returns for its 20th year
20th White Privilege Conference DoubleTree by Hilton Cedar Rapids Convention Complex — March 20-23 After nearly two years of planning, Cedar Rapids will host the 20th White Privilege Conference (WPC) March 20-23, 2019. Dr. Eddie Moore Jr., founder of the WPC, praised Cedar Rapids in an interview with Little Village for “its love, courage, support, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Playwright August Wilson’s life takes center stage in Riverside Theatre’s latest production
How I Learned What I Learned is a one-man show, originally performed by Wilson himself, and takes the audience on a tour through his life as a poet and young writer in Pittsburgh, as well as his friendships, experience of racism and more. Wilson offers himself up with a stark vulnerability
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Resistance artist Cecilia Vicuña on hope, death and the end of humanity
There are artists — those who produce art — and there are those who live a life that is a work of art in itself: an ode of an existence. Visual artist, writer and filmmaker Cecilia Vicuña embodies a life in which those lines are blurred.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Riverside Theatre’s new director plans to take risks and reach new audiences
The new artistic director of Riverside Theatre, Adam Knight, moved to Iowa City just over a month ago, bringing only an antique bed frame with him. Currently, he is directing Arthur Miller’s 1968 play The Price.
