Join Rocky Mountain Public Media and Opera Colorado for a double-bill virtual concert featuring Tom Cipullo’s
Josephine and
The Promise of Living, followed by a talkback hosted by Keo Frazier with starring performers Laquita Mitchell and Nmon Ford, as well as choreographer Terrell Davis. Josephine, a one-act opera, shines a spotlight on jazz-age icon and civil rights activist Josephine Baker.
The Promise of Living takes audiences on a journey through American history that highlights the challenges, opportunities and successes of the Black experience. The program is free, but register in advance here. Thursday, March 11, 6 p.m., online Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo will read Laura Peniche’s story about reaching out to fellow Christians to discuss her understanding of Jesus’s teachings on mercy, as well as his commandment that “you love one another just as I have loved you.” The free program weaves in the music of Uruguayan musician Elisa Garcia and the stori
The pandemic hit Denver’s arts and culture scene hard, forcing many businesses, performance spaces, museums and galleries to close, at least temporarily, at the end of March. In the months since, artists and curators have rallied to keep culture alive, to comment on social injustice, and to inspire us all to appreciate essential workers and health-care providers.
Along the way, the scene has shown its grit and ability to stay relevant through the toughest of times, though some longstanding cultural institutions have been wrangling with their own inner demons.
Here are the ten biggest arts and culture stories in Denver in 2020:
In the spring of 2020, praising front-line health-care workers was all the rage. Many of these too-often-underpaid heroes were putting in daunting hours, quarantining from their children and loved ones and, in some cases, dying from the very pandemic they were trying to stop; praising them was the least we could do. People rigged up homemade masks so that doctors and nurses could get the real thing. Little Caesars flooded hospitals with pizzas, Krispy Kreme plied them with free doughnuts, and artists celebrated the medical community on magazine covers and city walls.
The art was overwhelmingly positive, fueled by hope: Our country might be shutting down, but at least we were getting along.