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Author: Susan Viebrock

[click "Play"; the Legendary Ladies speak with Susan]

GroupThe 6th season of the Telluride Historical Museum's popular (and FREE) Fireside Chats opens Thursday, July 15, 5:30 p.m. Mountain Village fire pit at the base of the Gondola with "The Legendary Ladies". (Head to The Peaks if it rains.)


" The Legendary Ladies," aka "The Shady Ladies," is an award-winning, non-profit educational performance organization in its 18th year. Its mission: to promote the history of women in the Victorian West  – and get to dress up in great threads. The Ladies' claim to fame is sharing often forgotten stories of unconventional women like themselves who made their mark on the American West.

14 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Jumpin Jan's conversation with Susan]

14th Annual KOTO Doo Dah 2010-FINAL Telluride is big on parties this summer. First there was our local fire department's all-day celebration for the Fourth of July. On July 6, the Wilkinson Public Library set the stage for another day-long bash to honor the 75th birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. On July 10, starting at 1 p.m., Telluride Town Park, KOTO FM celebrates its 35th birthday with the 14th annual KOTO  Doo Dah. The headliner is Boulder-based The Motet.

Founded and led by drummer Dave Watts over a decade ago, The Motet has roots in jazz, Afrobeat, funk, salsa and samba layered with house and techno rhythms. The result is a complex tapestry of shoe-shaking melodies and syncopated rhythms that push the sonic envelope and defy categorization. Also on the bill: The Rockadiles, Salt Fire Circus, and Joint Point.

08 July, 2010 /
[For Wah! click "Play"]

2008_hug1_thumb One singular sensation: "Her Wahness" is featured at the third annual Telluride Yoga Festival."Kirtan with Wah! Sean Johnson & the Wild Lotus Band" takes place Friday night, 7:30 – 10 p.m. at the Telluride Conference Center in the Mountain Village.

Sound as a means of healing is a technique –  or a variety of techniques –  recorded in the ancient Americas, Africa, Greece, China, and Rome, and dates back at least to 5,000 B.C. The Yoga tradition has known for centuries that sound is the new apple a day –  only more so. Chanting mantras has physiological benefits such as increasing circulation to the different parts of the body, balancing heart rhythm, deepening exhalation; emotional benefits, such as inducing relaxation and mood elevation; intellectual benefits such as improving memory function and recharging brain cells.
07 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" to listen to Scott Rhea's interview with Susan]

Mstrcopy_w_RoJune 26_for web copy I have covered Telluride cultural life over a career of 18 years and counting, and found that the parade of interesting people who gravitate to our Shangri-La never ends. You may not know the names of many of these people, not because they are not abundantly talented and widely accomplished, but because Telluride is their sanctuary, a place to get away from the faces they meet in the real world. Case in point: Scott Rhea.


Scott, who divides his time between Tinseltown and the Ski Ranches just outside the Town of Telluride, has had a very successful career shooting fashion print and editorial fashion. But it is book of unique underwater images released in 2009 that triggered his coming out party in Telluride.

06 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Susan's interview with Jennie Franks]

People like secrets. Knowing them makes us feel important, even powerful. Here's one: the Telluride Playwrights Festival. Like the Telluride Musicfest, the Telluride Playwrights Festival is one of the best kept secrets on Telluride's summer cultural calendar –  despite the fact both events feature blue chip talent and reinforce the Telluride brand on world stage.

Last year, for example, the Telluride Playwrights Festival presented a play by Jan Buttram. Her "Phantom Killer” went on to get produced at the Abingdon Theatre in New York City this past February and received great reviews. Another Playwrights Festival alum, Tracy Shaffer, will see her Telluride script, "(W)Hole," go up in Denver this fall. Given the track record, it is a safe bet the  scripts written by this year's crop of carefully vetted playwrights – Philip Gerson, James Still and James McLindon, each highly regarded in the fields of theater and television – will meet with similar success. The best part: You can say you knew them when.
06 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Susan's interview with Scott Blossom]

Scott Blossom and Chandra Easton arrive in Telluride from Tara Mandala just outside Pagosa Springs, where the husband and wife team teach a week-long workshop on the subject of "Shadow Yoga and Buddhist Meditation: the Pranic Pathway to Stillness," June 30 – July 7. All day on the opening day of the Telluride Yoga Festival, July 8, the couple teach an abridged version of the intensive for those interested in learning a set of practices for circulating and preparing the vital energies (prana) for meditation. They are also on the schedule with a variety of classes for all levels of practitioners throughout the long weekend.


Scott-2-IMG_0211e-print Scott Blossom was the very first  yoga instructor and therapist to sign on the dotted line when Telluride Yoga festival founder Aubrey Hackman needed a respected "brand name" in the industry to attract other high profile teachers to her nascent event. Blossom is also traditional Chinese medical practitioner and Ayurvedic consultant. A premise fundamental to Ayurveda is that all living things are innately interdependent. What sealed the deal for him three years ago was the fact the Yoga Fest would be a zero waste weekend and 25 percent of net profits would be donated to a local environmental non-profit. Blossom is now a Telluride Yoga Festival board member.

Scott is scheduled to teach an Introduction to Shadow Yoga, the Hatha lineage founded by his yoga maser Zhander Remete, a practice for Balancing our Inner Fire, and a session on Healing and Strengthening Bones, Joints and Nerves.

06 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Susan's interview with Jim Riley]

Sunset Show Summer traffic in the Telluride region is generally concentrated in our box canyon: the town of Telluride is central ops for all the major festivals, which tend, however, to concentrate their activities over long weekends. Mid-week the action shifts "uptown" to Telluride's sister town, the Mountain Village, where every summer Wednesday night, 6 p.m. rain or shine, the Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association presents the Summer Concert Series.

In its 11th year, the popular program draws on average 1,500 – 2,000 music lovers to the grassy slope known as Sunset Plaza at the top of the Chondala (Lift 1), where everyone seems to enjoy an opportunity to catch up with one another as much as revel in the sounds.
05 July, 2010 /