Get TIO in your Inbox!

Culture

[click "Play" button to hear Susan's conversation with Roko Belic]

30 45 In 1999, former Telluride Mountainfilm director Rick Silverman shared his film favorites. High on the list was "Genghis Blues." The heart-warmng film by brothers Adrian and Roko Belic tells the story of a Tuvan throat-singer Kongar-ol-Ondar and a blind San Franciscan bluesman, Paul Pena, who taught himself to throat sing, a popular form of entertainment in southern Siberia. Ten years later, Festival program director David Holbrooke has asked the brothers and the "Elvis of Tuva" to return to town for a program encore.

Following their score at the 21st annual Mountainfilm, Roko partnered with Italian explorer and author Folco Terzani to make another film, "Twilight Men, the true story of a Westerner and an Indian holy man who go into the Himalayas in search of an enlightened master.

22 May, 2009 /

[ click "Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Josh Aronson]

DSCN6170  Part-time local Josh Aronson is a regular at Telluride Mountainfilm, an event that began as a homespun gathering of gnarly outdoor adventurers and evolved into a crazy quilt of lively talks, memorable exhibits, and yes, films. (Mountainfilm's current program director, David Holbrooke, is also a filmmaker.)

Josh received an Oscar nomination in 2001 for his very first film, "Sound & Fury," which documents one family's struggle over whether or not to provide two deaf children with cochlear implants, devices that can stimulate hearing. Implants are hot-buttons in the deaf community: while they provide easier access to the hearing world, they also challenge one's identity within the deaf culture. "Sound & Fury" screened at Mountainfilm following its premiere at Sundance.

21 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Susan's conversation with Paul Bosch]

Telluride region features regularly in Bosch's art

IMG_0007 Pastor and painter of landscapes. Paul Bosch is part of a long tradition dating back to 19th-century America, when artists, particularly of the American West, expressed a rapturous identification with the surrounding terrain. Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Church are two examples. They went way over the top in their depictions of cathedral-like peaks and the Golden Glow that enveloped a scene. At the time, the presiding metaphor was God as Supreme Artist and men like themselves, were simply His obedient servants.

IMG_1701 Paul has been painting his entire life. "Someone has said  (Picasso?  Matisse?  Freud?) that painters are basically feces-smearers, and this was true of me in my crib, according to my parents." While he has been a university chaplain or campus pastor most of his professional life, Paul is also author of numerous published articles/essays on the subject of the arts as they pertain to religious faith, and three books on related themes.

 


20 May, 2009 /
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer sends us a Summer Poem

The 31st annual Telluride Mountainfilm Moving Mountains Symposium is on the subject of food: the pending crisis and fruitful options. In their third year as organic fruit growers, longtime Telluride region locals Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and husband Eric are part of the solution.

010 It was not their dream. One day, they just did it. Their 70-acre orchard, New Leaf Fruit, located on the Gunnison River north of Delta, produces peaches, pears, apricots, cherries, nectarines and apples. They have two children together, five-year-old Finn and 10-month-old Vivian, who was born at the orchard last apricot harvest. Eric's other daughter, Shawnee, worked at the orchard three years ago and loved it so much she is now in graduate school in international development, focusing on sustainable agriculture in Latin America. Rosemerry's most recent poetry collection, Holding Three Things at Once (Turkey Buzzard Press, 2008), is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and explores the world of mothering, orcharding and communicating with each other and our environment.
19 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Jane]

Jane The girl can’t help it. Long before any inconvenient truths, before green became the new red, white and blue, longtime, part-time Telluride local Jane Goren was busy recycling, turning the detritus of people’s lives into edgy fine art.  

Jane came buy her obsession naturally: in the corner of Brooklyn where she grew up no one ever threw anything away.

SPAGHETTI IDARADO  In 1974, Goren moved to Los Angeles. Years later, in this landscape of insecurity both real and imagined, an earthquake struck. The artist began collecting discarded windows, which she painted on the reverse side of the glass in an offbeat attempt to restore order to a disoriented city. These images also allowed Jane to examine issues of voyeurism, surveillance, and the deceitful nature of appearances. The Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, her local gallery, has examples of this work in its stable, and a number of pieces are on display at La Marmotte.

17 May, 2009 /

Friday night, May 15, a cast of Telluride teenagers earned a standing ovation at the end of their performance of "Audition" at the Sheridan Opera House. Teenagers playing (mostly) teenagers, dressed as teenagers, dealing with teenagers' concerns and without sets: it was a great evening....

17 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" to hear Susan talk to Erika Gordon]Telluride Film Festival presents Children's Film Festival Created in 1928, Mickey became the icon for The Walt Disney Company and the world's most famous mouse. A film introducing this anthropomorphic cartoon...

16 May, 2009 /

No doubt we will all say we knew her when. Graduating Telluride senior Alexis Cruzzavala is an exceptional young woman.

Seven years ago, when we first met, Alexis was only 11 and doing a bit part in the Telluride Repertory Theatre's production of "Romeo and Juliet." Even then, she stood out from the crowd: not just smart, she was also articulate, and poised beyond her years. When the conversation turned to acting, she gushed like a broken dam.

Alexis went on to perform in no fewer than eight of director Jen Julia's always memorable productions. She nearly stole the show in her most recent role, "Marty," the Lolita wannabe in "Grease."  She stars in the SAFYPT's upcoming "The Audition."

14 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Clint's conversation with Cosy Sheridan] There are lots of things happening at Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library. This time Scott Doser, program director at the library, has laid on a weekend of workshops plus a...

14 May, 2009 /