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Performing Arts

The Sheridan Arts Foundation's Young People's Theatre presents "Grease" this weekend at Telluride's Sheridan Opera House. The show runs Feb 6-8 (Fri-Sun) at 6:00 pm.

"Grease" is a jumping, jitterbugging and leaping, rocking and rolling spoof of 1950s teen innocence chockablock with songs you can whistle, tunes that recall the Buddy Holly hiccups, the Little Richard yodels, and the Elvis bumps and grinds that made the sounds of the era such a gas.

The enduring musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey is essentially a series of lively vignettes about black leather and shiny cars, satin pink and pajama parties, drive-ins, ear-piercing, smoking, wine-chugging, and dating. Home base, Rydell High is Never Never Land with classrooms, where classes are breaks between dances and hanging around in the hall.

04 February, 2009 /

 Since 1977, the San Juan Mountains have been the site of an annual cultural event produced by the Telluride Society for Jazz. The Telluride Jazz Celebration combines performances on outdoor stages in during the day with theater and club shows at night: the best of both worlds.  With its new dates in June, which coincides with the 26th annual  Telluride Balloon Rally, the weekend event becomes even more colorful.

"Jazz means a certain kind of spontaneous interaction on stage and off. Because of how small we are, any impact on our home, Telluride, is positive," said Paul Machado, impresario, the Telluride Jazz Celebration. "At its improvisational center,  jazz in town is so good it makes your ears smile.

"Featured artists typically represent a tangle of styles  and rhythms that add up to one unforgettable experience in sound.

02 February, 2009 /

The Sheridan Arts Foundation's Young People's Theatre stages "Grease" at Telluride's Sheridan Opera House, Feb 6-8

Hindsight is not always 20/20. Sometimes it needs glasses.

Grease poster When Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey penned "Grease" in 1971, Americans were nostalgic for the white picket fence days of the 1950s. But the innocence of that era was largely fiction: the headlines of the Eisenhower years included Communist witch hunts, polio, the hydrogen bomb, the Korean War, and racial segregation.
Pop culture was all about Mitch Miller, Elvis, James Dean and "Rebel Without a Cause," doo-wop and Doris Day – but also Jack Kerouac, who wrote "On the Road" in 1957. To the road warrior and his legions of fans, America of the 1950s seemed to be many flavors of strange under a white-washed veneer of pristine sameness.

The authors of "Grease" chose to sanitize those realities and dress them up in poodle skirts and leather jackets. The world of "Grease" never existed and always existed.

31 January, 2009 /

Hear Todd Snider sing (5274.8K)

[click to listen to Todd Snider interview]

TS Lone Star Music 1 (Todd Purifoy) Beaverton, Oregon's proud son Todd Snider is his generation's Will Rogers, an amiable, plainspoken, wise-cracking story teller and champion of the common man – just add a guitar and a pickup truck.

Todd is appearing in concert at the historic Sheridan Opera House, January 31, 8 p.m., with his friend and mentor Keith Sykes, whose most recent album the younger man produced.

You may not know Keith, but you know his music. He wrote songs made popular by Jimmy Buffet ("Volcano," "The Last Line" and "Coast of Marseilles"), John Prine ("You Got Gold," "A Long Monday," and "Everybody Wants To Be Like You"), Guy Clark ("She Loves To Ride Horses," "Shut Up And Talk To Me"), Jerry Jeff Walker ("Very Short Time"), and Rosanne Cash ("Rainin' On My Soul").

29 January, 2009 /

Mark Galbo (can we now call him an impresario?)  of Telluride's Rock and Roll Academy gave TIO's Susan Viebrock an interview about the adult bands which will perform at the Sheridan Opera House, Saturday, 24 January 2009. ...

23 January, 2009 /

[ click play button to hear]

BST_bio_logo No sweat. The band just keeps on keepin’ on despite the fact its founding members, among them, Al Kooper, Bobby Colomby, David Clayton-Thomas and Steve Katz, are part of rock lore. 

Rather than being a personality cult, Blood, Sweat & Tears longevity comes down to its music, hit such as  “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” “Spinning Wheel,” and “When I Die” with universal themes and a cross-generational sound.

Since B S & T formed in New York in 1967, the many faces of the band are, by now, a blur. However what the band came to be known as from the get-go remains the group’s signature style: a fusion known as “jazz-rock.” 

28 December, 2008 /

In China, acrobats are revered as much as opera singers in the West.

The ancient art form dates back well over 2,000 years. Historical records provide evidence for the development of Chinese acrobats as far back as the Xia Dynasty 4,000 years ago. Records also suggest acrobatics did not become wildly popular, however, until the emperor embraced the discipline as court entertainment, about 2,500 years ago.

During the Han Dynasty (207 B.C. – 220 A.D.), acrobatics flourished and the wide variety of juggling, tumbling and magic acts came to be known as the “Hundred Entertainments.” Legend has it that when the Emperor Wu Di invited a group of foreign dignitaries to witness a performance, his guests were so impressed they agreed to enter into military alliances with their august host.

26 December, 2008 /