‘Bloomington Boogies’ Festival, Aug. 11–13
The Bloomington Blues & Boogie Woogie Piano Festival bounces back into town August 11–13 for its fourth annual showcase of American keyboard music.
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Category: Arts & Entertainment
Elvis Did It, You Can Too! Cut Your Own Vinyl Record
In the early 1950s, about the time Elvis Presley cut a record and changed the sound of popular music, anyone could walk into a recording booth at a drugstore, pay a couple of bucks, perform a song, and have it etched directly into vinyl. Now, Phonocraft Record Manufacturing has resurrected that technology, offering one-off and small-batch records.
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Cardinal Stage Company’s ‘Fun Home’ Focuses on Families and Their Secrets
Cardinal Stage will wrap up its season with a production of the musical Fun Home, a story of repressed intimacy, disillusionment, and love against steep odds.
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Fast-Growing Trend Hits Town 3 Escape Rooms Are Now Open
Three escape room businesses—simulated entertainment experiences likened to live versions of the board game Clue—have opened in Bloomington within the last year. They’re among about 50 such businesses in Indiana, and more than 2,100 nationwide.
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New Books from IU Press: ‘The Curse of the Indy 500: 1958’s Tragic Legacy’
Sportswriter Stan Sutton’s The Curse of the Indy 500: 1958’s Tragic Legacy centers on a massive crash that killed one driver and seemingly cast a jinx on many others. Chapter by chapter, Sutton recounts the accidents that, over the years, took the lives of a dozen other drivers in that year’s race
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Sounds of Indiana Barbershop Singing Lives On!
Originating in the late 1800s, the distinct vocal stylings of barbershop singing—generally a quartet singing a capella-style in four-part harmony—is still performed by groups dedicated to its preservation. One such group is Sounds of Indiana, a Bloomington-based chorus chartered by the Barbershop Harmony Society in 1976.
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Russian Couple Makes Art Film in Bloomington with Local Cast
In the fall of 2018, if all goes according to plan, audiences will get their first look at The Klaxon, a 47-minute art film about identity and race in America, shot in 360-degree video, largely in Bloomington.
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Women’s Voices Lead the Way at 6th Limestone Comedy Festival
From the already notorious to the up-and-coming, bold and innovative women’s voices will lead the 2018 Limestone Comedy Festival. According to festival co-founders Jared Thompson, owner of the Comedy Attic, and comedian Matt Alano-Martin, booking a diverse roster of female voices was calculated to reverberate with the #MeToo movement times.
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Jewish Theatre Comedy Addresses Guns, Social Media, and Religion
Although Jason Odell Williams’ 2017 play Church & State is a comedy, its message addresses the timely issues of gun control, religion, and the influence of social media on politics. Church & State will be presented by the Jewish Theatre of Bloomington at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center in May.
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Joe and Bess Lee: Artists for a Cause (PHOTO GALLERY)
In conjunction with April’s celebration of the environment, and Earth Day on April 22, Bloomington residents Bess and Joe Lee will present Professor Animalia’s Menagerie of Struggling Species—Save the Animals; Save Yourself! at the Blueline Gallery, 212 W. 4th St., April 6–30.
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Richard Ross Hopes His Pictures ‘Put a Face on Juvenile In-Justice’
For more than a decade, photographer Richard Ross has been traveling the country to document America’s juvenile justice system. Now, his photographs of incarcerated youth are on view at Bloomington City Hall through the month of April.
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Hear Great Music the Way it Was at Bloomington Early Music Festival
Bach and his contemporaries would be surprised if they were to attend modern concerts of their works. The baroque style of performance was different, as were the instruments themselves—string instruments, for example, were constructed with animal intestines, not steel, and bows were of a different design. But Bloomington audiences will be able to hear something closer to what the composers intended during the Bloomington Early Music Festival May 18–27.
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Buskirk-Chumley to Host Poetry & Spoken Word Event
Sometimes one thing leads to another—and in the case of Words! A Bloomington Celebration of Poetry and Spoken Word, that’s a beautiful thing, says Danielle McClelland, executive director of the Buskirk-Chumley Theater (BCT). From March 2–7, organizations from the community are coming together to celebrate the spoken word at venues across the city and on the Indiana University campus.
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Another Collection of Mostly True Tales From Dwight Worker’s Always ‘Cool Life’
Now the story can be told. Dwight Worker—organic farmer, former Indiana University business professor, raconteur, globetrotter, former drug smuggler, inmate and escapee from a notorious Mexican prison, and international provocateur—really did sink a Norwegian whaling ship in 1992. He still has the indictment letter from Norwegian prosecutors for the crime.
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New Books from IU Press: Girl With Death Mask
Girl With Death Mask, a collection of sometimes searing, sometimes fantastical, always transcendent poems by Jennifer Givhan, is the winner of the 2017 Blue Light Books Prize.
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Love Songs for a Lasting World Benefit for Middle Way House
Malcolm Dalglish and the Ooolites invite the community to an evening of singing, dancing, and, yes, apple pie, when they present the third annual Love Songs for a Lasting World at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater at 8 p.m on February 24.
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Kevin Pope: Cartoonist, Designer & Fine Artist
Before graduating with a B.F.A. from Indiana University in 1981, Kevin Pope, a native of Carmel, Indiana, took a practical approach to getting his start as an illustrator and cartoonist, mailing his portfolio hither and yon. It paid off when the Ottawa Business Magazine in Canada’s capital hired him to illustrate a cover.
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New Books from IU Press: “Chuck Taylor: All Star”
Many people own, and many more know of, Converse Chuck Taylor All Star athletic shoes. Though the basketball players they were originally designed for stopped wearing them in games in 1969, these kicks are still kicking. Today, they can be seen on everyone from Michelle Obama and Miley Cyrus to Will Smith and Kristen Stewart.
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Bloom’s Greatest Hits: Bernstein in Bloomington
The driver pulled up to the house on Lake Monroe where Henry Upper waited eagerly to welcome the legend. Upper, then associate dean of the music school, will never forget the moment when the trunk popped open and he caught a glimpse of its contents. “I almost jumped back and gasped,” he recalls. The rear of the car was packed with a startling number of framed family photographs. “You see, this is what Bernstein did when he traveled. He wanted to surround himself with family. He set the pictures all over the condo so that every place he turned he would see a family member. That tells you quite a bit about the warmth and complexity of this man.”
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Prof’s Unique Collection of World Musical Instruments
Morin khuur. Dayereh. Balaban. Kamancheh. The very names of
Shahyar Daneshgar’s musical instruments evoke faraway lands.
