On any given weekend, Dallas is teeming with burlesque. It seems counter-intuitive; while the stereotypes may be overblown, the city is regarded as socially conservative, with an predilection for ostentatious displays of real or imagined wealth and “high-brow” entertainment. Burlesque culture is a different animal, but not entirely. It is…
See also: *Richard Doherty’s Photos at Mighty Fine Arts Will Remind You of Our Beautiful Detritus *At Oliver Francis, Rachel De Joode’s “Real Things” Work, Until She Describes Them The Modern’s Lucien Freud Portraits showcases 90 works that span the artist’s adult lifetime. Standing in the middle of any group…
Black leather gets clingy in the heat and her Tammy Faye Baker tattoo is susceptible to sun damage, so you won’t catch drag superstar Sharon Needles hostessing a brunch anytime soon. Dance routines involving parasols are also out of the question. In fact, her rider includes: A coffin, pallbearers, a…
You know what Dallas needs? A weekly indoor marketplace connecting local artisans with potential clients that also promises free beer and wine. You know what Dallas is getting? Bingo. This upcoming three-day weekend is full of promise, but none as big as the Dallas Handmade Arts Market Grand Opening on…
It was the “slut” heard ’round the world: Back on Leap Day, you’ll recall, talkshow host Rush Limbaugh famously criticized [read: slandered] a Georgetown University law student named Sandra Fluke, calling her a “slut” after she testified before congress about the need for insurance companies to cover birth control. Limbaugh…
See also: The Five Best Bald Actors on DFW Stages The circle of life for Dallas Summer Musicals is to find big shows based on popular movies and bring them back to the Music Hall at Fair Park season after season. Why else would they book return visits of The…
See also: 55 Movie Trends That Need to Die Now. Somewhere on Earth right now, an Alf movie is in the works. Rebooting and rehashing big film ideas isn’t a new Hollywood trend, but the modern Hollywood is notable for taking a huge, caustic dump on an already-beloved franchise. Earlier…
I love this curvacious bench, which has its formal debutante reveal tonight on the corner of Pittman and Fort Worth Avenue at 7 p.m. It’s a new piece of public art, meant to gussy up the exterior corner of Chicken Scratch’s property, improving pedestrian conditions along the South Dallas strip…
Excerpt from Paul Sharits’ “Shutter Interface” (1975) *Maybe don’t watch this if you have epilepsy. As far as artistic genres go, video art is still a young tyke. It didn’t grow into a known and identified category until the late 1960s and early ’70s, and from there it’s exploded. Still…
Ah, 2011. Back then you could occupy anything. So much hope, so much vigor. So many billy clubs and cans of pepper spray. Where did the time go? And how, in a post-OWS world, could MIttens be polling so well? We cannot guarantee that Kitchen Dog Theater has the answers,…
See also: So, Dallas, There’s Going to Be an Art Exhibition in a Swimming Pool My dog doesn’t get invited to many cultural events. The reasons for this are multifold, with the most obvious being that he’s a dog. So when Nacho received an invitation to Ari Richter’s gallery pre-screening…
In the late nineties I heard an episode of NPR’s This American Life about life in prison. The segment that stuck with me was from a former inmate who wound up in the prison infirmary, where a piece of red thread somehow ended up on his infirmary blanket. The gist…
If Ariel were here, she’d be shitting herself. Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat / wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete … Actually we’re not all that clear on the digestive workings of little mermaids, but you get the point. SCAB is presenting Sink or Swim (BYOBS) at “Pool…
In its past two installments, Vinyl Thoughts, the local celebration of nerdly arts, has been popular. So much so, that shopping the event came with a door wait. Dallas, it seems, is famished for custom and customizable toys (and free drinks), so the club-style events filled almost instantly, leaving a…
It’s one of the more elaborate television-related protests we’ve seen. AMC has created a farcical presidential candidate who is now on a cross-country campaign, which will hits Tampa and Charlotte for the Republican and Democratic conventions, respectively, before culminating in New York on September 5. Dallas happens to be the…
When we see you on the street and think you put some thought into your style, we may take your picture and ask you things. We call it Street Style. See previous renditions here. Earlier this week, in honor College Week, we wandered over to SMU to check out what…
Jump on it — the Arts District just announced that the Dallas Theater Center is offering a Pay-What-You-Can performance of The Second City Does Dallas on August 29. Tickets will fly, so grab yours now. As of this morning, 78 remain. Originating in Chicago, The Second City has cultivated such…
Holler at your Fly Girlz, there’s a nineties party on Saturday! Hold on to your fannypacks, kids. It’s going to be one helluva weekend. You’ll need to clone yourself by Saturday to hit up Art Conspiracy’s RZN8, a pro wrestling match (and wine mixer) in a sports bar, a ’90s…
It’s happened: We’ve blown another summer. America’s future leaders are piling back to their schools, and we’re honoring them with how-to’s, survival guides and personal stories of failure from Observer staff. That’s right, It’s College Week. Read more in our college-themed section. First week of college, ladies. You’re going to…
How do you get ahead as a theater actor in Dallas and Fort Worth? Try shaving it. Finding good roles is not a hairy problem for this quintet of talented gents who don’t mind that their scalps occasionally upstage them. Herewith (and hair without), our list of the best bald…
Unfasten your seatbelts; Autobahn isn’t such a bumpy ride. The seven short, intense two-character scripts by Neil LaBute, grouped as a “play cycle” under one main title, are being performed by Totally Wow Productions in the studio black box space at WaterTower Theatre in Addison. Each playlet is set in…
Hit & Run: A ’70s Car-Chase Flick for the Utne Reader Set
Hit & Run, a new action comedy engineered by co-director/writer/star Dax Shepard, is as much about running mouths as running motors, and injects estrogen into the few remaining enclaves of American testosterone, muscle cars and FM cock rock. Shepard plays Charlie Bronson, a 35-year-old in Nowheresville whose life, as we…
