Bal­let 7220 to per­form “Alice in Wonderland”

The Bal­let 7220 dance com­pany will be per­form­ing Alice in Won­der­land, with an orig­i­nal score and cast of over 30 dancers this week. Catch the show in the Edu­ca­tion Audi­to­rium at the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming on Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 23 at 7:30 pm. Tick­ets are $10 for adults and $8 for chil­dren under 12. For more infor­ma­tion or to pur­chase tick­ets please call 307.742.6767. … Con­tinue Reading

Inter­view with Ron White

Nation­ally known come­dian, Ron White, per­formed in Laramie on Wednes­day. We had the chance to sit down and ask him a few ques­tions. See the inter­view video here. … Con­tinue Reading

Not Your Mama’s Country

There are coun­try shows that cater to rock­ers and rock shows that spin a lit­tle bit of coun­try, but Fri­day night’s Lynyrd Skynyrd show with open­ing act, Dierks Bent­ley, at the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming’s Arena Audi­to­rium, brought some­thing for every­one in the crowd of approx­i­mately six thou­sand.  The con­cert marks not only the start of the school year and foot­ball sea­son in Laramie, but the University’s first foray back into brin­ing head­lin­ing artists to south-east Wyoming’s largest arena, since Elton John head­lined a ben­e­fit con­cert for the Mathew Shep­ard Foun­da­tion in 2009, rais­ing $550,000 at the event.

Many in the state may remem­ber the days when Garth Brooks, Chris LeDoux, and other major tour­ing acts played the Arena Audi­to­rium (“Dou­ble A” as it’s called by fans), as a reg­u­lar event in Laramie – and Friday’s show did not dis­ap­point, deliv­er­ing a lit­tle bit of coun­try and a whole lotta’ rock-n-roll to the crowd that included stu­dents, the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Board of Trustees and fans from as far away as South Dakota, Nebraska and Utah. … Con­tinue Reading

Jazz Per­for­mance Begins UW Cul­tural Pro­grams Fall 2010 Con­cert Series

Sept. 3, 2010 — Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming — Jazz musi­cian Cyrus Chest­nut will start the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Cul­tural Pro­grams fall con­cert series at 7:30 p.m. Fri­day, Sept. 10, in the Fine Arts Cen­ter con­cert hall.

Tick­ets cost $22 for the pub­lic and $18 for stu­dents and senior cit­i­zens. Tick­ets can be pur­chased online at www.uwyo.edu/finearts or call (307) 766‑6666. Tick­ets are also avail­able at the Wyoming Union infor­ma­tion desk and Fine Arts box office. The Fine Arts box office hours are Mon­day through Fri­day, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and one hour before each sched­uled per­for­mance. … Con­tinue Reading

Pre­his­toric Fishing

It was about 2 p.m. on the Snake River.  Jeff and Alex had already caught a stur­geon each.  The guide said the fish tend to get less aggres­sive by the after­noon, so the feel­ing of rest­less­ness set­tled.  The tip of my fish­ing pole had bounced gen­tly every five-to-10 sec­onds before I yanked the pole into the air finally hook­ing my elu­sive prey.  The guide said he had never landed a fish on this par­tic­u­lar part of the river which inten­si­fied my anx­i­ety ever more.  The boat was pulled down­stream by the tug of the fish, all with­out snap­ping the line or free­ing itself from the hook.  When the boat abruptly stopped, my pole was placed then in its holder and the real bat­tle began.  It lasted roughly 20-to-25 min­utes with the stur­geon jump­ing out of the water twice, try­ing to release itself from the hook.  My left hand was start­ing to cramp from hold­ing the pole.  Even though my pole was in the holder, it was still a nat­ural reflex to main­tain a grip on it.  A sud­den thought comes to mind, could I out­last an aquatic crea­ture that weighs more than I do?  In response, more adren­a­line kicked in and the cramp was gone.  As the fish approached the boat, it was clear it was start­ing to tire and so I guided it to the bank.  The bat­tle was over-and I had never felt so alive.  I went down to the water to claim my trophy.

… Con­tinue Reading

Unique Bali­nese dance at UW

The semes­ter is com­ing to an end at the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming, and now is the time for term papers, last minute study ses­sions and final touches on semester-long projects. For the stu­dents of the Hon­ors Program’s Bali: Life and Art class, a semester’s worth of prac­tice is about to pay off. On Sun­day, April 25^th at 3 p.m. in the UW Edu­ca­tion Audi­to­rium, the stu­dents along with the Wyoming Game­lan Can­dra Wyoga will present an after­noon of Bali­nese dance and music.

… Con­tinue Reading

The down-to-earth sounds of Ani Difranco

Escap­ing Anglers

Have you ever wanted to escape? The calm sound of a river, birds chirp­ing in the air, the sun shin­ing and a cool breeze with no one in sight. Two flicks of the wrist and you feel it, you see it, you know it and there it is, a firm strike, the hook set, the edge of the rod bent and the bat­tle is on. The drag is loos­ened and down­stream I go. The sounds of reel­ing in, the line being taken, the feel­ing of force upon the rod, the water splash­ing, it is give and take at this point. Finally, it is take, and I have won.

… Con­tinue Reading

Oscar nom­i­nated films com­ing to the Wyo

If you are one of those who find them­selves annu­ally dis­ap­pointed in the num­ber of Oscar con­tenders that come to Laramie, there is a solu­tion.  The Wyo The­ater is offer­ing a small, but nonethe­less intrigu­ing answer to some of your woes.

Play­ing every Sun­day night at 7pm through May 2, the Wyo offers admis­sion for one night spe­cial show­ings of select films that didn’t make it to Laramie’s Fox Cin­ema.  Play­ing on re-run, many films, includ­ing every­thing from Oscar con­tenders to for­eign films to musi­cals, have become part of the Wyo’s annual Spring Film Series.  Admis­sion is $6.50 a ticket or $5.00 with the pur­chase of a $5.00 Mem­bers Card

The Oscar Nom­i­na­tions were announced Feb­ru­ary 2, leav­ing film fanat­ics every­where spec­u­lat­ing on the who will vs. who should win the awards.  Unfor­tu­nately, Laramie did not host many of the smaller films included in the nom­i­na­tions, namely those with lim­ited releases.  Fur­ther­more it’s going to be a while before the films, many of which were released in late 2009 for Oscar con­tention, will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray.  Due to this, it is nearly impos­si­ble to see these films in Laramie before their fates are decided by the Oscars on March 7^th.  It is also vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble for the aver­age Laramie cit­i­zen to ever see them in their orig­i­nal for­mat, on the big screen.

I just went to see the Best Pic­ture Nom­i­nated British film “An Edu­ca­tion” last Sun­day night, and was pleased by a sur­pris­ingly qual­ity print (con­sid­er­ing it’s been trav­el­ing around from the­ater to the­ater for months now), and a film that was both chal­leng­ing and enter­tain­ing.  Play­ing this upcom­ing Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 21 is “Pre­cious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sap­phire.”  The film has already received crit­i­cal acclaim along with gar­ner­ing five Oscar Nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing nods for Best Adapted Screen­play, Best Sup­port­ing Actress, Best Actress, Best Direc­tor, and Best Pic­ture.  Costar Mo’nique is a sure to win Best Sup­port­ing Actress and the film itself promises to be one of the most excru­ci­at­ingly potent and grit­tily authen­tic cin­e­matic expe­ri­ences of the year.

While “Pre­cious” is the only film show­ing before the Oscars take place on March 7, many more promis­ing fea­tures fol­low, all listed below with a brief descrip­tion.

Feb­ru­ary 21:
“Pre­cious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

It’s earned five Oscar Nom­i­na­tions, is the favorite to win best Sup­port­ing Actress, and fea­tures only the sec­ond black Direc­tor ever to receive a Best Direc­tor Nom­i­na­tion in Lee Daniels.

Feb­ru­ary 28:
“The Road”

This post-apocalyptic film fea­tures the gritty tale of a man and his fam­ily try­ing to sur­vive in a des­o­late land­scape.  It stars one of Hollywooa’s pre­mière tal­ents in the under­rated Acad­emy Award Nom­i­nated (2007, “East­ern Promises”) Viggo Mortensen, who many will rec­og­nize as Aragorn form “The Lord of the Rings” fran­chise.

March 7:
“Bro­ken Embraces”

Star­ring Acad­emy Award Win­ner (2008, “Vicky Christina Barcelona”) Pene­lope Cruz, this Span­ish film was Nom­i­nated for the Golden Globe for Best For­eign Film.

March 14:
“A Sin­gle Man”

Colin Firth received a Best Actor Nom­i­na­tion for his por­trayal of a man deal­ing with the loss of his long­time part­ner.

March 21:
“The Young Victoria”

This period drama about Queen Vic­to­ria received Nom­i­na­tions from the Acad­emy for Art Direc­tion, Cos­tume Design, and Makeup.

March 28:
“The White Ribbon”

This Ger­man film won the Golden Globe for Best For­eign Film, along with receiv­ing an Oscar nod in the same cat­e­gory and an addi­tional nod for Best Cin­e­matog­ra­phy.

April 11:
“The Last Station”

Helen Mir­ren and Christo­pher Plum­mer both received act­ing nods from the Acad­emy for their work in this his­tor­i­cal drama.

April 18:
“Nine”

Though crit­i­cally bashed, this remake of Fed­erico Fellini’s musi­cal “8 ½” earned another Acad­emy Award Nom­i­na­tion for Pene­lope Cruz, along­side addi­tional nods for Art Direc­tion, Cos­tume Design, and Orig­i­nal Song.

April
25: “Crazy Heart”

Jeff Bridges is prac­ti­cally guar­an­teed the Best Actor statue for his work in this char­ac­ter study about a C&W singer.  Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal, of “Dark Knight” fame, also received a Sup­port­ing Actress Nom­i­na­tion, com­ple­ment­ing the film’s Best Orig­i­nal Song Nom­i­na­tion.

May 2:
“The Lovely Bones”

Peter Jack­son, Direc­tor of the infa­mous “Lord of the Rings” tril­ogy, received lit­tle crit­i­cal sup­port for his drama about a young girl’s mur­der and sub­se­quent after­life, but the film was able to snatch a best Sup­port­ing Actor nod for Stan­ley Tucci chill­ing antag­o­nist.

And the Oscar goes to…

The 82^nd Oscar Nom­i­nees have been announced, high­light­ing the final col­lab­o­ra­tion on Film Awards deemed the Best of 2009.  As always with this time of year, comes many unjust snubs, credit where it’s due, and some bizarre sur­prises too.  The Oscars, will be hosted by “It’s Com­pli­cated” co-stars Alec Bald­win and Steve Mar­tin and will air on CBS, March 7^th @ 6pm.

… Con­tinue Reading