Arts & Culture

Corporate VP Rick Provenzano is the quintessential red-blooded American male. He loves sports, works in the family business, and lives in the ‘burbs with his wife and their 2.5 kids (the youngest is still a baby, so we’ll take the liberty). But there’s one part of his life that breaks…

Oscar Mastrantuono, owner of Bomberos in Sunnyslope, has an unshakable confidence that would make his hot-blooded South American ancestors proud. Though he was raised in New York, the Uruguayan-born entrepreneur carries himself with the same Latino swagger that helped his father immigrate to this country and then run a successful…

Forget any notions you’ve ever had of a fat lady singing opera onstage. Mezzo-soprano Olga Perez looks more like she belongs in the cast of American Idol. But this fall, Arizona Opera’s newest diva-in-training will take on one of her first major roles, in the company’s season opener, Rigoletto (for…

Travis Mesman engages in a nonstop battle with gravity. At 34, the dancer and movement artist wages his war against the invisible adversary during each of his performances, whether he’s propelling his lithe and muscular body through twisting acrobatic routines, or stilt-walking on a stage like a gigantic daddy longlegs,…

Paul Wilson’s had more than a few obsessions in his day. In fact, the über-eccentric artist’s spent a lifetime indulging his endless manias for the past (particularly 1953-1963) and all things kitschy or campy. Following his kooky muse since childhood, the 45-year-old Valley native has chronicled his ever-changing fixations through…

Barry Schwartz is a wired guy. Jittery and manic, the overly hyper artist sounds as though he’s practically plugged into the wall as he explains the large-scale electrified installations he’s built around the world during the past 20 years. In lightning-quick fashion, Schwartz rattles off factoids about attenuators, ground leads,…

There’s a sly smile that highlights Paisley Yankolovich’s face. It’s the kind of bemused calm of knowing that the Christian performance artist’s journey with Jesus is less a sunset-showered walk on the beach than an adrenaline-pumping roller coaster that invites people to hop on and throw up their hands at…

Oksana Kroshkina’s background is as intriguing as her alluring Russian accent. The 31-year-old Soviet-born beauty spent almost a decade traveling the world, masterfully engaging in thrilling and danger-filled exploits on behalf of her motherland. Was she some Communist femme fatale or secret agent? Goodness, no. Kroshkina starred as a high-flying…

Victor Gade’s charisma is no illusion. The affable Argentina-born magician, 59, has a constant twinkle in his eye and suave smile on his face, charming people wherever he goes. He’s also constantly in entertainer mode; cracking jokes or conjuring a simple magic trick from his pocket to amuse an impromptu…

Heavy metal singer Patrick Flannery has lived in the Valley since 1983, and he knows a thing or two about the mingling of faith and freakiness in Phoenix. As a teenager, the Catholic-raised Flannery sang in a choir that performed for Pope John Paul II at Ss. Simon and Jude’s…

Andrea Silkey is obsessed with the quality of her music mixes. Every week, the 31-year-old DJ (who’s also know as Sonique des Fleurs) spends several hours in front of her computer hunting through digital music sites like beatport, djdownload, and trackitdown, sampling more than 500 MP3s of techno, house, and…

You might remember the story of four young Latino men from Carl Hayden High School who built an underwater robot named “Stinky” in 2004. They stunned the nation when Stinky kicked MIT’s lame robot’s ass in a college-level competition in California — not once, but twice. The foursome quickly became…