Arts & Culture

The Arizona BBQ Festival is the biggest honky-tonk in the state. Or maybe it’s the biggest hoedown. Or is it a hootenanny? Call it what you want; it’s a party, complete with live country music, contests of Redneck ability — think arm-wrestling, toilet-seat horseshoes, pie-eating, watermelon seed-spitting, bobbing for pigs’…

For a decade the beauty, brains, and talent of the Valley’s Asian-American community have taken center stage at Miss Asia Arizona. This year’s 10th annual event celebrates that and more with a pageant steeped in opportunities for personal and professional growth and leadership. Created by Gene Flores, a Pacific Islander…

Tradition meets innovation as Ballet Arizona once again celebrates American ballet pioneer George Balanchine. With this year’s All Balanchine, the company will take on three works that spanned as many decades in the New York City Ballet founder’s acclaimed career. Works Allegro Brilliant, Stravinsky Violin Concert, and La Sonnambula all…

Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexico’s victory over the French army in the 1862 Battle of Puebla. The rich history and cultural importance of America’s favorite Mexican holiday is celebrated annually downtown at the Cinco de Mayo Festival Phoenix. The event, naturally, features a plethora of fine food, cold Mexican beer,…

Prior to the white man’s arrival in Sonoran Desert, indigenous groups used native plants for strictly utilitarian purposes such as housing, ladders, and security. Today, the woodturning of Arizona’s indigenous plants spawns new thoughts about potential uses. Working with everything from mesquite to saguaro ribs, the brothers Moulthrop — Philip…

If you’re an NFL fan living the Valley, you’re in hog heaven right now. Well, pigskin heave anyway. Aside from forgoing costly airfare to catch the big game, 2015 also marks only the third time that the Pro Bowl is being played in the same city as the Super Bowl…

Whether you’re a frequent contributor to Wookieepedia or you’ve never even heard of Jabba the Hut, you can always stand to brush up on your Star Wars history. As part of Children’s Book Week at Changing Hands Tempe, 6428 South McClintock Drive, Lucasfilm writer Adam Bray and Star Wars expert…

If the timeless image of Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart gazing longingly into each other’s eyes isn’t seared into your mind for all of eternity, you probably need to watch Casablanca again. Luckily, the film is coming to Film Bar, 815 North 2nd Street, this week as part of the…

Federico Fellini’s 1957 film Nights of Cabiria was about a happy-go-lucky prostitute. Sweet Charity, the Broadway musical that was based on the film’s screenplay? It’s about a young woman named Charity Hope Valentine who’s employed as a, uh, dance hall hostess. Through the ups and downs of her adventures and…

“I told myself I would give him 10 chances,” Laurelann Porter begins, begging the question: how many would you give? Porter, a doctoral candidate in Theatre and Performance of the Americas at ASU, takes the stage to tell about leaving her own abusive marriage. Her one-woman show, How not to…

What happens in the studio, shouldn’t always stay in the studio. Studio Visit Q+A is a weekly series that profiles artists in their studios. We ask them questions, they provide answers, and then we have a nice discussion about their work. This week: Phoenix ceramic artist Patricia Sannit. History is…

Public art nerds, take note. Local performing arts mavens Tania Katan and Katie McFadzen are boarding buses on the morning of Sunday, May 3, joined by fellow fans of public art, for a one-day, seven-city tour of public art works. Participants will get to see more than a dozen works…

Cinco de Mayo is just around the corner, and while May 5 doesn’t mark the anniversary of Mexico’s independence like many think, it is still a worthy reason for celebration. And what’s better than celebrating? Celebrating for free, duh. Here are our three picks for celebrating Cinco de Mayo without…

Looks like Phoenix made it on somebody’s naughty list — again. A new study, published as a blog post by BetterDoctor.com, found Phoenix to be one of America’s 10 least bike-friendly cities. We spoke about these findings with with Divya Raghavan, the Bay-area analyst who created the list, and with…

[DE/AS]cending What if ASU Art Museum were a bunker? And what if said bunker was holding a store of water? That’s the premise of [DE/AS]cending, a theatrical and immersive experience that brings two troupes of master of fine arts students who specialize in theater to engage spaces throughout the museum…