“At the Festival, We’re All Family”: Reflections on the Ninth Annual African American Cultural Festival in Raleigh
This past Labor Day weekend marked an opportunity to experience Black Raleigh in full force at the ninth annual African American Cultural Festival of Raleigh and Wake County. Though the numbers aren’t in yet, an estimated forty thousand people participated in the festival this year. Artists came from as far as Denver and New Jersey,…
Durham Independent Dance Artists Will Use Winter to Center Before a Streamlined 2019 Season
Since Durham Independent Dance Artists began curating, promoting, and supporting an annual performance season in 2014, participation in independent dance in Durham has grown by leaps and bounds, on both sides of the ticket stand—a feat in which DIDA, though far from alone among emerging support organizations, played an undeniably large role. Though DIDA does…
Theater Review: Some Stale Jokes and Skimpy Set Pieces Aside, Raleigh Little Theatre’s Convent Comedy Sister Act Is Habit-Forming
Sister Act ★★★ Through Sunday, Sep. 9 Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh Like the movie, Raleigh Little Theatre’s production of Sister Act has a lot to offer: amazing vocals, show-stopping spectacle, and snappy comedy. Unfortunately, the script feels very much like it’s still meant for 1992 movie theater audiences. Many jokes feel outdated, if not offensive,…
Movie Review: A Talented, Tortured British Fashion Supernova Receives a Compassionate Tribute in McQueen
McQueen ★★★½ Now playing Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui’s documentary about the life and career of British fashion supernova Alexander McQueen reveals a man whose personal demons drove his prolific, darkly beautiful designs. The film gains unprecedented access to the designer’s family and revisits key moments of his archive and inspirations. It paints McQueen as…
Movie Review: Internet Celebrity Bo Burnham Skewers the Medium of His Fame in Half-Brilliant Directorial Debut Eighth Grade
Eighth Grade★★★½ Now playing It’s hard to predict who will feel more disquieted watching Eighth Grade, Generation Z or its parents. Writer-director Bo Burnham, who rose to fame as an Internet sensation, skewers the very modern-day milieu that serves as his celebrity platform. The film focuses on Kayla (fifteen-year-old Elsie Fisher), who is in her…
Movie Review: The Least Interesting Thing About Christopher Robin Is Christopher Robin
Christopher Robin ★★½ Opening Friday, Aug. 3 The least interesting thing about Christopher Robin is Christopher Robin. Decades after departing from the Hundred Acre Wood as a teenager, Robin (Ewan McGregor) is all grown up, not to mention a World War II veteran. He has a wife (Hayley Atwell), a daughter (Bronte Carmichael), and a…
Movie Review: The Audacious Mission: Impossible – Fallout Rivals the Best of Bourne and Recent Bond
Mission: Impossible – Fallout ★★★★½ Now playing No moment in Mission: Impossible – Fallout captures Tom Cruise’s outsize persona better than the long shot of Cruise racing a BMW Scrambler motorcycle around the Arc de Triomphe. Cruise’s fascinating mélange of ego and effort is his stock-in-trade, so an iconic monument commissioned by Napoleon is a…
More Culture Coverage
ADF Review: Abby Zbikowski’s Tectonic Erupts from a High-Energy, Low-Stakes Footprints, Ending the ADF Season on a Joyful Note
Footprints ★★★½ Jul. 20 & 21 Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham Every year, I’m reminded why I love the American Dance Festivals’s Footprints show. Usually concluding the season, it features the work of the festival’s commissioned choreographers and stars its students. A few choreographers have the luxury of spending six weeks focused on creating wholly new…
Dance Review: Justin Tornow and COMPANY’s Maze of Dance-Tech Dioramas Illuminates Compelling Questions About Autonomy and Art
COMPANY: SHOW ★★★ ½ Jul. 11–15 The Fruit, Durham For a show that consists of things happening inside boxes, SHOW is awfully hard to put in a box. Premiering at The Fruit last week, the virtually un-googleable performance installation by Justin Tornow and COMPANY is a maze of dance-tech dioramas in which enticements for free-range…
ADF Review: Dancer Tamisha Guy Steals the Show in Kyle Abraham’s Almost Unbearably Intimate Dearest Home
Kyle Abraham’s “A.I.M.” ★★★★ Jul. 17–19 Von der Heyden Studio Theater, Durham I’ve heard it said that marriage is ultimately little more than two naked people together in an empty room. That is, you bring to the partnership nothing more than yourself, with all the concomitant baggage. That concept came to mind while I was…
ADF Review: Heady Deconstructionist Tere O’Connor’s Long Run Is More Engaging in Theory than Practice
Tere O’Connor ★★ Jul. 10 & 11 Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham Something is amiss when a choreographer’s theories prove more engaging than the work that embodies them. This was the case with Long Run, Tere O’Connor’s newest work, commissioned by the American Dance Festival. Critics and audiences have long celebrated the specificity of the choreographer’s…
Theater Review: Innovative Direction and Fine Performances Add Intimacy and Impact to Theatre Raleigh’s Big Fish
Big Fish★★★★ Through Sunday, Jul. 22 Kennedy Theatre, Raleigh When James McMurtry sings, “Life and legend are an awkward pair,” we take it that the son of Old West novelist Larry McMurtry is voicing a truth that’s close to home. Playwright John August explores similar terrain in this prismatic musical stage adaptation of Big Fish,…
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