Arts & Culture
Stories and videos about music, dance, visual and performing arts and film in the Kansas City metro.
Sympathetic Vibrations | From the Shadows to the Main Stage
Over the last decade, dance music has enjoyed a metamorphosis of culture and scale that is perhaps the fastest and most drastic of any genre across music history’s zeitgeist. And this weekend in La Benite Riverfront Park, Kansas City’s Dancefestopia will bring together more than 100 acts to provide a LED-fueled example of just how…
The American Royal & Other Weekend Possibilities
Find your inner fire with Port Fonda’s (4141 Pennsylvania Ave.) second annual Hatch Chile Festival from 9 a.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday. The block party features an outdoor bar with Hatch chile margaritas and micheladas, as well as fire-roasted hatch chiles. They’ll also have live music starting at noon with The Grisly Hand. Colony (312 Armour…
Unimagined and Reimagined Lives
During nearly two decades as a refugee in Nepal, Laxmi Ghimire could only dream of the life she now lives in Kansas City, Kansas. She was among the Nepali-speaking Bhutanese who sought refuge in eastern Nepal in 1990, after they were exiled for advocating for social and political rights. One of their major demands was…
Jazz History Tour & Other Weekend Possibilities
The Jazz History Tour ($25) begins at 9:30 a.m. Saturday. Chuck Haddix leads the walking tour in two parts that revolve around spots that were instrumental in jazz icon Charlie Parker’s life. There’s also a 2 p.m. chicken feed featuring fried chicken, Parker’s favorite food, at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center. The Lawrence Beer Co. (826 Pennsylvania…




The Fatigue of Discomfort
Unless you often enter a space where you need to do an instinctive assessment of your environment based on race, you may not get why I’m so tired. This past weekend, between errands in another part of town, I spent a couple of hours knitting in a coffee shop. It was a hopping place. But…