For one week each June, the picturesque South Texas city of Victoria, population 65,000, rolls out its red carpet and welcomes some of the finest professional musicians from around the country to take part in the Victoria Bach Festival (VBF).
Iberian monophony, Notre Dame polyphony, Medieval mystery plays, Renaissance madrigals, Baroque operas, French virelai, Spanish villancico, Italian frottola, Scottish ballades, Sephardic love songs, and much more—early music encompasses a dazzling wealth of forms and styles.
When Dave Steakley, producing artistic director of The Zach in Austin, decided to stage the first of two Robert Schenkkan plays about the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, he thought it might have special meaning to Texans. After all, Johnson was a Texan from the day he was born till the day he died, and he made sure the entire world knew it.
Experimental plays and intimate dramas set in homes typically belong in black box theaters. The nuance and detail of these productions cannot be captured in larger theaters.
ARCOS Dance is known as an experimental platform for dance technology – a merging together of bodies in space and digital creation. It’s like a modern brand of philosophy, an embodiment of human history alongside a projection of its uncertain future.
On view at the Menil Collection through Oct. 16, As Essential As Dreams: Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Stephanie and John Smither borrows its title from the idea that the desire to create and collect is a deeply rooted human instinct.
Clint Willour is a force in the Texas art world and beyond. His legacy reaches far and wide, through his museum donations, influence on artists and curators, founding of major public art events, and his ability to pull Texas artists into the national art conversation.
In the spring of 1921, the recently established Dallas chapter of the Ku Klux Klan kidnapped Alex Johnson, a black Adolphus Hotel elevator operator. He was driven to an isolated location, whipped, had the initials KKK burned into his forehead with acid, and then forced to walk naked and bleeding into the Adolphus lobby.
A subtle grief—and equal joy—lives in the heart of writing by Texas authors. Texans are known for our pride, but the reality is the term “Texan” carries hidden baggage.