Austin

Sonic Expansions: Austin’s Experimental Music Scene

Robin K. Williams·
This year I unintentionally celebrated National Bird Day (Jan. 5) at an avant-garde jazz show. The newly-established Austin Cultural Exchange, together with local record label Astral Spirits and Brooklyn-based journal Sound American, presented Nate Wooley (Brooklyn) on trumpet and Ken Vandermark (Chicago) on clarinet and saxophone—in solo and duo sets that destroy common notions of what these instruments can do or the fullness of sound one or two horns can create.
AustinEditor's PicksMusic

Leaving a Mark: PrintAustin Deconstructs Diverse Art Form in 4th Citywide Festival

Jeremy Hallock·
Austin is a capital of printmaking with many different components. Using several venues to host a deluge of events, PrintAustin ties all the components together. The month-long festival from Jan. 13-Feb. 18 at venues including Gallery Shoal Creek, FlatBed Press, and La Pena Gallery, draws a diverse crowd of art snobs, artists, hipsters, and novices. It’s printmaking on a huge scale.
AustinVisual Art

Identity and Mortality with ARCOS Dance

ERIN FULTON·
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.
AustinDance

The Dance of Work: Forklift Danceworks reflects on past projects and looks to the future

Claire Christine Spera·
Convention is not a part of Allison Orr’s vocabulary. The Forklift Danceworks artistic director has carved out a particular niche in the site-specific performance world of Texas—one that draws attention to the people and systems that keep our communities ticking, often without thanks or notice. This is Orr’s specialty: bringing the invisible to the forefront.
AustinDanceEditor's Picks

Dance/USA Conference Convenes in Austin

Nancy Wozny·
The Dance/USA conference was held in Austin this past June, a first for the capital and the organization’s second visit to Texas (Houston, 2009). For me, it was a chance to hobnob with my peers from all over the US, expand my arts toolbox with the broad spectrum of talks and workshops and to spend some much-needed quality time with the Austin Dance community.
AustinDance

Cooking Up Something Big: Co-Lab’s Art of the Brew

Alaena Hostetter·
The Austin non-profit, Co-Lab Projects, is an incubator for more than 100 artists who often rely on collaboration to make their work. For example, the painting duo Drew Liverman and Michael Ricioppo, who function as a unit called YOUNGSONS, had a show in May at Co-Lab’s pop-up location and created a large-scale outdoor mural. So it makes sense that when Co-Lab founders Chris Whiteburch and Austin Nelson decided four years ago to launch Art of the Brew, a beer + art collaboration, it was instantly one of their most popular endeavors. This year’s event takes place on Sept. 3.
AustinVisual Art