Arvada Center President and CEO Philip Sneed has just returned from a goodwill trip to explore cultural-exchange opportunities with the West African nation of Senegal.
“I think there is great value in exploring both the African and the African American voice,” said Sneed. “I think it’s important for us to give a platform for both, just as we present both European and American work.”
Sneed, along with three officials from the Denver Botanic Gardens, visited at the invitation of Papa Dia, a native of Senegal who immigrated to Denver in 1998. Dia used his first job stocking books at the Tattered Cover Book Store to teach himself how to read, write and speak English. After a 17-year banking career, he founded the African Leadership Group, an Aurora-based nonprofit that each August hosts the month-long Afrik Impact Summit to celebrate and advocate for the African immigrant community in Colorado. It’s an event robustly supported by U.S. Rep. Jason Crow and Gov. Jared Polis, who has declared August as African Immigrant Month in Colorado.
The Arvada Center has been partnering with the African Leadership Group for several years, including presenting a concert last summer by Carlou D, an outspoken voice from Senegal’s hip-hop generation.
Sneed has a history in international cultural exchanges. His tenure running the Colorado Shakespeare Festival included a major collaboration with the largest theater in eastern Russia in 2010.
Arvada Center President and CEO Philip Sneed receives a gift during his recent cultural exchange visit to Senehal.
In Senegal, he met with several politicians and the nation’s ministers of both culture and art (there called “artisanat”). He also was interviewed on a national TV show from Dakar called “Diaspora.” In return, he was asked to advise the city of Thiès on creating and designing green spaces within the city, as well as a proposed indoor arts center.
Sneed toured the country’s major performance and exhibition venues, and saw performances by artists from across the African diaspora. A highlight was visiting a small village where, he said, “women and children of all ages assembled in the courtyard and started singing and dancing as welcome. It wasn’t planned. It’s just what people there do when there are guests.”
He also visited the island of Goree – which anachronistically translates to “good harbor.” That’s where tens of thousands of chained human beings were sent on wooden ships to Europe and the Americas over 300 years. Sneed called it a profoundly moving experience.
“We got a real look at the country and its complexity,” he said. “And we learned a lot about the slave trade.”
Sneed says the most tangible outcome from the trip, beyond an enhanced relationship with Colorado’s African immigrant community, will be the introduction of even more African art and artists to Arvada Center audiences.
“I think the best opportunities will be in music, dance and visual art, because they don’t have a theater tradition in the same way that we think of it in the U.S. – but music and dance is huge.”
Vintage Theatre mystery
What first presented itself as a possible hate crime at Vintage Theatre has since been relegated to an odd but thankfully less sinister mystery.
A look at the hole in the wall that was done to a mural depicting Duke Ellington not long after Saturday’s performance of ‘Sophisticated Ladies.’
In short: Around 10:30 p.m. Saturday night, just after two separate stage performances finished up, someone threw a half-dozen eggs at the theater’s storefront window at 1468 Dayton St. in Aurora. About an hour later, staff noticed that, back inside the company’s larger of two theaters, someone had left a fresh and pronounced hole in a wall where, just an hour before, the company was presenting Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Ladies” to another capacity crowd.
It’s where the damage was done to the wall that sent chills throughout the company. The hole, about a foot wide and nearly as tall, was (likely) kicked right into the wall where artist Ryan Herbst has painted a large mural of Ellington, one of the great jazz composers and bandleaders of the 20th century.
For two days, Artistic Director Bernie Cardell and his primarily Black cast and creative team could only speculate as to who the vandal was (if it was a vandal), what message they meant to send (if there was one), and what connection it might have had to the near-simultaneous egging outside (if there was one).
“Certainly they were all shaken up,” Cardell said of the ensemble. “They had concerns, so we made plans to up our awareness.” Vintage, like the nearby Aurora Fox, always has a security officer on the premises on show nights, mostly just for patrons’ peace of mind.
After two days of concern and conjecture, Cardell reported the mystery of the damaged wall has been solved internally – and he’s now convinced the incident was not motivated by bias. Still, the whole thing was unsettling to everyone, especially given the charged times we are living in. The apparently unrelated egg-tossers, by the way, remain unknown.
One way to show your support for Vintage artists is to attend either of their current standout offerings: “Sophisticated Ladies,” a high-energy Ellington revue, is something special, and it plays through March 5 in the Nickelson Auditorium. “The Roommate,” a dark comedy about a friendship between two middle-aged women that rides off the rails, plays through Sunday (Feb. 19) in the studio theater.
Debra Gallegos will be honored by Su Teatro.
Su Teatro honors Gallegos
Su Teatro, Denver’s longstanding Chicano theater company, will celebrate the career and contributions of 40-year actor, director, musician and company icon Debra Gallegos with a reception at 5:30 p.m. Saturday (Feb. 18), in between staged readings (at 3 and 6 p.m.) of Anthony Garcia’s “Ludlow,” about the 1914 massacre of 21 striking miners, wives and children. Information at ovationtix.com.
In this clip from ‘The First Step,’ Louis L. Reed meets with a group of incarcerated men and discusses bipartisan criminal justice reform.
Local film news
“The Holly” has done it again: First promised only a tentative one-week theatrical release at the Sie FilmCenter, Julian Rubinstein’s documentary look at the cozy relationship between the city of Denver, its police and gangs, has been extended for a second time, now through at least Feb. 23. The film also has added Starz to its streaming outlets, will have a special screening Friday at the Salida Steamplant including a chat with Rubinstein, and make its New York City debut with a week-long run at Cinema Village starting March 3 in Greenwich Village …
CNN political contributor Van Jones has made no secret of his desire to pass landmark legislation on prison reform and encourage a more humane response to drug addiction. His efforts are chronicled in a new documentary called “The First Step,” which will be released ahead of most of the country both at the Denver and Boulder Harkins cinemas on Feb. 21, as well as Boulder’s Dairy Arts Center on Feb 22. The film is said to be an intimate look at the fire Jones takes from both sides of the political spectrum in this deeply divided nation.
Sigh: COVID Watch is back
Positive COVID tests have forced the Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins to cancel its upcoming opening weekend of Neil Simon’s “Lost in Yonkers.” The new opening date will be Feb. 24. Info at basbleu.org
And finally …
The Magic Moments community has been hit by a second death in a month. The company presents a massive annual musical revue that puts up to 150 artists with and without disabilities on stage together for an array of pop songs and showtunes threaded by a usually lighthearted original story. Gianna Attardi, a 2006 graduate of Columbine High School and longtime featured dancer and singer, died Feb. 8 at age 35. Magic Moments’ 2023 offering, “The Envelope,” will be staged in memory of Attardi and costumer Laura High from March 30 through April 2 at Littleton High School.
On Valentine’s Day, the new Clover and Bee Productions staged A.R. Gurney’s ‘Love Letters’ at The Savoy Denver using three nontraditional couples. The play originally called for one man and one woman. The event benefited the Denver Actors Fund. From left: Chloe and Susannah McLeod; Josh Hartwell and Jim Hunt; Tyrell D. Rae and Stuart Sanks.
