Arts

Carbondale Clay Center’s annual event, Pairings, returns to its home base Friday night. The event celebrates the art of finding the right beverage for the right cup.

The choreographer behind one of Hollywood’s most successful films is a Colorado girl at heart. Mandy Moore drew from her parents’ passion for performance. And it turns out they’ve been key players in the Roaring Fork Valley’s theater community for decades.

Acclaimed novelist Yaa Gyasi will be in Aspen as part of the Winter Words series on Tuesday. Her first novel, Homegoing, came out last year and was NPR’s Debut Novel of the Year.

Street food has reached new heights courtesy of the Aspen Skiing Company. The Sled Mobile Kitchen parks on a new slope each day.

On Friday night, dozens of area high school students took part in Aspen Words’ 4th annual Youth Poetry Slam in Carbondale.

After two weeks of work, students throughout the Roaring Fork Valley gave an auditorium full of adults a clue into their secret lives. There were 24 students who spoke with honest authority on topics that most teenagers keep to themselves. Topics like confidence and anxiety; puberty and relationships; drugs and alcohol; depression and suicide.

“The truth is, when I talk to people, I can’t breathe,” one student proclaimed.

Sarah Manguso is the author of seven books including 300 Arguments, a genre-defying work of nonfiction; Ongoingness, a meditation on motherhood and time; The Guardians, an investigation of friendship and suicide; The Two Kinds of Decay, a memoir of her experience with a chronic autoimmune disease, and Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, a collection of very short stories.

Aspen Laugh Fest kicks off Tuesday night with local and national comedians stepping up to the mic throughout the week.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg returns to The Aspen Institute this weekend as part of the Hurst Lecture Series.

On Sunday, the philanthropist and founder of Bloomberg L.P. will join business executive and institute emeritus chairman Robert Steel onstage.

The discussion will include a new initiative from Bloomberg Philanthropies and The Aspen Institute. It involves experts and major cities worldwide preparing for the future of autonomous vehicles.

A student of the Anderson Ranch Arts Center has won the 60th annual World Press Photo Contest.

The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet is in its 20th season, and Saturday marks the world premiere of a new ballet from commercial choreographer Cherice Barton.

The Wheeler Opera House and Theatre Aspen are co-presenting “An Evening with Matthew Morrison” tonight. Aspen Public Radio’s Claire Woodcock spoke with the onstage and onscreen actor about this evening’s presentation.

An expert on the relationship between the arts and medicine is in town to discuss how families can introduce art therapy into their own communities.

For those living with a chronic illness, or who have a friend or family member who struggles with one, Elizabeth Auer has an easy prescription to fill: art.

Auer is the assistant director of performing arts for the University of Florida. She will be in Aspen making the case for caregivers to incorporate music, dance or the visual arts into a patient’s every day treatment plan.

Anuk Arudpragasam is from Colombo, Sri Lanka, and graduated with a BA from Stanford University in 2010. His first novel is called The Story of a Brief Marriage.  He is also working on his PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University about the theorization and idealization of the individual in the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, and John Dewey.

A professional cuddling business closed its doors in Rifle last month after dealing with harassment from clients and the community.

The Aspen Art Museum has received one of the highest honors in the world of architecture.

David Szalay's first novel, London and the South-East, won the Betty Trask Award along with the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Since then he has written three other novels: Innocent, Spring and All That Man Is, which was was short listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2016 and won the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize.

Theatre Aspen has announced its call for regional actors to audition for its summer performances.

The program is set to open the summer with its biggest production yet, the Tony Award-winning musical "Hairspray."

“There are a lot of talented people in Aspen and the valley and we love for them to audition," said Paige Price, Theatre Aspen's executive artistic director. "It’s really swell when we can hire people that are from town.”