“Hip-hop has been my life,” revealed rapper Rachel Paulick, also known as MC Reality, during a recent interview. “I was five when I first put a boombox on my shoulder.” Of her moniker, she reveals, “MC and DJ names take on your persona. You have to earn your name. They call me Reality because I’m […]

Looking for the hottest New Year’s Eve party — or maybe something cozy and romantic? Lucky you: You’ve got options. Here’s a taste of what’s happening around town and in the area (check Clubland for complete listings): • Akumi (28 Wall St.; 236-2577): A club representative promises “fun and exciting live entertainment” — though the […]

It used to be First Night. Now it’s the Downtown Countdown. Sort of like with the pajama-pajahma argument, though, it still feels like New Year’s Eve no matter what you call it. All that really matters is that you make plans to shake your groove thing somewhere. That said, here are a few suggestions for […]

Never mind annual longings for strings of blinking lights, fussily wrapped packages and a glut of frosted cookies — despite our best efforts in those veins, the holiday season still has an annoying way of making us question our material ideals. After the Grinch stole Christmas, the Whos down in Whoville still held hands and […]

[A note to the reader: This article is best accompanied by jazz — say, Chet Baker, circa “I’m Through with Love” — and coffee. Strong, black coffee … we’re about to check the Beats.] I’m talking Kerouac rewriting Buddhism, Cassady stealing cars, and Ginsberg letting out a howl. But of course they were more than […]

“If you give away the ending, we will kill you,” announced Jess Wells, director of the Immediate Theatre Project’s latest offering, Edward Albee’s The American Dream. I tried a nervous giggle. “I’m not joking,” Wells insisted. Theater people sometimes scare me. So I’m not going to tell how this play ends — you’ll just have […]

There’s more than one way to toss around the name of New York’s glamorous theater district. Indiana-bred actress Hanneleis Hepler, for example, has never played on Broadway. But she recently landed the plum role of Golde in a touring production of Fiddler on the Roof — a show that happens to boast the “Broadway” designation […]

This is the story: Four mentally handicapped men live their lives in a supervised house under the eye of a young, burned-out social worker. Okay, it’s not the sexy, midriff-baring, star-vehicle material Hollywood cranks out. It’s not even I Am Sam. The Boys Next Door gives us no explosions, no car chases, no alien invasions, […]

“I’m so glad I don’t have to choose …” sighs longtime Asheville Symphony fan Robyn Leslie. Like most of the Symphony’s audience, she’s been on the fence for a while — about whom to select for next conductor. With the departure of the beloved Robert Hart Baker, who recently completed a 22-season tenure with the […]

There are ballet slippers, yes. But they’re teamed with sports jerseys. And you will hear Chopin. More often, though, it’ll be hip-hop or techno. The first thing that’s apparent about a Hubbard Street 2 performance is that this is no Tchaikovsky show. Three men in white T-shirts gyrate on the floor, athletically and somewhat suggestively. […]

“I find it’s a great way to pick up guys,” local musician Lin Llewellyn recently confided to Xpress. Her advice for the lovelorn? Strum a ukulele. Llewellyn, a hula dancer and member of lei-festooned party band the Hula Cats, is a long-time player and fan of the diminutive instrument, made famous by 1920s-era vaudeville bands, […]

“Look at this one — made in 1930 and it’s ugly,” sniffed one visitor attending the current old-textiles exhibit at the Folk Art Center. Titled 150 Years of North Carolina Quilts: Selections from the Pattie Royster James Collection, the show boasts some 30 examples of the cozy craft. And, as the would-be critic implied, a […]

“Everyone has an idea of what Shakespeare is,” announces Angie Flynn-McIver, director of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) — a collaborative effort between local professional troupes North Carolina Stage Company and Flat Rock Playhouse. “It’s guys in tights,” she continues. “That’s us,” deadpans actor Damian Duke Domingue. But the point of Complete Works […]

“Cancer is a wake-up call, like any life-threatening illness,” local visual artist Vera Struck, herself an eight-year survivor, recently explained via e-mail. “To me,” says Struck, “every day is a gift.” For Struck and other survivors, that gift is something that must be shared — either as a way of healing oneself, of helping others […]

“We make a kind of music that’s not very well known in the U.S.,” says Chilean-born songstress Mariana Montalvo. “When you hear Latin music [in America], it’s Salsa or cha-cha — dance music. “We’re showing another side to Latin music.” Currently on tour with two other Latina performers (Toto La Momposina from Colombia and Belo […]

Just because it doesn’t look like anything you’d buy at the mall, and just because cubic zirconia never enters into the equation, doesn’t mean the jewelry currently on display at Grovewood Gallery should be passed over as too weird to wear. “All of us are challenging the idea that this isn’t a legitimate art form,” […]

“Women’s studies — we though it’d be a little macrame … ” protest Madeline and Sylvia, two New York seniors, as they totter into the cafe where they’re meeting their class. Soon enlightened by their continuing-education course, the eccentric elderly duo attempts to hang with vegetarian cuisine, alternative decor and a feminist-themed interpretive-art performance. That’s […]

Despite the sensational writerly struggles brought to light in Scribblers: Stalking the Authors of Appalachia — Wolfe pisses off everyone in Asheville and Fitzgerald drinks himself into suicidal tantrums — countless other (and, who knows, maybe better) authors grind on at their craft in obscurity. And thus Stephen Kirk’s book is ultimately defined by a […]

“We [aren’t] trying to portray this as an Asian cultural display, but as a horticultural art,” explains Arthur Joura, the bonsai curator at the North Carolina Arboretum. The facility boasts an extensive display of the ancient art – from the expected ficus pruned in the traditional Asian manner to trained bougainvillea and more radical creations […]