Connect with us
[adrotate banner="51"]

Arts & Entertainment

Weekend Radar: Fair Rodeo, Mother India, Ride and Dive, Amazing Acro-Cats

A good number of our picks happen tonight so get to planning.

Published

on

Rafter Z Rodeo at Chesterfield County Fair
September 2nd

This a twofer. To get to the Rodeo you’ve got to go the County Fair. I went on Wednesday and had a blast. The fair is awesome and a rodeo to boot is even more awesome. I’d suggest getting to the arena early prime seats are likely to fill up fast. Expect crowds this is the last days of the fair.

Bareback Riding, Saddle Bronc Riding, Steer Wrestling, Team Roping, Breakaway, Tie Down Roping, Barrel Racing, and Bull Riding.

Mother India at Gallery 5
All of September

My knowledge of Indian art and artists is next to nothing. Fortunately I’ve got a chance to fix that this month.

Mother India is a month-long art show at Gallery5 that celebrates the overlap of our region’s Indian art and artists! Art and India have been inseparable for thousands of years. India’s cultural heritage has been passed on through the arts throughout all of India’s history of colonialism, gaining independence, and entering the international arena as a global superpower. Indian artists have a unique offering to share with the world. On one hand they hold an ancient artistic lineage, on the other, a modern approach to our ever changing world. The art itself has remained rooted in some of the oldest traditions on Earth while also constantly evolving to meet the relevant needs of contemporary life. Gallery5 is thrilled to display a group of artists that help share this notion. From paintings and ceramics to film, photo, and projections, Mother India shares some of the color, texture, tones, and vibrancy that is unique to Indian art. The show will open on Friday September 2nd at Gallery5 for the monthly First Friday art walk in the historic Jackson Ward Arts District.

Ride and Dive 2022 at All the Pools
September 3rd

This weekend marks the closure of most pools. So why not hit all of them in one day and have a beer after?

16 miles, 7 pools, 5 hours, 1 celebration of RVA biking and swimming.
Ride and Dive is an annual group ride and race against the clock to bike to and swim in every public pool before they close for the day and the summer. Along the way, see how far Richmond’s bike infrastructure has come and how much further it still needs to go.
Arrive at Fairmont Pool ready to swim promptly at noon and then bike to and swim at the following pools:
-Fairmount
-Woodville
-Hotckhiss
-Battery Park
-Randolph
-Blackwell
-Powhatan
Triple Crossing Fulton for pizza and beers at 5:30


Amazing Acro-Cats at Gottwald Playhouse
September 3rd

This cat band rolls into town fairly regularly and I always miss it and it’s going to happen again. Don’t be like me, go see the cat band.

The Acro-Cats, featured in the Netflix series Cat People, are coming to Richmond!

This troupe of trained domestic house cats, all former orphans, rescues, and strays, give a one-of-a-kind “purrformance” that includes cats riding skateboards, jumping through hoops, ringing bells, balancing on balls, and performing other feats of agility and entertainment. The show finale is the only all-cat band in the world: Tuna and the Rock Cats. The Rock Cats play guitar, drums, and piano, and they’ve recently been joined by the Jazz Cats on saxophone, trumpet, and clarinet.
How do you train a cat to do complex stunts? Chief Executive Human (CEH) Samantha Martin uses clicker training, a technique involving only positive reinforcement, to train her troupe. Samantha and her assistants, and the Acro-Cats, tour the U.S. in their “catified” bus, which often is also home to a litter of foster kittens.
In addition to being on Cat People, the Amazing Acro-Cats have been featured on national TV shows including The Late show with Stephen Colbert, Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl, CBS News Sunday Morning, and PBS Nova’s Cat Tales.

The Acro-Cats tour to support Rock Cats Rescue, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Rock Cats Rescue is focused on saving cats “One Click at a Time” through cat welfare, rescue, and adoption. The Acro-Cats show promotes the importance of bonding and training cats with positive reinforcement, while also finding homes for rescued cats. Rock Cats Rescue has found homes for 309 kittens since 2009.

Ticket Information:
Very Important Cat People Furront Row (VICP ONE): very front row seating and get to participate in the Meet & Greet fuurst
VICP TWO: seating in rows 2, 3, and 4 and get to participate in the Meet & Greet after VICP1
General Admission: seating in the rest of the theater and get to participate in the Meet & Greet after VICP ONE and VICP TWO
Discounts: A discount of $3 per ticket (excluding VIP ONE) is available to military, seniors (65+), and children (ages 2 – 12)
All the rules!
Due to the nature of the show and the cats’ decree, outside animals are not allowed inside the theater. This doesn’t include children, and kids 2 and under who stay on someone’s lap during the entire purrformance do not need to purchase a ticket.

Lobby, Box Office, and Merchandise open one hour before each showtime, and seating usually starts 30 minutes prior to posted show time.
ADA seating is available!

This event is suitable for cat lovers of all ages, but wild children and crying babies will be given candy and a kitten and returned to their legal guardian. (Or just asked to step outside of the theater to calm down before returning to the theater.)

Thank mew and enjoy the show!

Will you help support independent, local journalism?

We need your help. RVAHub is a small, independent publication, and we depend on our readers to help us provide a vital community service. If you enjoy our content, would you consider a donation as small as $5? We would be immensely grateful! Interested in advertising your business, organization, or event? Get the details here.

Richard Hayes is the co-founder of RVAHub. When he isn't rounding up neighborhood news, he's likely watching soccer or chasing down the latest and greatest board game.

Continue Reading

Arts & Entertainment

12th annual Richmond Bluegrass Jam set for April 22nd benefitting military veterans and families

The free, family-friendly event features 20 of the region’s best bluegrass and Americana bands playing on multiple stages for nine straight hours, all to raise money for military veterans and their families through two local organizations.

Published

on

The Richmond Bluegrass Jam will return for its twelfth year on April 22, 2023, from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., at American Legion Post 354, on the banks of the James River in Midlothian, Va. This is the second year the Jam is being held at the American Legion Post after a previous multi-year run at the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen.

The free, family-friendly event features 20 of the region’s best bluegrass and Americana bands playing on multiple stages for nine straight hours, all to raise money for military veterans and their families through two local organizations: the Richmond Fisher House, a home away from home for the families of veterans and active-duty soldiers recuperating at Richmond’s McGuire Veterans Medical Center; and Liberation Veteran Services, which provides housing and care for veterans in crisis.

Fans are strongly encouraged to make tax-deductible donations to the Richmond Fisher House and Liberation Veteran Services at the event or online at rvabluegrassjam.com. Over the past eleven years, the event has raised more than $204,000 for the families of military men and women.

The bands—all of which play at no charge in support of the Richmond Fisher House and Liberation Veteran Services—include Tara Mills Band, Cary Street Ramblers, Josh Grigsby and County Line, Cook County Bluegrass, Slack Family Bluegrass Band, and more.

The event also will feature local craft beverages and Richmond’s food trucks.

“We’re excited to bring the Richmond Bluegrass Jam back to American Legion Post 354 after a successful event last year,” says Tim Gundlach, president of RVA Bluegrass Jam, Inc., the event’s organizer. “This new location along the James River is not only inspiring, but also further connects the Jam with our military community. This year, we’re expanding our support of our military veterans and their families by raising money for both the Richmond Fisher House and Liberation Veteran Services. We’re proud to partner with these two extraordinary organizations.”

In addition to listening to the scheduled bands, attendees are encouraged to bring their own instruments. Several open jam areas will be available, as well as an instrument check station.

American Legion Post 354 is located in Midlothian, Va. Parking will be available at nearby James River High School, 3700 James River Rd., with free shuttles running throughout the day.

More information at rvabluegrassjam.com and on Facebook at facebook.com/rvabluegrassjam.

Will you help support independent, local journalism?

We need your help. RVAHub is a small, independent publication, and we depend on our readers to help us provide a vital community service. If you enjoy our content, would you consider a donation as small as $5? We would be immensely grateful! Interested in advertising your business, organization, or event? Get the details here.

Continue Reading

Arts & Entertainment

Husband-and-wife duo bringing new restaurant concept to former Mill on MacArthur space

The deal closed Monday for an undisclosed amount. Sperity Real Estate Ventures’ Nathan Hughes worked the deal.

Published

on

From Richmond BizSense:

Barely a month after its closure, The Mill on MacArthur restaurant space in the Bellevue neighborhood is set to be reborn.

Husband-and-wife duo Rawleigh and Jaya Easley purchased The Mill’s lease at 4023 MacArthur Ave. and its equipment and are planning to open a new restaurant in its place called Neighbor.

The deal closed Monday for an undisclosed amount. Sperity Real Estate Ventures’ Nathan Hughes worked the deal.

Continue reading here.

Will you help support independent, local journalism?

We need your help. RVAHub is a small, independent publication, and we depend on our readers to help us provide a vital community service. If you enjoy our content, would you consider a donation as small as $5? We would be immensely grateful! Interested in advertising your business, organization, or event? Get the details here.

Continue Reading

Arts & Entertainment

Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU’s bevy of spring exhibitions run the gamut

An international group exhibition studying abstraction and a monumental new public artwork by Navine G. Dossos for ICA’s iconic facade kick off the 2023 spring season

Published

on

The Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (ICA at VCU) has announced its Spring 2023 season, featuring a group exhibition and corresponding public art installation, both organized by ICA Senior Curator and Director of Programs, Sarah Rifky, as well as hybrid performances as part of the Test Pattern series. Additionally, Misread Unread Read Reread Misread Unread Reread (MURRMUR), an ongoing research framework that opened in Fall 2022 with the self-publishing pavillion by Rafael Domenech, will continue through 2023 with further iterations and programs by artists and educators.

Installed across the ICA’s multiple galleries and spaces, So it appears, runs through July 16, 2023. The exhibition features nineteen artists from around the world whose works appear inscrutable at first glance—but upon closer examination, tangible, acutely urgent narratives begin to emerge. Grappling with the paradox of how to represent the unrepresentable, the collected artists have surfaced abstraction as a visual strategy—a tactic for encoding, encrypting, and indexing otherwise invisible realities and disasters, as well as speculative futures. Formal abstraction, color fields and conceptual minimalism act as repositories for stories of carcerality, injustice, enslavement, the invisibility of migrants, environmental racism, and sonic warfare, among other realities.

Though created at different times (from 2004 to the present) and in vastly disparate contexts across fourteen different countries, the works presented in So it appears reveal surprising affinities in their approaches, subtleties and associations. Seen together, they invite visitors to reflect on the interconnectedness of the manifold global crises.

Featured artists include Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Monira Al Qadiri, Alexander Apóstol, Navine G. Dossos, Torkwase Dyson, Basmah Felemban, Žilvinas Kempinas, Agnieszka Kurant, Dinh Q. Lê, Jeewi Lee, John Menick, Novo (Reynier Leyva Novo), Trevor Paglen, Walid Raad, Tomás Saraceno, Pak Sheung-Chuen, and Levester Williams. Tasmania-based artist Tricky Walsh and New York–based audio artist and producer Sharon Mashihi will also be in residence throughout the exhibition’s run and will produce new works to be presented on April 21st on the occasion of the ICA’s fifth anniversary.

Concurrently, artist Navine G. Dossos will present a public work, McLean (2023), on ICA at VCU’s iconic N. Belvidere facade, on view for one year, February 24, 2023 – January 7, 2024. For this visually spectacular work, the artist adapted one hundred gouache paintings she created between 2018 and 2020, each panel in response to a news article published in the wake of the heinous murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi—a resident of McLean, Virginia—in October 2019.

Through this series, Dossos has developed a lexicon of symbols that stand in for the absent picturing of the case. The work is rendered in Dossos’ double take on Islamic and geometric arts, yet instead of lines and shapes, Dossos composes her intricate work through graphic icons, a representation of the narrative thread, encompassing multiple forms of technology, different individuals, nation-states, law enforcement agencies and human rights organizations. McLean is developed from Dossos’ project No Such Organization (2020) and which will be shown as part of So it appears.

Continuing from the 2022 Fall season is Misread Unread Read Re-read Misread Unread Re-read (MURRMUR), a ten-month curatorial framework and publishing program committed to expanding how we think about exhibitions and what it means to read, publish and distribute art, books and ideas. Developed in conversation with participating artists and educators, MURRMUR seeks to break down, massage, map and circulate information through experiments, improvisations and alternative curriculums. MURRMUR is organized by Senior Curator and Director of Programs, Sarah Rifky, and Assistant Curator of Commerce and Publications, Egbert Vongmalaithong.

MURRMUR presents two new programs in April 2023 and one new installation of research, references and a materials library designed by Sam Taylor in February 2023, organized by Egbert Vongmalaithong, ICA Assistant Curator of Commerce and Publications. On view February 24–July 16, 2023, in the ICA Shop + Cafe, Taylor’s installation provides objects that can be activated with a tap of your phone to reveal media and texts, providing insight on MURRMUR and the upcoming iterations.

One of the new programs is between a book and a soft place, a new commission by new media artist and design educator nicole killian. Designed as a playful learning environment, visitors are invited into this play-space to consider various ways for language to be carried out, embodied, and “queered”: we wear the language, we dance the language and we hold it in our hands. An intervention on the ICA’s 2nd floor, between a book and a soft place, can be considered a study on killian’s research questions around queering design education.

MURRMUR also presents SIT(UATION), a mutable seating and display system by artist Riley Hooker in collaboration with architect Nick Meehan. The project grows from a desire to center the body in the act of reading and the structure can be understood as plasmatic—resisting fixed linearity and promoting intellectual promiscuity. The design pulls from 1960s radical architecture, post-modern seating design a-la Peter Opsvik and Terje Ekstrøm, educational methods developed for neurodivergent students, embodiment and mindfulness practices, and anarchic political theories. The research and process behind these programs will be presented in February 2023 and on view from April 21–July 16, 2023.

In September 2022, MURRMUR opened with The Medium is the Massage, a new commission by artist Rafael Domenech. Visitors to The Medium is the Massage can become authors, readers, editors, and publishers when they enter this continuously transforming publication-pavilion. The living space turns the art gallery from a site of passive reception into a site of active production, right up until it closes on July 16, 2023, when the public will be invited to take the project’s remains out of the gallery and into their homes.

TEST PATTERN

Curated by ICA Assistant Curator and Producer David Riley, Test Pattern is a hybrid performance series inspired by the legacy of visionary public-access TV programs and alternative video movements in the US. The series invites artists to turn the ICA auditorium into an experimental production studio for week-long residencies, during which they collaborate with members of the local community to create a live performance and internet broadcast. Launched in March 2022, past Test Pattern performers include DeForrest Brown Jr., madison moore, SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, Moor Mother, jaamil olawale kosoko, Kinlaw and Dorian Wood.

Test Pattern returns to the ICA auditorium on Friday, April 7, with a performance by vocalist, composer, and performance artist Holland Andrews. Their work focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build cathartic and dissonant soundscapes. Andrews arranges music for voice, clarinet and electronics and frequently highlights themes surrounding vulnerability and healing. In addition to creating solo work, Andrews develops and performs soundscapes for dance, theater and film. Their work has toured nationally and internationally with artists such as Bill T. Jones, Dorothee Munyaneza, Will Rawls and poet Demian Dinéyazhi.

Will you help support independent, local journalism?

We need your help. RVAHub is a small, independent publication, and we depend on our readers to help us provide a vital community service. If you enjoy our content, would you consider a donation as small as $5? We would be immensely grateful! Interested in advertising your business, organization, or event? Get the details here.

Continue Reading