Sightlines

Anthony McSpadden wants to expand the music we hear every day on classical radio. “There’s a reason that [classical music] has survived this long: it’s because it’s great music,” said McSpadden, who is the director of broadcast and content at KMFA, Austin’s classical station. “But we have to keep it going with new music and to add to the repertoire,” he said.

When historian and author Lydia Pyne began work on her book “Postcards: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Social Network,” (Reaktion Press, 2021) her relatives began giving her family postcard collections. Her mother sent a box with hundreds of cards Pyne’s great-grandfather had received between...

Two new New Orleans music documentaries are opening in Austin in the next two weeks — “Take Me to the River: New Orleans” and “Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story.” Both cover similar territory, but each has its own framing and focus. “Take Me to...

It’s tempting to say that “Downton Abbey: A New Era” has finally jumped the shark — an entirely inappropriate phrase for such a high-minded sequel. But its multiple story lines — and the insistence on giving every single character upstairs and downstairs a moment on the big screen — makes for something of a muddle.

Perhaps above all else, Cyrus Cassells is a listener. In “The World That the Shooter Left Us,” his most recent book (of many), the poet, who lives in Austin and teaches in the MFA program at Texas State, has his antenna raised high to beam in voices, news and songs from near and far, and to document them in his poems. In a recent email, Cassells commented that “this book was written in Spain and Italy in the summer of 2019 in the space of eight weeks — the most mysterious and speedy of all my poetry books: all my feelings about the day-to-day chaos and unravelling democracy in America since 2016 poured out of me.”

In a way, “Happening” couldn’t be more timely for U.S. audiences, although the events depicted in the new film from director Audrey Diwan take place in France in 1963. The movie might as well be named “Harrowing,” because that describes the experiences facing the main character, Anne, played by Anamaria Vartololmei.

Texas Performing Arts unveiled it 2022-23 season of interdisciplinary performance, curated by executive and artistic director Bob Bursey. Dance Theatre of Harlem; South Africa’s Vuyani Dance Theatre; Mexico’s indigenous-centered Makuyeika Theatre Collective; all-female ensemble Flor de Toloache; Italy’s Compagnia TPO (Teatro di Piazza o d’Occasione); and Sandbox Percussion are among those bringing shows to TPA, University of Texas’ performing arts presenter.

Former staffers from Austin’s Mexic-Arte Museum have turned to social media to bring attention to what they call hazardous working conditions and other issues at the downtown museum. The group launched the Instagram account @changemexicartemuseum on May 11, posting images and video showing mold growth on walls and ceilings,...

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is the latest locale for an arty entertainment designed to dazzle crowds. Come Sept. 9, some 28,000 solar-powered lights will be spread across 16 acres at the Wildflower Center with “Field of Light,” a spectacle designed by British artist Bruce Munro. The multi-colored lights are intended to resemble flowers and meant to be viewed at night.

“Parque Zaragoza: Communidad, Cultura, y Resiliencia” is a new short documentary that offers a history of Austin’s first public park for Austin’s Mexican American community. Produced by the city’s Park and Recreation Department ahead of Parque Zaragoza’s 90th Anniversary Celebration on May 14, the 16-minute film is...

Yuliya Lanina is an Austin-based American artist of Ukrainian-Russian-Jewish descent whose wide range of work comprises paintings, animation, animatronic sculptures, performances, and installations. Her art can be surreal, colorful, otherworldly, sexual, and playful, always edged with darkness. Soon after the pandemic hit, Lanina traveled to Vienna as a Fulbright Scholar,...

At a live-streamed Q&A with writer/director Alex Garland after an Austin screening of his new horror film, “Men,” the interviewer started with a rather inelegant comment — that Garland’s movie was a “mind-fuck.”. Garland didn’t seem to mind, but he didn’t answer the implicit question...

Part history lesson, part art exhibition, Mexic-Arte’s “Chicano/a Art, Movimiento y Más en Austen, Tejas 1960s to 1980s” invites viewers to either learn about for the first time, or revisit, an important period in Austin’s cultural history. “El Movimiento” took a historically derogatory label and...

In celebration of Pride month, aGLIFF will host Pride Mini Film-A-Thon, a weekend of films and programming June 3–5. The mini-fest includes four feature films, one shorts program and a live comedy show with 69-year-old transgender comedian Julia Scotti that follows a screening of Susan Sandler’s award-winning documentary portrait “Julia Scotti: Funny That Way.”

The culmination of the St. Elmo’s Arts Residency, Cortés’ exhibition probes a liminal space where personal and territorial boundaries overlap.

Director Sam Raimi won over many of our hearts with his delightfully droll “Evil Dead” movies of the 1980s. He gained more respect with his adaptations of the “Spider-Man” movies, starting in 2002. With “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” he loses a lot of...

The best and freshest of what to see in Austin galleries this month. Cloud Tree Studios & Gallery, 3411 E. Fifth St. cloudtreestudiosandgallery.com. New work by eight Austin artists who share a penchant for using natural elements in their abstract paintings: Rory Foster, Shawn Camp, Abi Daniel, Jason Brooks, Ann Flemings, Jana Swec, Court Lurie and Blair Gallacher.

May 13-15 Women & Their Work outdoor garden, 1311 E. Cesar Chavez St. Tickets: natalie-george-productions.ticketleap.com/knock-knock/. A multimedia dance and music performance created by the inimitable Heloise Gold and Henna Chou. This intimate and informal presentation will share the work Chou and Gold have been collaborating on slowly and intermittently over the past two-and-a-half years. Experimenting with sound and movement loosely based on themes from the ancient Chinese Classic the Tao Te Ching, which has directly or indirectly influenced both of their lives.

The Austin Film Festival announced Wednesday the beginning of two initiatives to increase diversity and equity through its programs. The first, the Uplifting Storytelling Initiative, will include targeted fellowship opportunities within the festival’s film and script competitions and in events at the annual writers conference. The festival also plays to expand its Digital Storytelling Education Program in school in Austin and elsewhere in Texas.

Flash Jordan, the eccentric Austin public access TV character who played a keyboard and sang with an Elvis impersonator and three male backup dancers, has died. Her music show was called “Austin City Lights.” She also teamed up with Danny Boy Squire as Elvis in a public access reality show, with Flash Jordan as Marilyn. The show followed them traveling by car to various towns for performances.