You’re listening to WTJU Charlottesville. Charlottesville Downtown’s Paramount Theater has ongoing opportunities to take a tour of the historic space, as well as attend live performances. For Arts This Week, we spoke with the Director of Communications, Andy Pillifant, to connect with this living landmark.
Bodies flood through the narrow entrance of a basement lined with graffiti. Basses start to thud as amps enliven the space with an electrifying murmur. The tight constraints of cement columns and a low hanging ceiling tempt trouble. Once the music starts, chatter dulls and the floor breaks into an intense mosh. Exposed pipes serve as obligatory handlebars that threaten to burst with every grasp. Through the pushes and breaks, even those on the outskirts of the space become uplifted. In a fleeting rush, the singer bursts out into the chaos. Her passionate melody is invigorated by the piercing energy. No one is an outcast within this space.
McGuffey Art Center presents a collection of summer shows covering lepidoptera, nostalgia, and the human form. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, Deborah Davis’ “Drawn to Light” offers a collection of moth portraits in acrylic on canvas, capturing subjects observed at the artist’s home in southern Albemarle County. In the First Floor Galleries, Somé Louis and Hanna Taubenberger explore concepts of memory, childhood practices, cherished relationships, and time in “Soft Remembering,” an interdisciplinary, collaborative exhibition featuring textiles, video, bronze sculpture, and more.
The Virginia Theatre Festival keeps rolling with The Heart Sellers, a deeply moving play by Pulitzer Prize finalist Lloyd Suh. Set in 1973 in the wake of the Hart–Celler Act’s abolition of immigration quotas in America, two 20-something immigrant women meet by chance in a grocery store on Thanksgiving night. The women spend an evening bonding over what they’ve left behind, and the exciting possibilities that lie ahead in a new country.
Charlottesville Opera’s second summer production, The Pirates of Penzance, unfolds in a pitch-perfect comedy of errors featuring sentimental swashbucklers, ineffectual police officers, and deeply dutiful young lovers. A technicality threatens to upend Frederic’s newfound freedom, catching the young man in a tug of war of loyalties that sets him both at odds and in league with the titular crew of privateers. Hilarity unfolds in a libretto penned by W.S. Gilbert, accompanied by memorable music by Arthur Sullivan.
After graduating high school, most incoming first-years spend the summer slowly packing their rooms, having awkward conversations with their roommate over Instagram DMs and wondering why they are still in their hometown. While there is no “right way” to prepare for college, first year may be a little easier when not everything feels so unexpected. Luckily, art can offer us roadmaps for new experiences. Here are two movies, two albums and a riveting memoir to guide you into your first year at the University.
Ella Fitzgerald. Dizzy Gillespie. Charles Mingus. Wynton Marsalis. Tony Bennett. Those are just some of the musical greats who have appeared at Blues Alley, the venerable Washington, D.C., jazz club in the heart of Georgetown, founded in 1965. As of Monday, you’ll be able to add Kemi Adegoroye, a 2017 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, to the list. She will perform two shows at the 125-seat venue, which bills itself as the “oldest continuing jazz supper club” in the country.
Mid Atlantic Arts partners with the National Association of Black Storytellers (NABS) and South Arts on the Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowships. This program honors and promotes the understanding of Black Appalachian storytelling traditions that embody the history, heritage, and culture of African Americans in the region. The National Association of Black Storytellers awards one Fellowship per year in each of the six eligible states: Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Virginia Folklife has awarded hundreds of Folklife Apprenticeships to artists, community leaders, and cultural practitioners across the Commonwealth since 2002. We work closely with each apprenticeship team to document their project in context. The resulting photographs are now available — at no cost — for display in Virginia’s public libraries, schools, and other community and cultural institutions. To make a request, review the catalog and complete the order form below.
About once a month, an otherwise unremarkable strip mall in Fairfax turns into a bustling bazaar where you can buy lamb kabobs straight off the fire, delicious samsa (meat pies), flatbread, and homemade liángpí (“cold skin” noodles). “The atmosphere is: you’re in the Uyghur community, you’re in a little homeland,” explained Ajinur Setiwaldi, a resident of Arlington.
For Disability Pride Month 2025 — marking the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — Carla Arton, Keith Weimer, Erin Dickey, Christine Ruotolo, and Bethany Mickel from the UVA Library are proud to spotlight a selection of works that have made the journey from page to screen, offering powerful representations of disability in both written and visual forms. This year’s theme — “adaptation” — invites us to reflect on how stories of disability are told, retold, and transformed when moving from text to film.
Michael Puri, associate professor of music theory and history, co-edited the new book, Musical Meaning and Interpretation: Perspectives, Reflections, Critique (Oxford University Press). In this video, Puri sits down at the piano and discusses his chapter in the volume, illustrating his points by playing excerpts from Debussy and Ravel. Watch as he reveals how the widespread notion of “rotationality,” which conceives of musical repetition as cyclical motion, is not merely a theoretical formalism but is rooted in the idea of sacred ritual.
