BPR Arts and Performance

Tiffany Jackson muscled her way from opera houses to bodybuilding stages to Western Carolina University

Jackson's autobiographical one-woman show, "Rising of the Necessary Diva," is a mix of music and storytelling.

Community shares the byline at new Asheville venue Story Parlor

Erin Hallagan Clare opened Story Parlor last spring as a handful of other venues closed, fulfilling a longtime dream--opening a dependable co-op space dedicated to storytelling.

Even off the dance floor, Louise Runyon seeks movement in her poetry

"Where is Our Prague Spring?" is a sensory tour of Runyon's lived experiences in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

Lee Stockdale turns to poetry to work through and beyond family trauma

Fairview writer Lee Stockdale recounts several decades of memories in his new collection of poetry, titled "Gorilla."

Multimedia installation in Pack Square amplifies local housing issues and the stories behind them

On and around the former Vance Monument's pedestal are sculpture, video projection, and fragments of audio interviews with people who are or have been without housing.

Asheville vocalist Jordan Scheffer has a clear vision about her emerging career

One of the most lauded performers at the past two LEAF Festivals, Jordan Scheffer is leaning into the music and inspiration of Black artists.

Dave Hartley of The War on Drugs gets local and vulnerable with his latest Nightlands album

"Moonshine" is the fourth album Hartley has released as Nightlands.

Taking similar paths to Western North Carolina, former soap opera actresses find comfort evolving from screen to stage

Callan White and Jennifer Gatti co-star in "Roommate" at NC Stage through Oct. 30

Many regard LEAF as a music festival, but founder Jennifer Pickering has always known it's about community

Performances and workshops for the upcoming festival run October 20-23 at Lake Eden in Black Mountain.

Months into creating her latest work, sculptor Nina Kawar found she was marking her own journey

The solo exhibition "Journey Home" is on view through Oct. 9 at Continuum Art in Hendersonville.

Claude Coleman will play music 'anywhere, everywhere, all the time.' His latest venture helps others make music too

The drummer of Ween is also the co-founder of SoundSpace, a former motel converted into a band rehearsal studio.

'Disruption' is just the start of a shift in storytelling at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian

The museum removed culturally sensitive artifacts and replaced them with a range of media from contemporary Cherokee artists.

In Asheville Ballet's season opener, 76-year-old Ann Dunn creates meditation on opacity and transparency

Two hip replacements haven't kept the matriarch of ballet in Western North Carolina off the dance floor.

Jon Stickley's bluegrass band ditched vocals and found its voice

The Asheville guitarist has earned acclaim for his progressive musicianship and songcraft

Smoky Mountain Sirens have wrapped female empowerment into a big-sounding rock record

The women's trio performs their entire debut album, "Solid 8," at a record-release show Friday at Fleetwood's in West Asheville.

Founded as a platform for Black actors, Different Strokes founder wants to go further

Stephanie Hickling Beckman wants to develop work from Black playwrights writing roles specifically for Black actors.

Abby Bryant emerges from an upbringing in the church to define herself in secular music

Abby Bryant and her band are opening for Lucinda Williams Aug. 20 at Pisgah Brewing in Black Mountain

For experimental guitarist Tashi Dorji, the song never remains the same

Tashi Dorji is a solo artist and experimental collaborator who has won a following with his improvisational music.

With Curatory Gallery, Ashten McKinney has created an outlet in Waynesville for artists on the margins

Ashten McKinney is the owner and, currently, primary exhibiting artist of Curatory Gallery, which they launched to promote underrepresented and marginalized creatives.

Rising Appalachia is a band, but the founding sisters say it's also a community

The pandemic cut the sisters off from their people, but not their muse. They formed a songwriting group with three other women, each of them sharing new music with one another every week for the past two years and counting. They said they're excited by what's come from it--a collaborative album of new a capella music.

From intern to director, Lex Turnbull is determined to keep Asheville's Revolve a thriving community arts space

Revolve hosts visual arts exhibitions, performance art installations and esoteric music performances--a programming mix unseen anywhere else in this region--but revenue has always been a challenge.

Author Mindi Meltz writes fairytales for adults, weaving the earthly and otherworldly

Mindi Meltz has just published the final part of her "After Ever After" trilogy. The inspiration and larger question behind the series is right there in the title. Meltz wanted to explore what happens after the happily ever after.

In Digital Era, Zine Publishers Haven't Stopped Expressing Themselves By Hand

Zines are the shortened name for fan magazines. The format came of age in the 1930s and hasn't changed much since. Writing or drawing on paper, hand-stapling or twine-binding and short-run copies are still at the heart of the practice. Some here blur the lines with art books, which can take on a boundless variety of content and physical form.

Sound artist Laura Steenberge says her body knows when she's on the right path

Sound artist Laura Steenberge is performing Thursday night as part of a program at Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center.

Marshall couple imparts community as much as guidance in a new Appalachian Trail book

The couple spent much of the pandemic collaborating on a new guidebook titled "Discovering the Appalachian Trail."

Kenn Kotara found quick success as an artist and has spent much of his career leaning away from it

While Kenn Kotara's work lives in abstraction, the artist said social-political exploration is always at play. It's right there in the title of his new show--"Order in an Unruly Zoo." It's on view through June 10 at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts.

Singer-songwriter Valorie Miller lived near a former chemical weapons plant in Swannanoa and wrote an album about it

More than four decades in, Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre still experimental

The invitation to perform at the (Re)Happening is a testament and homage to Susan Collard that her company, more than four decades after she founded it, still produces experimental work.

As pandemic protocols loosen, concert and theater venues struggle to balance safety moving forward

As COVID numbers drop and protocols loosen, theater and concert venue policies are all over the map. Some require vaccinations and masks. Others require neither. Some are strict enforcers of whatever policies they put in place, others not so much.

Secret Shame vocalist Lena Machina emerges from the shadows of her mind and microphone

In the recording studio with Lena Machina of the Asheville goth rock band Secret Shame