Friday, Dec. 1 RVA Illuminates at Kanawha Plaza Countdown the tree lighting and illumination of the Downtown Richmond skyline when all the lights come on. There will be live performances, food trucks and you can stay in the Plaza for a free showing of the Grinch Movie (2018), sponsored by Venture Richmond. The lights go on at 6 p.m. Event runs from 4 to 7 p.m. Maymont’s Merry Market This festive, family-friendly shopping event eatures 50 local artisans, food vendors, fire pits, crafts for all ages and holiday carolers. It’s all happening on the Carriage House Lawn, decorated for the holidays w ..read more

"Dream Scenario” finds a potent metaphor for how social media conditions us to crave stardom and fetishize trauma; plus John Woo’s lackluster return with “Silent Night.” People are dreaming about Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage). People who know him and those who don’t – there’s no pattern, he’s everywhere, at first as a passive observer to the dreamers’ fantasies of catastrophe, which suggest, resonantly, that people in this fraught age matter-of-factly nurse intuitions of the apocalypse. It’s amusing at first. A lot of “haven’t I seen you somewhere?” An ex-girlfriend comes out of the woodwork ..read more

Charlottesville’s WarHen Records is releasing a 40-artist compilation aimed at fundraising to resist the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Forty artists across have come together across two CDs with one goal: fundraising to support opposition to the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). “It’s been quite a ride,” says Warren Parker, founder of WarHen Records, “and it’s snowballed very quickly.” Titled “STOP MVP: Artists from WV, VA & NC Against the Mountain Valley Pipeline” and slated for release on Friday, Dec. 1, the album will be the Charlottesville label’s first compilation. And ..read more

“Some of us are in search of regaining our strength to deal with humanity in a way that helps everyone,” Dawud Kennedy says. Today he is selling wares outside of his friend, Abdul Haqq’s store, Haqq’s Drawer, at 11 E. Broad St., a community-focused, cultural apparel store that sells clothing, fragrances, bath and body products, vitamins, teas, books and more, including traditional Islamic garments. Haqq welcomes everyone into the store with fresh tea and cold water. A Philadelphia native, Kennedy was incarcerated for 25 years, but throughout his time in prison, he found ways to positively inf ..read more

A preview of Richmond area holiday markets and where to buy local. If you have to shop till you drop, it may as well help support local artists and artisans. Richmond has no shortage of holiday markets, some of them even offering tempting bonuses like booze, music and food trucks. It’s enough to make a person craft a list and enjoy crossing off each item. Maymont’s Merry Market features 50 local artisans, food vendors, fire pits, crafts for all ages and holiday carolers. It’s all happening on the Carriage House Lawn, decorated for the holidays with strings of lights and flanked by Maymont's h ..read more

Multidisciplinary artist, educator and founding artistic director at The Basement talks about her new show, "The Hero’s Journey." "I was in DC and I was a working actor and was pleased to have finally gotten to that point. Then I hurt my back opening night of a dance theater show that I was in and I couldn't walk for eight weeks. Looking back on it, that doesn't seem like a great deal of time, but for me it was like, “Oh, I've gotten to where I want to go.” Then I was pushed to the bottom. And so I didn't know what to do with my anger about that. And so I painted it, my anger and my melanchol ..read more

A VCU media class has created a production company to document Generation Z students on film. You could say that what happened when two dozen passionate media production students decided to take Virginia Commonwealth University Instructor Robert Milazzo’s media entrepreneurship course perfectly encapsulates Generation Z. The entire group decided to create and run a production company called 410 Productions to develop, shoot, market, and publicly screen a documentary that focuses on the diverse, day-to-day lives of three VCU students. Forget “A Day in the Life,” they’re calling it “Going Throu ..read more

Two new Richmond record labels have launched with the goal of surfacing sonic time capsules. It can happen anytime, anywhere. At a Dash In on Parham Road, a former college classmate recognized Carroll Ellis Jr. of Ebony Diamonds and asked, “Didn’t you sing in that group?” At a music festival outside Nashville, a fan stopped bassist Todd Herrington to describe driving into Richmond from Fredericksburg on a weekly basis to see Modern Groove Syndicate. And those moments of being remembered and remembering may arise more often thanks to two newly formed, Richmond-based record labels: Coliseum and ..read more

Starr Foster brings back a mesmerizing piece along with two premieres for “In Rest and Sleep.” “People keep asking me, ‘when are you going to do that one with the grass?’” says Starr Foster. “It’s definitely our most requested dance.” Foster’s troupe, Starr Foster Dance, will be bringing back “the one with the grass,” also known as “In Rest and Sleep,” for five performances starting Nov. 30 at Firehouse Theatre. She premiered the piece at the Basement in 2020. “We did nine shows there and they all sold out,” she says. “People kept coming back.” Foster is a little cagey about how exactly grass ..read more

Mercurial tuxedo cat oversaw Chop Suey Books and Shelf Life Books. The first year that Athena Palmer worked at Chop Suey Books, her boss brought in a cake for her birthday. WonTon, the store’s longtime cat, wanted a piece. “He tapped me on the arm, and when I looked over, he bit my hand and then stole my cake right off my fork,” says Palmer, now one of the two store managers of Chop Suey’s successor, Shelf Life Books in Carytown. WonTon passed away this week at the presumed age of 16. Arguably Richmond’s most famous store cat, WonTon was a constant presence at the shop, whether napping in the ..read more