What is the role of art and artists amid times of violent political upheaval? And how might women play a part in writing history, thus changing the ways it’s told, and in turn, how they are remembered?

For the Farmers Alley Theatre of Kalamazoo, their new production of The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson hits in all the right places; Heart, mind and soul.

I have never heard a live performance of pop composer Sara Bareilles’s “She Used to Be Mine” without being moved to tears.

During my brief stint as a fact checker for Mother Jones Magazine, I was told by an editor that if I didn’t wake up at night sick with panic over inaccuracies I may have overlooked, then I wasn’t doing my job.

Christian McBride, bassist, arranger, and composer, prides himself on making jazz you can feel.

“Shall I compare thee to a… something?” We don’t usually think of the immortal bard as wracked with writer’s block. And we don’t think of him as young and handsome, either; in the famous Chandos portrait, he’s all receding hairline and sad eyes: a middle-aged icon.

David Edward Smikle was born in 1953 in Queens, some three thousand miles from Portland, OR, where, that same year, Carrie Mae Weems came into the world. Both had an artistic bent: Smikle gravitated toward music; Weems to street theater and dance. The two wouldn’t meet until 1977, by which point Smikle had changed his name to Dawoud Bey. 

Years ago, Muskegon’s Frauenthal Center welcomed to its stage The Dance Theatre of Harlem. The organization was founded in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell,a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet and protégé of the famed George Balanchine.

In 2022, arts organizations are ready and raring to go, with incredible lineups of concerts, symphonies, dance performances, art exhibitions, musicals, plays and more. 

Among West Michigan’s most gleaming jewels is Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, but you know that — word has gotten out. Years ago, its planners dreamed of someday drawing 200,000 visitors a year. In 2015, it drew over 780,000.