Deborah Cox is a Grammy Award nominee and R&B powerhouse, and a distinguished national touring artist. To put it simply: She’s a pretty big deal. Unfortunately, she’s also a human who gets sick (or at least that’s what the woman seated next to me heard), and wasn’t able to perform during opening night of The Bodyguard: The Musical at Wharton Center in Lansing. Cue the understudy, Jasmin Richardson.

It has been roughly 180 years since Frederic Chopin composed his piano etudes. In proficient hands, these brief musical exercises sound as fresh and poignant as the time when Chopin first created them. On the fingertips of a fearless and imaginative master, they become individual masterpieces in their own right.

The Grand Rapids Ballet’s 2017-2018 season opener, From Russia With Love, offers a soaring sampling of some of the greatest classical dance in the Russian style, and it was performed with a passion and grace that can only be interpreted as coming from the fire of love central to all great artists’ work. The love exchange evident in the Peter Martin Wege Theatre is profound; the loop from tradition to dancer to audience member is infinite and deeply satisfying.

A family simply trying to make ends meet is at the center of “Detroit ‘67,” a drama written by Dominique Morisseau and being performed by Grand Rapids’ Ebony Road Players. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Detroit riots, and the community came out to see a show that strongly reflected the Motown era and, in many ways, eerily mirrored today’s society as well.