Culture

The Yellow and Blue

Nov 4, 2025 | , , |

Some years back, I went to the Michigan Union Ticket Office to get tickets for a U-M Men’s Glee Club concert. But when I finally got to the front of a long line, the young clerk politely told me MUTO didn’t sell Glee Club tickets. This surprised me, I told him, because the Glee Club website said this was in fact the only place that sold them. He assured me that no, MUTO did not sell Glee Club tickets. I gently persisted: “Another indicator is the sign behind you that says ‘Glee Club Tickets Sold Here.’” This observation delighted the people in line behind me.

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The School of Yoga’s Uncertain Future

The School of Yoga’s Uncertain Future

Oct 24, 2025 | , , |

There’s a secret room in the basement of the Ann Arbor School of Yoga (AASY). Below the studio space, behind the changing areas, there’s a room where three huge shelves groan under the weight of Blakeney’s collection of yoga books. Her students are allowed to read the books, but not take them home, so many of them peruse the private library before and after class.

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Cluster Museum Is Coming Out Swinging

Cluster Museum Is Coming Out Swinging

Oct 24, 2025 | , |

A former ballet studio on N. Main is ready for a star turn in a new artistic direction. Cluster Museum, a new collaborative of local artists, hosts a small commercial gallery with art supplies for sale in the front section. Behind the wide viewing window is an ample floor for contemporary thematic exhibits, workshops, and author readings.

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The Mighty Fitz

The Mighty Fitz

Sep 24, 2025 | , |

The “Mighty Fitz,” the biggest ship on the Great Lakes when it was launched in 1958, went down with all hands in a storm on Lake Superior in November 1975. Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot immortalized it in “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” and now it’s the subject of Bacon’s latest book: The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald. 

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Theatre NOVA

Theatre NOVA

Aug 8, 2025 | |

Theatre NOVA is heading into its eleventh season in 2026 in the face of financial uncertainty. In the summer of 2025, the Trump administration called for a 35 percent cut in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Its grants are vital to many creative organizations, and Theatre NOVA is no exception.

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The Play’s the Thing

The Play’s the Thing

Jul 25, 2025 | |

Eva Rosenwald, the actress who initiated and is developing the series she calls “Acting Out,” told spectators that actors like to get together to read plays when they’re between productions. Why not read them in public? she wondered. Why not take the opportunity to bring the community together for a free theater experience?

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Arking for a Friend

Jun 25, 2025 | , |

When a friend texted that her niece had signed up for open mic night at the Ark and invited me along, I said sure. Despite proofing the Observer’s listings for the event for nearly a decade, I had never checked it out, and I thought it could be an interesting way to spend a rainy spring evening.

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Featured Artists

Featured Artists

Jun 25, 2025 | , |

Wandering the lines of booths that snake through downtown, the Ann Arbor Art Fair feels like a single vast event. But within it are three separate fairs, each with its own governing board, jury, and territory. And every year, each expresses itself with an original poster and merchandise created by one of its artists. This year is no exception, and all three artists, in their own ways, are exceptional.

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Target: The Arts

Target: The Arts

May 24, 2025 | , , |

Without waiting for Congress to act, his appointees cancelled NEA grants that had already been approved—including $30,000 for the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The 2025 festival was in March, and “I had already submitted our final report and payment request,” says executive director Leslie Raymond. 

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Leon Makielski’s Midwest Perspective

Leon Makielski’s Midwest Perspective

Mar 25, 2025 | , |

An impressive selection of Makielski’s landscape work can now be seen at the Michigan Art Gallery in Pittsfield Twp. This exhibit and sale, lasting until May, shows sixty-one paintings, almost all of them landscapes, painted en plein air in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.

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17 Blocks

17 Blocks

Feb 24, 2025 | , , |

A Community High and U-M grad, Rothbart has worked as a ticket scalper and pizza delivery driver, created a magazine, and won an Emmy. This year, a Knight-Wallace journalism fellowship brought his family—wife Margaret Box and their kids, Desi, six, and Birdie, three—to a rented house on the Old West Side. And this month, he’s reuniting with his second family—the one featured in his documentary 17 Blocks—in an event at the Michigan Theater.

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The Michigan’s New Face

The Michigan’s New Face

Feb 24, 2025 | , , |

The best thing about Liberty St., one could argue, is the Michigan Theater. Along with hundreds of films every year, it hosts concerts, children’s theater, celebrity artists, and dozens of other major events. Its recreated historic sign is a landmark rivaled only by its sister theater a block away, the State. That streetscape—with the U-M’s Burton Tower rising in the background—inspired the Michigan Theater Foundation’s recent rebranding as Marquee Arts.

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La Raza: Arts and Media Collective, 1975–Today

La Raza: Arts and Media Collective, 1975–Today

Feb 24, 2025 | , |

At the height of El Movimiento—the Chicano/Latino labor and civil rights movement led by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez—a group of mostly Mexican American U-M social work students founded Trabajadores de la Raza, intended to support underrepresented students and promote justice at the university. This group would evolve into the La Raza Arts and Media Collective, part of a vast network of grassroots organizations throughout the country. In UMMA’s glass-walled Stenn gallery, La Raza: Arts and Media Collective, 1975–Today celebrates its fiftieth anniversary.

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Event Review: Stargazing

Event Review: Stargazing

Dec 23, 2024 | , |

The planetarium rotates three shows every month, but the Sky Tonight, which runs twice every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, is always the “star” attraction. The presenter, usually a U-M science student, leads an exploration of the current night sky, gives tips on how to find the cardinal directions, constellations, and planets on your own, and winds up with a trippy full-speed-ahead jaunt through the stars that feels both like a roller coaster and a ride on a spaceship.

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Paper Cut

Paper Cut

Dec 23, 2024 | , , |

Advance Publications, owners of the Ann Arbor News and seven sister MLive papers, announced in October that it will shut down the Jersey Journal at the end of January, while also eliminating print editions of its flagship Star-Ledger and two other papers in New Jersey. Following the digital transition of four Advance-owned papers in Alabama and Mississippi in 2023, this move raises the possibility that print editions of the News and the rest of the MLive group could be next.

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The Birth of Cinema Guild

The Birth of Cinema Guild

Oct 25, 2024 | , |

Cinema Guild cosponsored the Ann Arbor Film Festival from its start in 1963 and hosted guests like Frank Capra, Harold Lloyd, Andy Warhol, and the Velvet Underground. And it sometimes courted controversy with screenings of banned films like Flaming Creatures, which in 1967 led to the arrests of four Cinema Guild board members.

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Event Review: Creature Discomfort

Event Review: Creature Discomfort

Oct 25, 2024 | , |

The legend of the Mothman originated in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where between November 1966 and December 1967, locals reported sightings of a winged humanoid creature with huge, glowing red eyes. While skeptics argued that the sightings could be attributed to sandhill cranes or large owls, the incidents led to widespread fear and speculation, some believing it to be an extraterrestrial or supernatural entity. After the Silver Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River in December 1967, killing 46 people, theories arose that the Mothman was an omen of impending disaster.

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