Kate Gibbons

Elitch Gardens Theme and Water Park has started its 123rd season with a new family-friendly roller coaster, seven more shows and a third custom-craft beer.

The park's new Blazin' Buckaroo allows cowboys and cowgirls as short as 36 inches high to climb aboard (but they'll need to be accompanied by an adult until they reach 42 inches). While the new coaster may not have the vertical drops or speed of the park's other roller coasters -- Twister 2 and the Mind Eraser -- the Blazin' Buckaroo still makes two full spins around the 360-foot track with a 15-foot drop, several quick turns and hits a speed of 15 mph.

See also:
-Radium and roller coasters: A brief, dirty history of Elitch Gardens
-Custom beers: Great Divide rolls with Chipotle while the Wynkoop rides with Elitch's
-For Your Amusement

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A work constantly in progress, the Crochet Coral Reef is an installation of ten textile pieces at the Denver Art Museum, part of its summer exhibition, Spun: Adventures In Textiles. Through the project's Denver Satellite Reef, museum visitors have a chance to contribute to the installation directly, by coming in any Saturday or Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and crocheting a piece of the reef.

"As we were kind of exploring different installations that would relate to this big textile initiative that has been spearheaded by the re-installation of our own textile collection, the Crochet Coral Reef was one of those things that popped up on the radar," says Jenna Madison, manager of studio and artists programs at the DAM. "We contacted the Institute for Figuring [the Crochet Coral Reef organization started by Margaret and Christine Wertheim in California], and got the ball rolling about when and if we could get the pieces installed onsite."

The Crochet Coral Reef is both an environmental and educational project involving a global community, everyone from expert crafters to beginning crocheters, all led by the Wertheim sisters. The Denver Satellite Reef is just one of many offshoots, which have been installed in New York, Chicago, London, Dublin and other cities around the world.

See also:
- Spun spins a museum-wide web of textile-related exhibits at the Denver Art Museum
- 100 Colorado Creatives: The Ladies Fancywork Society
- DIY feminist writer Margaret Wertheim discusses the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

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The annual Five Points Jazz Festival is Saturday, May 18, and to kick it off, the city is offering a special screening of the 2011 documentary The Girls In the Band at the McNichols Building tomorrow night. The film traces the history of female jazz musicians who were marginalized and often hidden from the spotlight, starting in the 1930s and continuing to the present day; it includes rare footage of the players, and many sharing their own stories of struggle and triumph on camera.

"We thought it was an important film to show because it is a story that no one really knows," says Niecie Washington, special event coordinator for Denver Arts & Venues, which puts on the Five Points Jazz Festival.

See also:
- The five best jazz shows in Denver this May
- Women + Film = Discussion
- Arts & Venues Denver: The city's artful merger of culture and concrete

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"Happy," Eduardo Sarabia.

In Tainted, Guadalajara-based artist Eduardo Sarabia manipulates reality through a combination of paint and photography. Tapped to curate the Huevos Revueltos series at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Sarabia has invited invites artists, spiritual and legislative experts, and writers to discuss the cross-pollinating of contemporary art, politics and culture in Mexico over the next three Thursdays.

In advance of tonight's program, Sarabia spoke with Westword about how he chose the topics for Huevos Revueltos, what he hopes to bring out in conversations about marijuana legislation and shamanism, and how each ties into the contemporary art of Mexico.

See also:
- Slideshows: Fancygasm at the MCA
- Artist Ellina Kevorkian on taking the academia out of art
- Meditate on modernism in the spare canvases of Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico

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The official start of summer is over a month away, but the unofficial start is upon us, with the release of the Film on the Rocks 2013 schedule. There's certain to be some controversy over the selection, but as in years past, the Denver Film Society -- led by FOTR Program Director Britta Erickson -- has taken great care in curating a series of both crowd-pleasing and interesting movies. Kicking off with Back to the Future on May 29, the line-up also includes titles like Wet Hot American Summer and Die Hard.

"I think it's a really great combination and caters to an array of generations," says Karla Rodriguez, audience development and social media manager for FOTR. "It's not just movies you want to bring your kids to -- it's movies you want you want to bring your parents to."

See also:
- 2012 Film on the Rocks includes fan-favorite The Notebook, but no Big Lebowski
- 100 Colorado Creatives: Keith Garcia, Denver Film Society
- Best of Denver 2013: Pre- and Post-Movie Party Spot- Sie FilmCenter

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Image from DanceAfrica Denver 2012.

Dr. Charles "Baba Chuck" Davis founded DanceAfrica almost four decades ago as a unique celebration of Africa and its diaspora. For the next two weekends, DanceAfrica will partner for the third time with the forty-year-old Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble on DanceAfrica Denver, which will feature not just performances of In the Valley of the Nile, a dance summoning the prowess of ancient African queens, but a craft market and tastes of authentic African cuisine.

See also:
- Photos: Industrial Project allows Wonderbound dancers to sculpt their own show
- 100 Colorado Creatives: Nancy Smith of Frequent Flyers Aerial Dance
- The Body Electric Poetry Film Festival celebrates the merging of two art forms

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RedLine

Artist Laura Shill's strange and beautiful installation at RedLine

In the '60s, art happenings were all the rage. People got together to experience unique cultural gatherings that would never be repeated. Now RedLine is planning to provide Denver with a modern version of these aesthetic landmarks with its Artist's Studio series, which will feature events designed and facilitated by resident artists on Second Saturdays throughout 2013 and 2014.

See also:
- RedLine's group photography show is earning double takes
- Material Engagements highlights the work of RedLine artists
- RedLine Brings the House

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Namaste Salons

From last year's Namaste Suite 200 Hair and Fashion Show.

Namaste Salons is collaborating with Western Resource Advocates to deliver Earth, Wind and Hair, a one-of-a-kind fashion-slash-hair show, benefit and bash tomorrow night that'll blow you out of your seat with more force than one of those new Bio-Ionic hair dryers.

See also:
- Photos: Rock & Runway combines sound and style at the Fillmore Auditorium
- 100 Colorado Creatives: Nancy Smith of Frequent Flyers Aerial Dance
- Menswear Mondays: Artist Shane O'Connor on his punk-rock fashion

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Britt Chester

You've picked your horse, you've dusted off your largest hat, and you're ready for your annual guzzling of mint juleps -- but if Churchill Downs isn't in your weekend travel plans, where shall you go? Westword has compiled a list of the best derby-themed parties taking place in parking lots, five-star hotels and galleries across town that are sure to put a little giddy-up in your step this weekend.

See also:
- Down and derby! The best-dressed Kentucky Derby fans we saw on Saturday
- Downtown Derby Debauchery
- 138th Kentucky Derby at Chloe and the Lobby

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Chris Hardwick will perform five shows at Comedy Works May 2-4.

In 2013, being called a nerd isn't the insult that it once was. Practically no one uses the term negatively anymore, and there's no shortage of people who proudly wear the nerd badge as a cultural identity. But if there's still such a thing as a king of the nerds, the honor would probably go to standup comic Chris Hardwick (or Peter Jackson). Hardwick's wildly popular comedy podcast The Nerdist is at least partially responsible for the geekster population boom.

In anticipation of his upcoming five-show run at Comedy Works beginning May 2, we caught up with the surprisingly well-dressed Hardwick to get into an ultra-dweeby meta-debate about just who has the right to call themselves a nerd -- while occasionally digressing into topics like hipsters, post-music MTV and the moment Dennis Miller stopped being funny and suddenly became an asshole.

See also:
- Obama talks getting stoned and Conan rips GOP at D.C. Correspondents' Dinner
- Anthony Jeselnik celebrates baby-death, bulimia and domestic violence at DU
- The ten best comedy events in May

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