Dia de los Muertos Provides Opportunity to Celebrate, Educate

byTaryn Courville

The scenery is a burst of color. Lines of patterned flags blow in the wind and paper marigolds decorate altars and hair. Performers walk around covered in face paint, dressed in traditional Mexican dresses or Aztec costumes. The sound of mariachi, drums and shell embellished ankle cuffs fills the area. Attendees of the Dia de […]

Austin Veteran Arts Festival aims to reduce suicide through the arts

byLauren Girgis

Vietnam combat veteran Glenn Towery won a gold medal in 2014’s National Veterans Creative Arts Festival, an annual competition using creative arts as rehabilitative treatment to help veterans recover from and cope with disabilities. “When I came back, I felt so good,” Towery said. “And I thought, ‘Wow, I wish everybody could experience what I […]

Texas From Below: Texas Book Festival Panels Punctuate Climate, Immigration and More

byAustin Cheatham

Despite the disruption brought on by a pandemic now going on two years, this years’s Texas Book Festival allowed writers — virtually and literally – to display Texas’ diversity. During the Texas Institute of Letters panel, authors Christina Soontornvat, David Meischen and Marisol Cortez discussed their novels and the influence of their identities and Texan […]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Magical Realism

byCésar Pérez

The morning Gabriel Garcia Marquez received news of him winning the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature, his son Rodrigo captured the moment in a black and white. Four decades later, the photograph hangs on a wall as part of an exhibition honoring his colorful work at the University of Texas at Austin Gabriel Garcia Marquez […]

Austin Muralists Explore ‘Works of Consequence’

byLauren Goodman

From the “I Love You So Much” script on the side of Jo’s Coffee on Congress Avenue to the “Greetings from Austin” postcard mural on South First Street, Austin’s most recognizable murals have become spots for newcomers and locals to photograph and post on their Instagram feeds. Throughout the past year, local Austin artists have […]

Forget the ‘Backseat’ ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­– Give Susannah Joffe the Steering Wheel

byTy Marsh

  Susannah Joffe is an artist just as down to earth as you expect someone raised in Austin to be. After a bit of digging for a contact number online and sending a long-winded text message asking to interview the Austin-based musician, I was surprised when Joffe herself responded, “Hi! Yes I’m super down.” After […]

K-pop Fans Find Community at UT and Other Local Campuses

byHailin Zhang

Dance crew ATX KDC, founded to promote South Korean pop culture through modern dance styles, serves as a local manifestation of K-pop, the music phenom sweeping across the globe with its formula of catchy and trendy songs, loyal fans and smart use of social media. The New York Times states that roughly 90 percent of […]

ACL Music Fest Marks Return of Major In-Person Events in Austin

byTara Phipps

“A lesson we’ve all learned is that change is constant. I think we all learned that during the pandemic. It felt like it was never going to end, but it did. Here we are.”

A College Kid Reviews Movies Called 2020’s Best

byHannah Pruitt

To quote Anton Ego, the critic from Pixar’s Ratatouille, “in many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and themselves to our judgement.” The box critics often put art into can become stiff and outdated. As art evolves new generations should get to contribute their voices. With […]

Preservation without Reservations: Land Grabs of Past Rob True Native Texans of Indigenous History

byBrooke Nevins

Take a couple steps off nearly any highway spanning its 270 million acres, and you’re bound to be trespassing on someone else’s property. Over 95% of the state’s land is privately owned, resulting largely from the removal of Native peoples in the 19th century. Despite its huge size and a history of hundreds of Indigenous tribes inhabiting its present-day borders, Texas has only three federally-recognized reservations – those of the Alabama-Coushatta, the Kickapoo and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. Hundreds of non-federally recognized tribal communities exist here, left without allotted land to practice self-autonomy or the funding to preserve cultural traditions.

Six Square Aims to Provide Brighter Future For Austin’s Black Residents

byMadelyn Gee

Austin’s Black population is dwindling, and formerly Black neighborhoods are gentrifying rapidly. Some residents worry about losing connection to African-American history and culture. The organization Six Square aims to protect that connection. 

Hays County’s Indigenous Community Continues Struggle for Recognition

byBrooke Nevins

Hays County Commissioners Court raised the ire of critics by failing to reappoint members of its historical commission during a meeting earlier this year, a move that effectively dissolved a committee that represented the interests of Tejano and Indigenous groups.  The criticism came from citizens after the court did not reappoint members of the Hays […]

Capareda’s Long, Winding Road to Ballet Austin

byKendall Tietz

For Alexa Capareda, dance has long been a force in her life, a whirlwind around the globe. It has also been transformative. A journey that took her from youthful dancer to esteemed ballet master. As a child in the Philippines, she was well on her way to success. Then, her father was named a professor […]

For ‘Esther’s Follies,’ Show Goes On (Virtually)

bySarah Kate Scribner

On Friday and Saturday nights at Sixth and Red River in downtown Austin, nine actors and a magician would stand beneath the warm glow of stage lights and look out at the sea of 270 bodies crammed in the sold-out theater, eager to deliver the next gut-busting joke or burst into comedic song. That was […]

Mexican Writer Témoris Grecko on Journalists Risking Their Lives 

bySumaiya Malik

Mexican journalist Témoris Grecko, who was kidnapped for several months in Syria in 2013, shares his experience reporting from war zones and tells stories of journalists who have been killed in their search for truth.

Grecko”s book, “Killing the Story: Journalists Risking Their Lives to Uncover the Truth in Mexico,” was published in the United States in June. He will speak at the Texas Book Festival at 12:45 p.m. on Nov. 8 on Zoom. The book festival, which is virtual this year, runs from Nov. 6 to 15.

Sex Workers Struggle as COVID-19 Pandemic Continues

byShelby Woods and Andrew Roberts

Bars, strip clubs and brothels have been shut down as non-essential businesses across the country closed for the coronavirus pandemic, leaving many sex workers out of a job. “It has completely stopped business,” said Mistress Natalie King, a dominatrix in New York City. “There are no in-person sessions to be had.” And unlike millions of […]

As Above, Not So Below: Redefining Dress Code on Zoom Amid a Pandemic

byTyler Lewis

Reporting Texas reached out to a few people to see what their Zoom meeting attire says about them.

Boiz Being Boiz: Group Members Find Identity, Community Through Drag

byHope Lenamon

Boiz of Austin aims to tear down barriers and redefine what it means to be a king in the queen-dominated world of drag.

Scenes from Austin’s Día de los Muertos Parade

Frida Kahlo look-alikes, Aztec dancers and marchers in sugar skull makeup paraded down Sixth Street as part of Austin’s 36th annual Viva la Vida Parade and Festival on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2019.

Civil War Battle Rises Again in East Texas

byAndrea Tinning

The annual Battle of Blackjack Grove, a mock Civil War battle, started in 2017 in the East Texas town of Groveton and has attracted more and more attendees each year.