The-Burg.com - Central Virgina's Arts, Culture and Entertainment Weekly

Joseph Cashore saw his first marionette hanging in a gift shop when he was 10 or 11 and on vacation with his family.

“I asked the lady if I could try it out,” he said in a phone interview last week. “She wouldn’t let me, so I went home and made my first marionette.”

Even he can admit that first effort — made from clothespins, wood, string and a tin can — was a bit crude, but it fascinated him.

“Every once in a while, by accident, it would move,” he said. “Just for a second, it looked like it was alive, and that’s what I remember.”

Wintergreen Performing Arts’ 5th Annual Blue Ridge Mountain Music Fest celebrates bluegrass music and its predecessor, old-time.

A beach bash; musical acts come to Cattle Annie’s, The Whole Note and Rapunzel’s; and a call for cookbook submissions.

LAS VEGAS — Matt Nguyen’s career options once amounted to hair cutting or maybe military service. But the 21-year-old dancer nicknamed “Dumbo” now makes $4,000 a month cutting up dance floors and battling fellow hip-hop crews.

When the Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra put on the final show of its 2009-2010 season in May, members weren’t sure they’d be back for another one.

Expectations run dangerously high for Arcade Fire, a band so fluent in grand gestures, fans expect nothing short of indie-rock transcendence. But how do you make a tour de force that doesn’t sound tour-de-forced?

Author comes to Sandusky, Red Roosters play show