Arts Complex Creates 2026

Regan Linton & M. Graham Smith in collaboration with High Hard Heat

FDR'S VERY HAPPY HOUR is an interactive, happy hour experience created by Denver's Regan Linton, along with M. Graham Smith, that brings Franklin Delano Roosevelt back from the "great beyond" for a new generation. Mixing cocktails/mocktails, game-show trivia, personal reflections on polio, “cozy” activities for guests, a local “changemaker” nightly and expansive accessibility (English, American Sign Language, ASL interpretation, captioning, audio description, open seating options for mobility/sensory needs), FDR's Very Happy Hour highlights the successes and missteps of a world leader who lived with disability, and invites audiences to engage and reflect on the challenges and possibilities of their own lives.

October 14-November 1, 2026 in the Studio Loft at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House

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Denver Film

This project supports three public screenings at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House during the 49th Denver Film Festival. These screenings bring filmmakers, on-screen talent and audiences together, featuring a red-carpet arrival, a public screening open to audiences across Denver and supplemental programs like onstage conversations and receptions, as available, that contextualize the films for audiences. With support from the Producing Partners program, DF will expand sliding-scale “Pay What You Can” admission, increase accessibility services and deepen community outreach to ensure that these high-profile events remain open and equitable.

October 22 & 24, 2026 in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House:

• Opening Night Presentation: I Play Rocky - Thu, 10/22 at 7pm
• Centerpiece Presentation: Behemoth! - Sat, 10/24 at 1pm
• Centerpiece Presentation: Ink - Sat, 10/24 at 7pm

Learn more about the Festival

Biennial of the Americas

"The Brutal Joy" unfurls Black vernacular line dance and sartorial gesture as intellectual discourse, reverie, and devotion to Black-living. As a scored improvisation for dance, light, and sound, "The Brutal Joy" explores these diasporic practices as knowledge reservoirs and outward-facing, physically dialogic activations that allow for actualizing oneself at present in a dance of future possibilities. The performers’ attention oscillates between compositional structures of the riff, the vamp, and the break, while attending to the mutually dependent processes of individuation and ritualization. Gesture, gait, gaze, rhythm, textural sound, shadow, and light are the materials for proposing “What if?” and “Now what?” as provisional questions towards imagining otherwise. Centering dance and attire as relational and living counter-archives, the work considers movement and personal style as tools for self-determination and the collective reclamation of Black humanitarian value.

November 6, 2026 at 8pm in the Studio Loft at Ellie Caulkins Opera House

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Akaiya Productions

GIRA GIRA is a cyberpunk opera odyssey that transforms the Ellie Caulkins Opera House into a living, immersive world. Guests are invited as exclusive participants to preview a bold new reimagining of the Japanese Shinto myth of Amaterasu, brought to life by pop idol HOSHI. As the myth unfolds, the boundaries of space and time begin to dissolve—blurring the line between Amaterasu’s divine struggle and HOSHI’s descent into her own darkness. When shadows threaten to eclipse the light, the audience must step forward together to guide HOSHI toward illumination—and, perhaps, to restore balance before our world slips into perpetual night.

January 7-15, 2027 at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House

TICKETS ON SALE SOON

Zoid Art Haus

KINFOLKTALES is a new theatrical project written and directed by the artist Zoid Hæm. Inspired by Black American folktales and Denver’s living history, the show gathers stories from neighborhoods like Five Points, Montbello and Aurora through community story circles, workshops and open rehearsals. Those stories are transformed into a vibrant stage production where theatre, dance, visual art and myth blend to create KINFOLKTALES. The production celebrates the humor, struggle and imagination of Black Denver and builds an evolving archive of contemporary community folktales.

November 27, 2026 at 7:30pm in the Studio Loft at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House

Tickets on sale Oct 12

ArtistiCO Inc.

The Colorado Folklore Dance Festival is a vibrant, multi-day celebration of Mexican folklórico and live music that centers community, cultural preservation and innovation. Produced by ArtistiCO Inc., the festival brings together professional dancers, youth performers, musicians and guest artists from across the region to present new and reimagined works rooted in tradition. Designed to engage diverse and historically underrepresented audiences, the festival features performances, educational workshops and community activations within the Denver Performing Arts Complex, transforming the space into an inclusive cultural gathering place that honors heritage while fostering artistic exchange.

Performances took place September 3-5, 2026 at the Buell Theatre

Blue Silk Productions

When a miniature dachshund named Valarie vanishes into the vast forests and foothills of the Rocky Mountains, her disappearance marks the beginning of an extraordinary tale. For 529 days, Valarie doesn't merely survive; she transforms. Through innovative puppetry, ethereal stagecraft, dreamlike visual effects and immersive technological integration, we experience her transformation from lost pet to fantastical survivor. What begins as a simple story of survival evolves into a powerful meditation on finding community in strange lands, building connections across differences and the universal search for shelter, sustenance and acceptance. Valarie's journey reminds us that sometimes, the smallest travelers have the most profound stories to tell.

Community Engagement Workshops took place August 30-September 20, 2026 at the Champa Arts Studio

Performances took place September 25-27, 2026 in the Studio Loft at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House