“It was the first and best performance I’ve ever seen.” That’s what a grade-schooler wrote after attending one of the Las Vegas Philharmonic’s Youth Concert Series shows, an annual, five-day tear of concerts at The Smith Center that treats valley fourth- and fifth-graders to what is often their first taste of orchestral music — for many, their first soul-stirring communion with performed music as vigorous, vitalizing art.

Smith Center The Smith Center’s fall season glitters with a surplus of Broadway divas. Full productions include the nun-tastic Sister Act and the showstopper-packed Evita.

Beneath a cardboard facade, this conceptual artist explores romance, pop culture and feminism In January, a young Las Vegas artist named Lauren Adkins married a cardboard cutout of a dreamy Twilight vampire — actual chapel and ceremony, real well-wishers and reception — and called it art. Now: Does that make you go, Hmm …, the ellipsis suggesting an openness to such a nontraditional idea of art? Or did you go, WTF?, because, you know, WTF? Adkins’ project, “Love Is Overtaking Me” (her graduate thesis at UNLV, by the way) was about several things: the contested nature of female fandom, the allure of romantic escapism, the grip that pop culture has on our lives.

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Consider the humble chair. For most of us, it’s a plush pedestal for our lazy-butt, Netflix-based lifestyles, a mere booty receptacle for office work and web-surfing.

Ba lunches and math homework - it's yet another back-to-school season. Or is it? This fall, prep-school style gets a punky edge as the kids move to the head of the class.

Soft and structured styles warm up this fall's looks See full fashion spread here.

Pop quiz: What town has Nevada’s oldest and smallest school still in continuous operation? If you answered Goodsprings — located just 34 miles southwest of Las Vegas — retired Goodsprings schoolteacher Julie Newberry might just give you a gold star. Talk about resilience.

So Las Vegas isn’t exactly known as a bookish town. Don’t tell that to Ann DeVere.

At-risk kids with ballet dreams find support — and life-changing opportunities — at Nevada Ballet Theatre’s Future Dance program I’ve twice seen Ariel Triunfo dance. The first time was three years ago, when Nevada Ballet Theatre’s 2010 summer intensive classes were wrapping up and the parents of so many ballerinas gathered in Nevada Ballet Theatre’s large Studio B to watch the session’s concluding performance.