Steve Walker

Arts Reporter

Since 1998, Steve Walker has contributed stories and interviews about theater, visual arts, and music as an arts reporter at KCUR. He's also one Up to Date's regular trio of critics who discuss the latest in art, independent and documentary films playing on area screens.

In addition, Walker has taught creative writing and film criticism classes at the Kansas City Art Institute and currently teaches at the University of Kansas. His writing has appeared nationally in The Sondheim Review, The Advocate and Theater Week, and locally in The Kansas City Star, The Kansas City Business Journal, Ingram's, The Pitch and Review.

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Up to Date

10:06 am

Fri May 24, 2013

Up To Date's Indie, Foreign & Doc Critics' 'Three To See', May 24-27, 2013

Kon-Tiki

By Beth Lipoff and Steve Walker and Cynthia Haines

Looking for a great film to see this Memorial Day Weekend, May 24-27, 2013?

Visual Arts

3:55 pm

Wed May 22, 2013

Artists Explore The City As Labyrinth In 'rises Zora'

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Credit Josephine Moynihan / Special to KCUR

Jeanette Powers and Ezhno Martin in a 'rises Zora' performance.

Credit Josephine Moynihan / Special to KCUR

Audience on Rooftop Garden of Kansas City Public Library takes in 'Garden Party #1.'

Credit Josephine Moynihan / Special to KCUR

Charlotte Street's Curator-in-Residence Jamilee Polson Lacy.

Credit Josephine Moynihan / Special to KCUR

Credit Josephine Moynihan / Special to KCUR

Jamilee Polson Lacy, Ezhno Martin, R. Crosby Kemper III, and Jeanette Powers at 'rises Zora' event.

Credit Josephine Moynihan / Special to KCUR

Ezhno Martin and Jeanette Powers letting off steam prior to 'Garden Party #1.'

By Steve Walker

Like any city of its size, Kansas City was designed and developed on an urban grid of streets and boulevards in order to make the city work. The Charlotte Street Foundation is currently presenting a month-long multimedia project that features nearly 40 artists who, in their own way, address how the city's layout is both influential, essential, and an ever-mysterious labyrinth.

Film

3:12 pm

Fri May 17, 2013

Michael Shannon A Family Man, Hit Man And 'The Iceman'

Credit Courtesy digitalspy.com

Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder in 'The Iceman'

By Steve Walker

As intense as actor Michael Shannon has been on screens large and small, his chilling performance in Ariel Vroman's The Iceman ups the ante.

Up to Date

9:45 am

Fri May 17, 2013

Up To Date's Indie, Foreign & Doc Critics' 'Three To See', May 17-19, 2013

In The House

By Beth Lipoff and Steve Walker and Cynthia Haines

Looking for a great film to see the weekend of May 17-19, 2013?

Film

6:30 am

Fri May 17, 2013

Writing Teacher Finds A Prodigy With Problems In 'In The House'

Credit Courtesy Cohen Media Group

Kristin Scott Thomas rapt by writing in "In the House"

By Steve Walker

Fans of both independent and foreign films can trust that, if they feature Kristin Scott Thomas, they're worth an investment of time, thought, and money.The bilingual actress has impeccable taste and can lift even mundane films to a place of esteemed elegance.

Up to Date

11:44 am

Fri May 10, 2013

Up To Date's Indie, Foreign & Doc Critics' 'Three To See', May 10-12, 2013

Renoir

By Steve Walker and Cynthia Haines

Looking for a great film to see the weekend of May 10-12, 2013?

Film

9:38 am

Fri May 10, 2013

‘Renoir’ A Portrait Of An Artist In Decline

Credit Courtesy Samuel Goldwyn Films

Michel Bouqet at work as "Renoir"

By Steve Walker

To look at the collected paintings of Pierre-Auguste Renoir is to see all possible colors and textures made more rich and tactile by the light. Gilles Bourdos’ evocative Renoir is less a comprehensive biography than a portrait of the man in his golden years (played with astonishing physical accuracy by Michel Bouquet) when his output is hardly dented at all by his physical impairments.

Up To Date

11:47 am

Fri May 3, 2013

Up To Date's Indie, Foreign & Doc Critics' 'Three To See', May 3-5, 2013

Credit Porchlight Films

By Steve Walker and Cynthia Haines and Bob Butler

Looking for a great film to see the weekend of May 3-5, 2013?

Up to Date

6:00 pm

Thu May 2, 2013

What's Showing In Independent, Foreign & Documentary Film, May 3

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The Angels' Share

Disconnect

Lore

Mud

No Place On Earth

Starbuck

The Company You Keep

To The Wonder

Trance

By Beth Lipoff, Stephen Steigman and Steve Walker and Cynthia Haines and Bob Butler

A rebound romance, a look at the omnipresence of the digital world and a German girl’s confused journey at the end of World War II are all competing for moviegoers’ attention this weekend.

Up to Date

1:58 pm

Fri April 26, 2013

Up To Date's Indie, Foreign & Doc Critics' 'Three To See,' April 26-28, 2013

"The Gatekeepers" remains on critic Cynthia Haines "Three to See" list.

By Stephen Steigman and Steve Walker and Cynthia Haines

Looking for a great film to see the weekend of April 26-28, 2013?

Up to Date's indie, documentary and foreign film critics share their three favorites showing on area screens.

Film

8:05 am

Fri April 26, 2013

Tip A Tumbler Of Fine Scotch To 'The Angels' Share'

Credit Courtesy Sixteen Films/EPA

The cast of 'The Angels' Share'

By Steve Walker

It takes great skill to make a movie that balances potentially incongruous tones of brutality, comedy and hope. With the marvelous new movie The Angels’ Share, director Ken Loach demonstrates that he is gifted enough to do that.

Film

5:48 am

Fri April 26, 2013

From A Mucked Up Life, 'Mud' Barrels Through

Credit Courtesy Roadside Attractions

Matthew McConaughey and Tye Sheridan make unlikely comrades in 'Mud'

By Steve Walker

A 14-year-old Arkansas kid gets mixed up with a murderer while pondering romantic notions about the meaning of love in Jeff Nichols’ assured and beautifully written Southern melodrama Mud.

Up to Date

11:06 am

Fri April 19, 2013

Up To Date's Indie, Foreign & Doc Critics' 'Three To See,' April 19-21, 2013

No

By Beth Lipoff and Steve Walker and Cynthia Haines

Looking for a great film to see the weekend of April 19-21, 2013?

Performance

5:00 am

Tue April 16, 2013

'Bud, Not Buddy' Explores Racism And The Depression With Young Audiences

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Credit J. Robert Schraeder / courtesy of Coterie Theatre

Eboni Fondren (as Miss Thomas), Granvile T. O’Neal (as Mr. Jimmy), Elijah E. Murray (as Steady Eddie), and Aaron Branch (as Bud "not Buddy" Caldwell ) in 'Bud, Not Buddy.'

Credit J. Robert Schraeder / courtesy of Coterie Theatre

Aaron Branch as the eponymous 'Bud, Not Buddy' at the Coterie.

Credit J. Robert Schraeder / courtesy of Coterie Theatre

The Dusky Devastators, a roadhouse jazz band, in 'Bud, Not Buddy'

By Steve Walker

Traditional ideas about theater for young audiences can get stuck in a library full of mischievous animals and recycled fairy tales. But the Coterie Theatre - named by Time magazine as one of the top five theaters for young audiences in the United States - strives to be more adventurous, as in its new show for elementary school students that discusses jazz, the Depression, and racism.

Up to Date

11:27 am

Fri April 12, 2013

Up To Date's Indie, Foreign & Doc Critics' 'Three To See,' April 12-14, 2013

Ryan Gosling in 'The Place Beyond The Pines.'

By Beth Lipoff and Steve Walker and Cynthia Haines and Bob Butler

Looking for a great film to see the weekend of April 12-14, 2013?

Up to Date's indie, documentary and foreign film critics share their three favorites showing on area screens.

Cynthia Haines: The Gatekeepers; No; Quartet

Steve Walker: The Place Beyond The Pines; The Gatekeepers; No

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