Covering Minnesota’s theater, music, dance, literature and visual arts.
Lazarus saw some of the need in the country as the Minnesota Orchestra traveled to different townships in 2018. He also heard a very high level of music.
Plus: a new “Emma” at the Guthrie, the last chance for “Impact Theory of Mass Extinction” at Heart of the Beast, Minnesota Pops at Harriet and She Rock She Rock.
“These captains of trading ships were very much interested in super flamboyant pieces of clothing,” says Mia curator Andrea Marks. “They wanted to look freakin’ cool.”
Our weekly roundup of recommended reading, listening or viewing by MinnPost’s staff and contributing journalists.
Brandon Ross is a guitarist who can ripple, skronk and squall in a manner akin to Jimi Hendrix without being a Hendrix imitator.
Plus: the Pride festival and march, Indigo Girls and the Minnesota Orchestra, Jonatha Brooke, Rebecca Arons and Adi Yeshaya at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist, Cornbread Harris at the Icehouse, Film @ Franconia and a taste of SF art in NE Minneapolis.
There’s a strong cohort of young musicians in 2022, Heckler says. For example, Friday’s headliner is 21-year-old Matthew Whitaker, a B3 organ player from New Jersey.
The theater company is one of the few founded during the Black Arts Movement that survived into the twenty-first century.
Plus: Violinist and composer Ariana Kim at the Parkway, Hari Kondabolu at the Cedar, “AFROPUNK Live: Minneapolis,” a Midsommar party at the Swedish Institute and Juneteenth performances at the Dakota and at Crooners.
The play’s mix of utopia and dystopia, set in the 1980s, isn’t so dissimilar to today, two years after the murder of George Floyd.
The plaque at the west entrance lists Frank X. Tewes, who supervised Clarence “Cap” Wigington, as the tower’s architect. Wigington’s initials on project drawings, however, provide evidence that he was its designer.
Plus: Lela Pierce at the Bockley Gallery, Davu Seru at Jazz Central Studios, Teatro del Pueblo’s “Real Women Have Curves” and “Take Root Among the Stars: Black Abstraction in the Midwest” at SooVAC.
The story centers around a Khmer Rouge survivor who returns to Cambodia when his daughter is prosecuting a war criminal some 30 years after the genocide.
Before settler-colonists came to present-day Minnesota, Indigenous people understood variations in gender and sexuality in the contexts of their own languages and lifeways.
When he was first introduced as music director, Vänskä said he wanted to make the Minnesota Orchestra the best in the U.S. In his nearly two decades at the helm, he may have surpassed that goal.
Plus: “Hairball! A Bigfoot Musical Adventure” at the Bakken, “The Roommate” at Mixed Blood, “A Blinding Strangeness” at Red Eye, a June lawn party at the Swedish Institute and Ecosex Walking Tours.
The work explores healing and resilience, drawing on a Black social dance called ring shout, which was invented by enslaved Africans.
Plus: The Minnesota Cuban Film Festival, an immersive “Traviata,” Saturday night jazz at kj’s hideaway and Sigur Rós.
“It’s one thing to get a grant for a project,” says Vongsay, “it’s another thing to get a fellowship that will allow you to really be bold with the work that you do.”
Plus: Art-A-Whirl, Poem-a-Whirl and WhirlyGig, Cey Adams in a solo show, Chroma Zone Mural & Art Festival, PaviElle French and Friends at the Fitz, and Kurt Vile and the Violators.
