Archive: Performances and Events

This untitled work will share the joy of “beating the odds.” Lieutenant Sunnie and Herb Johnson III come from different backgrounds but have reached similar outcomes thanks to resilience and perseverance. Through adversity, they found focus, and each accomplished goals that led them to where they are currently.

Covid19: Effective September 1, 2021, all visitors to the Cowles who are attending a performance/event in our theater spaces are required to show either proof of a full course of COVID-19 vaccinations administered at least 14 days prior to the show or a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of the performance/event. Masks are required throughout the Cowles. For more information about our health and safety guidelines and getting to The Cowles Center, click here.

Twin Cities Ballet’s groundbreaking hit show makes its St. Paul premiere at the historic Fitzgerald Theater, with live music by popular local band, Momentary Lapse of Floyd—a first for all three organizations. Based on Pink Floyd’s iconic 1979 rock opera, TCB’s The Wall: A Rock Ballet is an ingenious fusion of genres that will captivate ballet patrons, music fans, and the artistically curious alike.

TCB’s ballet interprets the original Pink Floyd rock opera’s music, themes, story arc and lyrics on a personal, rather than political, level. It explores the life and various relationships with the main character, Pink, and follows his transformative journey of loss, isolation, insanity and redemption. Through its insightful original interpretation of the emotion and power of Pink Floyd’s story and music, TCB brings this classic rock masterpiece to life like never before!

Tickets: from $37.50–$52.50, available at twincitiesballet.org/tickets

These activities are made possible by the voters of Minnesota through an operating support grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Experience a rare glimpse into the studios of Paul Taylor Dance Company during an online, behind-the-scenes preview of a new work by Peter Chu.

Enjoy the first look into this Northrop Centennial Commission which will include exclusive footage of rehearsal as well as a live Q&A with choreographer Peter Chu and Paul Taylor Dance Company Artistic Director, Michael Novak.

Registration for the event is free, with donations encouraged for the Northrop Centennial Commissions program. Streaming on-demand through February 19.

The 18-member, multi-ethnic company performs a forward-thinking repertoire that includes treasured classics, neoclassical works, and innovative contemporary works that use the language of ballet to celebrate African American culture.

This program includes the Northrop co-commission Higher Ground, with choreography by Robert Garland and music by Stevie Wonder, Balamouk choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa with music by Les Yeux Noirs, and Passage choreographed by Claudia Schreier with a commissioned score by Jessie Montgomery.

Back in the HeyDays of Block E, Patrick Scully had a loft in the very heart of Minneapolis – on Hennepin Avenue, above the Best Steak House, next door to Shinders’ on 7th. Some of his dancer friends/colleagues joined him in presenting a show called Dancing Upstairs. These friends are again joining together to share a show, hence Dancing Upstairs – Then and Now.

The performance will happen online. Tickets are $15.

Featuring
Terri Kruzan, from Atlanta, GA
Wendy Morris, from Minneapolis
Wendy Oliver, from Providence RI
Patrick Scully, from Minneapolis

Each artist will show work from the original show, and new work created for this show. Patrick Scully will be the MC.

https://www.patrickscully.org

Twin Cities Ballet artists are excited to present new works on January 29 at 7:30pm as part of TCB’s Choreographic Voices at the Dance Cube performance space at Ballet Royale Minnesota in Lakeville. The evening will showcase new choreography by Michaela Borowski, Garland Borowski, and Natalie Rossi, as well as classical variations performed by Twin Cities Ballet company dancers and a sneak preview of our upcoming full-length production, Pink Floyd’s The Wall: A Rock Ballet.

This event is a thank you to our audience for their support over the last two years and in celebration of TCB’s return to in-person performances. Free admission with a suggested donation of $10, or as you are inclined. 

Evening in Roma, choreographed by Natalie Rossi, is inspired by a yearning for travel after recent years of quarantine and restrictions. The piece, in four sections, delves into the lives of different people; some reconnecting, some forgiving, some fun and frivolous, but all lighthearted and set to beautiful, whimsical music by Dean Martin, Aurelio Fierro, and Claudio Villa.

Garland Borowski’s work, Nimrod, is a comedic piece that offers a different viewpoint of the classical dancer. Inspired by stories, teachers, and personal experience, Garland has created a duet that displays some of the daily shenanigans of ballet dancers. Choreographed to music by Edward Elgar, this lighthearted pas de deux is something for all to enjoy and laugh about.

La Vida Breve–The Brief Life or Life Is Short, choreographed by Michaela Borowski, is set to music from the opera La Vida Breve by Manuel de Falla. Against a background of music full of energy, joy, and spice, Borowski seeks to showcase her dancers’ strengths while playing with the interpretation of the music, drawing on the strong musical themes and variation of intensity and tempo. 

Join Twin Cities Ballet in this evening of celebration: the return of a live audience and the gift of dance!

Presented as part of The Great Northern
Monday, January 31, 7:00pm. Doors at 6:00pm.
$5, tickets required.
All ages

The Parkway Theater requires proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test result taken within 72 hours prior for entry to all events. Masks are required when not eating or drinking.

“[Ashwini Ramaswamy] weaves together, both fearfully and joyfully, the human and the divine. There is a continual flow of energy coursing through her limbs.” —The New York Times

“The wonderful phenomena of [Calvino’s] Invisible Cities are seen as through some unfolding nuclear kaleidoscope” – The New York Times Book Review

Choreographer/dancer Ashwini Ramaswamy’s Invisible Cities’ reinterprets Italo Calvino’s metaphysical/philosophical novel through interwoven cultural perspectives, with interactive projections created by internationally renowned artist Kevork Mourad. This work-in-progress conversation, moderated by MCAD President Sanjit Sethi, will delve into the process of adapting a multifaceted, layered work of literature (set to premiere during The Great Northern 2023 with copresenting partners The Cowles Center and Northrop) collaboratively, with an inspired collective of artists from diverse disciplines and backgrounds.

About the work:
As a South Indian artist, Ramaswamy draws from the myths and culture of her homeland to resurrect her relationship with the past and reprocess that past into the present. Her work is aimed at second and third generation immigrants longing to make connections between the ancestral and the current. Working with groups of dancers of four diverse dance backgrounds (Bharatanatyam led by Ramaswamy, Gaga technique led by Berit Ahlgren, Contemporary/African Diasporic led by Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, and Breaking led by Joseph Tran), Ramaswamy builds upon a choreographic methodology she began in 2019’s Let the Crows Come (named ‘Best of the Year’ in the Star Tribune, City Pages, and MinnPost).

Invisible Cities extends beyond the kinetic realm with live, interactive projections created by internationally renowned artist Kevork Mourad, a longtime admirer of Calvino’s book. Both haunting and hopeful, ethereal and full of depth, Mourad’s visual architectures provide a dynamic and unpredictable dimension to the artists’ examination of the way the built environment and human life interact.

Black Light is a multi-year collaborative performance directed by Minnesota-based dancer-choreographer, Alanna Morris (formerly Morris-Van Tassel, City Pages’ Artist of the Year, Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” and 2021 McKnight Choreographer Fellow).

This work explores birth, creation, death, and life transitions while honoring noble ancestry. It ventures into the nobility of black-ness; the divinity of feminine creative energy; and the harnessing of sensual expression. Black Light a re:Search performance is a natural world-inspired expression of interwoven local and global identities.

This event will be captioned, with other accessibility services available upon request.

Please note:  This work contains frontal nudity and may not be suitable for persons under the age of 16.

Presented as part of The Great Northern.
With the support of Villa Albertine, in partnership with the French Embassy, Alliance Française, and The Cowles Center.

Dancer/choreographer Dimitri Chamblas’ Slow Show is a 20-minute intensive, collective dance whose movements are minute, precise, and concentrated—inspired by principal roots of trance, exultation, telepathy, and unconscious memories. In this iteration, 50 local participants will respond to their immediate environment on a frozen Como Lake, revealing the strength and vivacity of subtle movements with real-time sound accompaniment made of samples, live electronics, and guitar by artist Eddie Ruscha.

Two performances
Saturday, February 5
1:00pm and 2:00pm

Please note: Masks and social distancing are strongly encouraged during the performance.

Dancers Leslie O’Neill, Megan Mayer, Sarah Baumert, and Erika Hansen perform their site-specific, roving, durational movement scores across a three-acre site along West River Parkway as part of composer/director JG Everest’s immersive WINTER Sound Garden sound and performance installation event. With a parallel performance score by SuperGroup.

The roving movement scores will begin by 1:00pm and will come and go throughout the space until 3:00pm.

The fourth of four seasonal “pop-up” Sound Garden events along West River Parkway in 2021-22, the WINTER Sound Garden features layers of site-specific dance, music, poetry, and visual art among some of the oldest trees in Minneapolis, on the bluff above the Mississippi River.

Sound Gardens are designed as durational, self-guided experiences intended for audience to connect more meaningfully to a particular place and the natural world. The spatial sound score and live dance and musical elements are meant to accompany the sounds and physical elements that are already there – the birds, the trees, the wind, the shadows, the sunlight, the snow. Audiences are encouraged to both circulate and linger at their own pace, following their own impulses for what to pay attention to.

This event has been rescheduled from the original date of January 22.