Archive: Performances and Events

Come join us for our last outdoor performance of the summer!

Neighborhood Dances is a series of free mini dance concerts performed in public spaces and inviting community participation. We teach parts of the dances to anyone who wants to join in. ASL signing included and options for limited mobility. Offered as a way to respond to the difficulties of this past year, we aim to spread joy, blessings and healing through dance while acknowledging God as our higher perspective and hope.

Saturday, August 21, 2:00 p.m.
Long Lake Park Beach

Join us on the grass at the end of the beach parking lot near the railroad tracks. Bring a lawn chair or a blanket/towel if you’d like to sit. Wear sunscreen if needed for this afternoon performance.

Movement exploration by Britta Joy Peterson
Zenon Dance School – Zone Virtual Summer Showcase

Saturday, August 21 at 7:30pm
Free

Zenon Dance School’s Zone Scholarship Program celebrates Zone choreographer Britta Joy Peterson, presenting A Model for Staying With.

DC-based choreographer and director Britta Joy Peterson shares the culmination of skating the edge, a ten-week performance workshop with Zenon Dance Zone dancers and local movers inside of External Organ – an accumulating research project broaching climate crisis, forestry practices, ecological theory and environmental communication. Dancers will be performing Peterson’s A Model for Staying With, dancing a score involving natural history, popular science, and memory while questioning what’s at stake in metaphor.

Zone offers adult dancers of all ability levels, ages, and dance styles the opportunity to challenge themselves in a session-long program. Dancers can choose from two tracks: Performance – for students with a strong intermediate or advanced level of dance technique and who are looking for opportunities to perform; or Technique – a class-focused program where dancers work on increasing skills and challenging themselves with new styles of dance. Students are selected via a digital application submission and are offered subsidized tuition. 

It’s “Goodnight, Absalom!”, the latest production from the Fox & Beggar Theater!

This surreal comedy fuses street theater, puppetry, and dance into a whimsical critique of American capitalism, performed on our hand-painted solar-powered double-decker vaudeville stage!

Come catch a FREE show!

Friday, September 10 at Powderhorn Park

Sunday, September 12 at Frogtown Farm

Shows start at 7:30pm and will run approximately 75 minutes, with a short audience Q+A afterwards.

In the fictional town of Absalom, a larger-than-life chess match is played between two sinister railroad barons. Their strange game moves through a series of vignettes – the Dance of the Pawns, the Dance of the Knights, the Dance of the Bishops, etc. – in which the unfortunate chess pieces find themselves being made to do battle inside a prison they do not fully understand. As the game progresses, the chess pieces begin to become cognizant of their bleak situation…and attempt to lead a rebellion against the game itself.

Solo, w/ you
A dream becomes reality. I have embarked on a solo trajectory since 2012. Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minneapolis have provided key artistic and personal growth through highs, lows, and in-betweens. Whether in relationships, holistic health, or simply through the inevitable weight of time, I have dissected these moments to create an evening for us to reflect how we arrive. Solo, but together.

Ticket details will be nnounced in September.
September 17 and 18, 2021
07:00PM CST

Alone, contigo
Un sueño se convierte en realidad. He embarcado en una trayectoria independiente desde 2012. Milwaukee, Chicago, y Minneapolis han proporcionado un crecimiento artística y personalmente a través de altibajos e intermedios. Sea en relaciones, salud holística, o simplemente tras el inevitable peso del tiempo, he disecado estos momentos para crear una noche en cual podramos reflejar cómo llegamos. Solo, pero juntos.

Each year, three exceptional Minnesota dance artists receive the coveted honor of a McKnight Dancer Fellowship. SOLO celebrates the 2018 and 2019 recipients with new works expressly tailored for these exceptional performers. The result is an evening of six fascinating world premieres. In 2021, these solos exist as dance films. Join us for the in-person screening premiere at The Cowles Center, or find SOLO online via livestream or on-demand showing.

SOLO fellows and their commissioned choreographers include:

• Renée Copeland – Choreographer: Erika Bettin, Italy
• Sharon Mansur – Co-directors: Yara Boustany, Lebanon; Andrea Shaker, MN; Mette Loulou van Kohl, NY
• Yeniel “Chini” Perez Domenech – Choreographer: Ephrat Asherie, NY
• Erin Thompson – Choreographer: Bebe Miller, OH
• Joseph “MN Joe” Tran – Choreographer: Rudi Goblen, CT
• Elayna Waxse – Choreographer: Bobbi Jene Smith, NY

September 18, 2021 at 7:30pm
In-person and livestreamed.
Tickets: $20-$25, fees included.

Join us after the premiere on September 18 for a Meet the Artist post-show discussion.

SOLO will include some captioning in Spanish and English.

This year, we are eating our dessert first!

Join us for DECADANCE as we honor 10 years of dance at The Cowles Center with the decadence of desserts!

The event will feature short and sweet performances by Duniya Drum & Dance Company and Rhythmically Speaking, plus a special announcement about a new initiative to bring artists and audiences together! Help us raise $75,000 to benefit Cowles Center programming and expand our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility initiatives! We are excited to host a diverse group of arts supporters at The Cowles Center for our in-person, on-site benefit (event capacity of 250 persons), with a virtual component. No formal dress code. Be yourself!

RSVP: https://www.thecowlescenter.org/tickets/decadance

Early Bird Tickets will be on sale from August 3-September 1, 2021.

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 FALL Sound Garden sound and performance installation event.

The roving movement scores will begin by 1:00pm and will come and go throughout the space until 4:00pm.

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

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 leaves. Audiences are encouraged to both circulate and linger at their own pace, following their own impulses for what to pay attention to.

Saturday, October 2
12:00-4:00pm
Free admission, but reservations required

Limited capacity.

Learn More

Dancer Yuki Tokuda will bring live performances with violinist, Natsuki Kumagai (MN Orchestra) to Peavey Plaza in downtown Minneapolis.

Tokuda’s choreography on J.S Bach’s Chaconne expresses that there is always a hope during darkness and after sorrow.
Featuring music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Charles Auguste de Bériot, Eugène Ysaÿe

Choreographer – Yuki Tokuda
Violin – Natsuki Kumagai
Dancers – Hannah Benditt, Jarod Boltjes, Ashley Chin-Mark, Erika Ellis, Andrew Lester, Yuki Tokuda

Saturday, August 14 at 2:00pm
Sunday, August 15 at 2:00pm

Rain or shine.
This show is free to the public but please register ahead of time for arts board verification of audience attendance.
https://chaconne-peaveyplaza.eventbrite.com

Yuki Tokuda is a fiscal year 2021 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

It’s “Goodnight, Absalom!”, the latest production from the Fox & Beggar Theater!

This surreal comedy fuses street theater, puppetry, and dance into a whimsical critique of American capitalism, performed on our hand-painted solar-powered double-decker vaudeville stage!

Come catch a FREE show!

Friday, September 10 at Powderhorn Park

Sunday, September 12 at Frogtown Farm

Shows start at 7:30pm and will run approximately 75 minutes, with a short audience Q+A afterwards.

In the fictional town of Absalom, a larger-than-life chess match is played between two sinister railroad barons. Their strange game moves through a series of vignettes – the Dance of the Pawns, the Dance of the Knights, the Dance of the Bishops, etc. – in which the unfortunate chess pieces find themselves being made to do battle inside a prison they do not fully understand. As the game progresses, the chess pieces begin to become cognizant of their bleak situation…and attempt to lead a rebellion against the game itself.