Archive: Performances and Events

Reality and fantasy collide in a contemporary retelling of William Shakespeare’s spellbinding A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Under the moonlight in an altered reality, witness the chaos and absurdity of desire come to life as lovers are driven by mistaken identity and enchantment. Inspired by astrological and environmental themes, we invite you to linger with us in the mayhem until dawn.

Choreographed by: Christian Warner
Performed by: The Company of Ballet Co.Laboratory

Friday, April 5 at 7:00pm
Saturday, April 6 at 7:00pm
Sunday, April 7 at 2:00pm

Saturday, April 6
12:00–2:00pm
RSVP is appreciated.

This April Floorwork will continue the March 4, 2024 Dance Town Hall conversation with emphasis on creating a specific advocacy group for the dance community! Please come prepared with topics and action steps in response to the recent survey, March 4 Dance Town Hall, and previous Floorwork discussions.

Floorwork: a communal conversation and shared meal. 
Conversation will be held over a communal meal – bring your own dish to share in our potluck! ARENA DANCES will supply beverages, plates, napkins and utensils. Floorwork was developed to hold conversations, knowledge-sharing, and a supportive space for dance artists and people who like to move. Attendees are asked to fill out a new RSVP form for each monthly Floorwork event.

Can’t attend, but would like to join in the conversation?
Join us via Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 811 5083 8698
Passcode: 738155

Featured are the highly-anticipated choreographies of two guest choreographers and old friends of the company. Shohei Iwahama (former James Sewell Ballet dancer and current member of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo) brings an expansive group work that emanates curiosity, play, and kinship. Michael Walters returns with his fourth choreographic commission for James Sewell Ballet with a passionate duet, at moments both gritty and gentle.

This remarkable evening includes two Sewell works: a new sextet that blends classical and contemporary ballet within Bach’s Concerto for Violin & Oboe; and a remount of Doo-Be-Doo, which combines high-energy playful antics with stunning technical feats.

Saturday, April 13 at 7:30pm
Sunday, April 14 at 2:00pm

Dance Camera North is proud to partner with the dance department at Minnesota State University, Mankato. The festival will include a conversation with MSU faculty Yukina Sato and DCN Adjudication Panelist, Barbara Weiner, speaking on the dance film from the choreographer’s and the filmmaker’s perspective. There will be social time for filmmakers and dancers as we cultivate a space for collaboration within the worlds of film and dance.

The event will culminate with a screening of the 2024 Dance Camera North International Dance Film Festival. The winner of the “Best of the Festival” Jury Panel award will be invited to speak about their work for the festival attendees as well.

Artist Conversation with Barbara Wiener, Dance Camera North Adjudicator; and Yukina Sato, Faculty MSU-Mankato.
Dance is a spectacular art, moving a body through space. Film is a spectacular art, moving a story through time. Now, how do you put these two forms together to create a whole new art form, the Dance Film?

This discussion explores the dynamic relationship between the art forms of Dance and Film from the director’s and choreographer’s perspectives. What makes a great dance film? How do the dancers and the camera collaborate to make a new surprising form of expression? What is choreographing for the camera? How do you embody and tell a story through film and dance? What is expected from filming choreography and the collaboration with the cinematographer? How is editing choreography unto itself — and how do you share the creative process with filmmakers? Learn what to think about when choreographing and shooting dance for film.

Saturday, April 13
Schedule of the Day
10:00-11:30: Greeting and Artist Conversation
11:30-12:00: Social time with light refreshments
12:00-1:00: Screening of DCN 2024 Festival

Details at www.borealisdance.org/dance-camera-north
Free, donations appreciated!

Escalade
Friday, April 19

Nic Lincoln, Gemma Isaacson, Venus de Mars

We’re back for another dance and music performance celebrating human rights. This performance dives into themes circulating around bodily autonomy, and community. Art! Conversation! Community! You’ll walk away inspired.

Tickets will be “pay as able” with a suggested donation of $25-$35 per ticket.

On street parking. Use the building entrance on Main Street (follow the signs). The show will take place in the Performance Hall on the main floor – walk to the right after entering the building. Our host will welcome you!

Show runs approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Join us for Reel Imaginings, a presentation of short films created by MotionArt director/choreographer Pam Gleason in collaboration with cinematographers Guy Wagner, Nate Gebhard, Adam Tapper, and the many multi-generational movers of MotionArt! Whether exploring humor in the mundane, suspending disbelief in unfolding absurdities, or meandering down a waterway, these films offer a fun and captivating viewing experience for people of all ages.

Total film time: 70 minutes. Informal reception to follow the films. Refreshments and special treats provided by Little Bettina’s.

Saturday, April 20
7:00pm: Doors open
7:30pm: Film showing: Evergreen, Last Chance, Currents, Afloat
Tickets for Saturday

Sunday, April 21
2:30pm: Doors open
3:00pm: Film showing: Evergreen, Last Chance, Currents, Afloat
Tickets for Sunday

Tickets
General: $22
Seniors and Students: $17
Children: $12
Pay as you can is available by emailing us at info@motionartmn.org

At the Center for Performing Arts. Free on-street parking, and free parking in the lots of Lake Country School (3755 Pleasant Ave) and Venture Academy (3800 Pleasant Ave).

April 22-27, 2024
At The Southern Theater.

The CANDY BOX Dance Festival is a week-long dynamic sampling of featured performances, master classes, and in-progress showings, hosted by ARENA DANCES and presented April 22-27, 2024 at The Southern Theater. The CANDY BOX Dance Festival features both emerging and established choreographers, Happy Hour work-in-progress performances, and master class offerings.

Happy Hour Artists – 5:30pm
Monday, April 22 – Shannon Hartle Dolan, Kaitlyn Hawkins and Alicia Steeves
Tuesday, April 23 – Kayla Schiltgen
Wednesday, April 24 – Amez Dance
Thursday, April 25 – Duniya Drum and Dance
Friday, April 26 – Penelope Freeh

Featured Artists
Featuring works by Tristan Koepke and Benny Olk, Paula Mann/Time Track Productions, and jess pretty.
Thursday, April 25 – 7:30pm
Friday, April 26 – 7:30pm
Saturday, April 27 – 2:00pm

Tickets
Purchase before April 23: $20 online in advance; $18 student/senior
After April 23: $27 online and at the door; $20 student/senior discount
Pay-as-Able pricing option available at the door only on Saturday, April 27 at 7:30pm

We extend a special thank you to our Season Sponsors and event donors: MartinPatrick3, The Southern Theater, and generous individual contributions. This festival is also made possible with the support of the McKnight Foundation.

The Taja Will Ensemble presents:

Dearest Liberator, DISASTER! DISASTER! DISASTER! is a moment to metabolize climate catastrophe. Our queer Latine squad of contemporary avatars deliver a dark comedy, call to action, and awareness. We pack our “go bags” and practice all the survival strategies we’ve ever trained and retained. All the elemental energies are invited at once, WATER, AIR, FIRE, EARTH, moon, ghost, catastrophe, compost, restoration and diaspora ancestors. We call to action vibrational awareness of ecosystem solidarity, and elemental sovereignty.

Created and performed by Marisol Herling, Eric Gonzalez, Margaret Ogas and Taja Will

Performances
Wednesday, April 24 at 7:30
​Thursday, April 25 at 7:30 – ​with ASL interpretation
​Friday, April 26 at 7:30
Saturday, April 27 at 5:00
Doors open 20 minutes before performances.

Tickets
Our tickets ​have a sliding scale price of ​$15-50, with a suggested price of $25.

TU Dance is one of four dance companies participating in the pilot program The O’Shaughnessy Dance Cohort. THREAT is an evening-length work choreographed by TU Dance Guest Artist Yusha-Marie Sorzano.

THREAT is a concert dance theater work that aims to provoke an interrogation of the roles we play as individuals and communities in hierarchies. The work posits that hierarchies have the power to control our behavior and infiltrate our thoughts, even when no authority is present to enforce the rules. Using a physical language and soundscape that fuses multicultural traditions and styles of the West and the African Diaspora, this social exploration invites audiences into a modern narrative that speaks to the universal experience of authority, obedience, and rebellion.

Friday, April 26 at 7:30pm
Saturday, April 27 at 7:30pm
Purchase tickets here!

Tickets
Adult: $40
Student/Senior: $30
St. Kate’s Student: $5
Subscription information can be found here.

The Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis/St. Paul invites you to a free contemporary dance performance directed by Monica Casadei. Artemis Danza will showcase their modern theatrical and dance performance,

Corpi Violati (Violated Bodies)
Thursday, March 14
Park Square Theatre – Proscenium Stage
7:00pm: Social hour with complimentary beverages
8:00pm: Performance
Free

In Violated Bodies, a teeming community of female and male bodies is tightly held in the memory of a wound. Still open or healed, this wound reverberates on the scene in an incessant dance nourished by impulses, instincts, anger and pain, in which overwhelming group dances are interspersed with duets and solos, and defenseless bodies are joined by the violent and ruthless bodies of attackers.

Starting from the search for testimonies of victims of rape and abuse as well as improvisation, Casadei builds a show oscillating between raw realism and poetry dictated by a possible redemption. Musically, Fiandrini’s remix of electronic samples ebbs and flows throughout the story in melodrama and symphonic music. View the trailer.

Debut: Municipal Theater of Ferrara-Contemporary Dance Festival 2022 Choreography.
Direction, Scenery, Lights and Costumes: Monica Casadei
Live Electronics: Fabio Fiandrini
Production: Artemis Danza/Monica Casadei
Co-production: Municipal Theater of Ferrara-Contemporary Dance Festival, in collaboration with the Municipality of Rimini and Teatro Galli with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture, Emilia Romagna Region, Municipality of Parma.