Archive: Performances and Events

If you missed The Awe Factor, have no fear. Watch it from the comfort of your own home now through June 15, 2024.

The Awe Factor, choreographed by Artistic Director, Brenna Mosser, interweaves single-use plastic waste with the science of awe. In this fantastical and surreal world, 10 dancers examine how we access awe, what we do when we are confronted by it, and how we can harness this emotion to better our collective lives.

Portions of choreography presented in The Awe Factor were commissioned by Threads Dance Project for their Tapestries 7.0 program and by Alternative Motion Project for their Tenth Season Performance.

A cornerstone of the Twin Cities arts landscape, Red Eye’s New Works 4 Weeks Festival is an annual gathering for inter/anti/transdisciplinary performance. Each year, a cohort of ten artists develops new performance works that cross disciplines of dance, theater, and music, pushing artistic form and interrogating the contemporary world. The 2024 festival contains a throughline of futurisms, bringing together many lineages and approaches to imagine how we might be otherwise.

Running through June 15

June 6-8: Masanari Kawahara, Benny Olk
June 13-15: Marcela Michelle, Dameun Strange

$15-50 sliding scale

At once dreamlike, unsettling, and absurd, Off-Leash Area’s new show, The Knave of Knives – The Duchess of Dawn, introduces two strange and haunting figures from an otherworldly court who engage in a fantastical struggle for power over the multiverse. Taking place in an immersive installation surrounding both stage and audience, the show is performed with movement and music/sound, inspired (loosely) by string theory, and is populated with melancholy stuffed animals and mysterious trophies, dispersed among the fragile threads of a clandestine karmic history.

Created and performed by Jennifer Ilse and Paul Herwig, co-artistic directors of Off-Leash Area.

June 7-9, 7:00pm
Tickets on sale now.

Admission is by suggested donation between $10-$30. Seating is limited to approximately 40 seats and the garage fills up fast, so make your reservation early! You can also make your donation at the door by cash or card via Square.

Stick around afterward for popcorn, drinks, and conversation by the fire!

BRKFST Dance Company presents two wildly different works of art in celebration of their 10-year anniversary. BRKFST continues to “show us the future of dance” (Star Tribune) with STORMCLUTTER, a world premiere co-commissioned by The Cowles Center and Northrop, with composition by company member Renée Copeland. Their unique style of breaking and storytelling shines through in a restaging of Dancers, Dreamers, and Presidents by composer Daniel Bernard Roumain. 

STORMCLUTTER is an exploration of relationships and ongoing efforts to resolve opposing states of interpersonal tension. Misunderstanding, compassion, resentment, egoism, love, loss, betrayal—moving through or attempting to compartmentalize complex dynamics between family and friends and the emotional baggage collected over time becomes an overwhelming task, while maturation requires people to accept that which they cannot change. BRKFST members illustrate the efforts individuals may take when working to resolve the inner chaos that triggers feelings of dissociation, paralysis, and isolation.

BRKFST interprets Dancers, Dreamers, and Presidents as a commentary on American life that is filled with a mix of ambition, passion, blame, justice, hope, and love. And while this country is deemed the “land of the free,” it is riddled with systemic problems that seem impossible to overcome. For many, the “American Dream” remains just that—a dream.

Saturday, June 8, 7:30pm
Sunday, June 9, 2:00pm

Rescheduled from April 27-28 at The Cowles Center.

Friday, June 14, 7:30pm
Saturday, June 15, 2:00pm and 7:30pm

Ethnic Dance Theatre (EDT) will present Golden Memories: A Celebration of 50 Years, featuring twenty dancers, the EDT Folk Orchestra, and Mila Vocal Ensemble.

Founded in 1974, by Donald LaCourse and Jonathan Frey, EDT has been dedicated to the artistic performance and preservation of world music, song, and dance. For the past 50 years, EDT has brought over 50 unique cultures and traditions to life through their performances. Golden Memories will be a celebration of this commitment.  

Join EDT as they travel across the globe through 11 original choreographies from throughout the last five decades, with dances from Hungary, Germany, Egypt, Tajikistan, Mexico, and more! The production will feature live musical accompaniment by the EDT Folk Orchestra and the talents of Mila Vocal Ensemble throughout the show.

Not only will EDT’s diverse dance and musical repertoire be on display but so will their impressive costume collection. With culturally unique and accurate costumes for each number, Golden Memories will be a feast for the eyes. From the gliding steps of Ossetia to the stamping footwork of Chihuahua, Golden Memories is sure to entrance and enthrall audience members of all ages and leave them tapping their toes wanting more.

Tickets
Adults – $35
Students/Seniors – $25
Children – $15

Hatch Dance and HoneyWorks come together for their fourth collaboration, a new dance inspired by, and set to Terry Riley’s In C, performed atop the Minneapolis Club parking ramp in downtown Minneapolis.

In this new work, 17 of the Twin Cities most versatile and creative dance artists and 6 musicians led by jazz pianist Joseph Strachan navigate the world of Terry Riley’s infamous In C. The musical score, made up of 53 short cells and the simple instruction for musicians to repeat as many times as they wish before moving forward, gives full agency to the musicians and is therefore never played the same way twice. A new improvisational dance score, crafted by Berit Ahlgren and Helen Hatch, both follows and departs from the framework of the music, creating a non-hierarchical microcosm in which the consequences of complicity and dissension unfold in real time.

Friday, June 14 at 8:00pm
Saturday, June 15 at 5:30 and 8:00pm
Sunday, June 16 at 5:30 and 8:00pm

In C by Terry Riley presented under license from G. Schirmer Inc. and Associated Music Publishers, copyright owners.

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.

Katha Dance Theatre (KDT) is pleased to announce the world premiere of Ganga: A Choreographic Odyssey at E.M. Pearson Theatre!

Director/choreographer Rita Mustaphi premieres a film screening and live Kathak dance combination to create a unique cultural spectacle. The dance film, Ganga to Mississippi, was filmed in both India and Minnesota. The Minnesota section was created in collaboration with Sharon Day, an Ojibwe leader and Indigenous activist, artist and writer, and Jane Ramseyer Miller, former artistic director of One Voice Mixed Chorus. In Ganga: A Choreographic Odyssey, the brand-new live component, North Indian Kathak dance will be performed with a non-traditional South Indian Carnatic music accompaniments; the show’s composers come from South Indian Carnatic and North India Hindustani music traditions. Set to live music by these and other acclaimed guest artists, the live portion will be performed by KDT’s Company dancers and apprentices.

Ganga uses Kathak to convey the universal importance of protecting and conserving water sources. It portrays the mythological creation of the river Ganga (or Ganges), depicting Ganga as a nourishing river of life, a source of religious significance, but also one of the world’s most polluted rivers that needs saving from environmental destruction. Using the storytelling artform’s trademark rhythmic footwork, pirouettes and gestural and facial expressiveness, Ganga emphasizes how the crucial role the Ganges plays to Asian Indians is similar to the role the Mississippi plays to Minnesotans – especially to indigenous communities. Through these mythological and real-life frameworks, Ganga calls for systemic change and urges audiences to take action against pollution.

June 14 and 15 at 7:30pm
June 16 at 2:00pm – ASL-interpreted
90 minutes, plus 20 minute intermission

General Admission: $35
Students and Seniors 65+: $20

One year after its official launch, Amez Dance is proud to present its debut production choreographed by Nieya Amezquita with an original music score composed by internetjunkhound:

De Mi Corazón is a love letter to the black family, specifically black fatherhood, created to explore the complexities and nuanced dynamics in the African American community. Because only through reflection and empathy can we begin to truly appreciate the intricacies of our familial connections and heal from the traumas of the past.

In addition to the performance of De Mi Corazón, Amez Dance will feature a new work from guest choreographer, Javan Mngrezzo. Connect during a post show Q&A after the June 15 performance.

Friday and Saturday, June 14 and 15 at 7:30pm.

$25, with a pay what you can performance on June 15.

Twin Cities Flamenco Collective invites flamenco groups and companies in town to celebrate the community and the art form! This is part of TCFC’s monthly residency program at Icehouse MPLS.

Sunday, June 16
5:00pm

Artists include:

• Anda Flamenco
• Cia Sautter
• David Greenburg
• Flamenco X
• Twin Cities Flamenco Collective
• Teo
• and more!

Tuesday, June 18 at 7:00pm
Free event, advanced registration encouraged.

Join us for Wayfinding, a creative conversation and informal dance film sharing featuring short films by 2024 McKnight International Choreographer Meryl Zaytoun Murman, Winona artist Sharon Mansur and Leila Awadallah. The films will explore their shared Arab/SWANA (Southwest Asian and Northern African) heritage, gender and sexuality, and diasporic bodies, and a guided discussion will center these themes. Winona State Professor Mary Jo Kilnker will lead the discussion.

Murman was named the 2024 McKnight International Choreographer for her work as a multi-disciplinary artist whose art juxtaposes choreographic, cinematic, and live art practices to create movement pieces that emphasize interactivity and intimacy. She has taught and worked deeply in several international communities including Thessaloniki and Ukraine. Her queer films and choreographies derived from experiments at the intersection of cinema and dance disrupt popular notions of spectacle, the body, virtuosity, and gender.

This event is part of a month-long residency in Winona and the Twin Cities. There will be a variety of events that allow Murman to share her multiple artistic practices. View the full residency schedule.

This free event will be co-sponsored by Art of the Rural and will take place at the Winona Arts Center. Reservations are strongly encouraged.