Fall Sound Garden at Wargo Nature Center

Amidst the fall colors and falling leaves, dancers Sarah Baumert, Suzette Gilreath, Erika Hansen, and Leslie O’Neill perform in the site-specific Fall Sound Garden performance installation along the wooded trails at Wargo Nature Center in Lino Lakes, MN; nestled along the Rice Creek chain of lakes, not far upstream from where the Fall Sound Garden first premiered in 2018 at Manomin Park.

This year’s Fall Sound Garden is part of Wargo’s annual Fall Fest, which also features a cider press, storybook trail, Dakota language scavenger hunt, and fall games.  Directed by composer JG Everest, the Fall Sound Garden will also feature embedded sculpture and poetry throughout the site, with live storytelling by poet/storyteller Lisa Yankton, and live roving musical accompaniment by members of the Free Range Orchestra and Choir.

The Fall Sound Garden event is a free, family-friendly, self-guided event that features a sound installation of 60+ small, wireless speakers distributed throughout the park, with live accompaniment by roving musicians and dancers. Each small speaker is playing a different part of the whole piece of music, creating a unique, immersive experience that is described as “a concert you can move through.”

Event is free, but registration is requested in order to send weather updates and possible program changes.

Saturday, October 21 from 1:00-4:00pm

Concerto Dance at the Cowles Center’s Fall Forward Festival

Concerto Dance will be sharing the stage with Afoutayi Haitian Dance, Music and Arts Company, and Kaleena Miller Dance in the Cowles Center Fall Forward Festival Weekend One!

October 21-22

Afoutayi Haitian Dance, Music and Arts Company promotes Haitian cultural heritage through dance, songs in Creole and French, and live drumming. Utilizing jazz and modern expressions, Concerto Dance creates vibrant dance works driven by musicality and virtuosity aiming to uplift the human spirit. Kaleena Miller Dance creates tap dance works that invite performers and viewers to participate in deep listening.

Concerto Dance will be performing our signature work Ode to Opus Jazz, inspired by Jerome Robbins’ “NY Export: Opus Jazz”, Ode to Opus Jazz is an original dance work exploring the timeless themes of teenage angst, friendship, and young love,  with the “coolness” of jazz.

Tickets on sale now.

gottaDANCE! Benefit Series for The Cowles Center: Drag Social

Make fall fabulous at this pre-show reception with a photo booth, drag performers, mimosas, and brunch bites. Stay after the social for the Fall Forward Festival performance featuring Haitian, jazz, and tap dance. Join us in supporting artist opportunities and sustaining the diverse programs offered by Cowles Center. With your help, we can empower dance and performing artists at every stage of their careers, nurturing their growth and fostering a vibrant artistic community. Together, let’s make a lasting impact on the arts.

Sunday, October 22
Reception – 12:30pm
Fall Forward Festival Performance – 2:00pm
Tickets: $65, includes reception and performance

Operations Associate at Upstream Arts

Upstream Arts is hiring an Operations Associate. Apply by October 22! People who are particularly passionate about the arts and/or disability are encouraged to apply. The Operations Associate is a key position in the operations of Upstream Arts, a mid-sized nonprofit that values and leverages creativity in a collaborative work environment. Click here to view the full job posting.

Annual Salary: $52,000-$58,000 depending on experience. This is an exempt full-time position.

Benefits:

  • 11 Paid Holidays plus year-end office closure
  • Paid Time Off
  • Health Care
  • Long Term Disability insurance
  • Option to opt into 401(k) retirement plan

Work Conditions:

  • This position is a blend of and will include and require both in-person and remote work.
  • Upstream Arts’ office is an open (no walls) office environment.
  • Working schedule is typically 9:00am- 5:00pm from Monday-Friday.
  • This is a computer/screen-heavy position.
  • All employment with Upstream Arts is conditioned on candidates being fully vaccinated. Individuals with medical issues or religious beliefs, or practices, that prevent them from getting the vaccine may request an exemption from our vaccine requirement.

Essential Duties:

  • Supports the Associate Executive Director by maintaining organizational financial, administration, and human resources systems, alongside the Operations Manager.
  • Co-manages financial systems and monthly processes.
  • Manages invoicing and billing for waivered services community members.
  • Supports programmatic goals and work.
  • Collects documentation and employee information for personnel/human resources records and communications.
  • Assists Associate Executive Director with tracking of grant expenditures and documentation.
  • Works with Development staff to ensure alignment between donor database and accounting system.
  • Assists with gathering required documentation for annual financial audit.
  • Assists with Annual Fundraiser, specifically the financial and logistical aspects.
  • Assists with evaluation and demographic data collection and entry.
  • Click here to view the full list of duties.

Required Qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree or 3+ years of related work experience
  • Ability to handle multiple projects
  • Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail
  • Excellent communication skills
  • Computer proficiency with MS Office and ExcelDHS background check required upon hire
  • Ability to manage confidential information according to HIPPA and DHS requirements

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Experience in the nonprofit sector and/or arts sector
  • Passion for and/or experience with the arts or disability communities
  • Proficiency in FileMaker Pro, QuickBooks, and ADP payroll systems

Send a cover letter and resume to jobs@upstreamarts.org by October 22, 2023 to apply.

Upstream Arts will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race (including traits associated with race), color, creed, religion, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, and pregnancy-related conditions), gender identity or expression (including transgender or gender-fluid status), sexual orientation, genetic information, disability, age, marital status, familial status, service in the military, membership or activities in local commissions, income, public assistance status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law or ordinance.

Dance Roots: Minnesota’s Movers and Shakers Exhibition Opening Reception

Come to the opening reception of Dance Roots: Minnesota’s Movers and Shakers, celebrating Minnesota’s dance community drawn from the University of Minnesota’s Performing Arts Archives.

Friday, October 27 from 5:00-7:30pm

Enjoy refreshments, mingle, and explore the exhibition. Stay for Georgia Finnegan-Saulitis’s talk about her new book Grace & Grit at 6:30pm.

The Exhibition, curated by the PAA’s new director Deborah Ultan, displays a fascinating network of choreographers, companies, dancers, teachers, dance photographers, and dance spaces over the last 100 years. There will be guest speakers at the exhibition through January 31, 2024, including Mary Easter. Mary will read from her autobiography, “The Way She Wants To Get There, Telling on Myself,” on November 8 at 12:00pm – brown-bag lunch.

Dance Roots: Minnesota’s Movers and Shakers will be open during library hours: 9:00am-5:00pm on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, and 9:00am-7:00pm on Wednesday and Thursday.

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence is a solo performance by Kata Juhasz, a Hungarian dancer and choreographer, which is articulated in verbal speech and movements simultaneously in a short personal reckoning with some historical outlook on the possibilities of an authentic artist willing to preserve her independence in a politicized public life on the shifting borderline of the EU. Kata is a Budapest-based dancer, choreographer, teacher, and physician who has been performing, in residence, and providing workshops throughout Europe since 1996. She was in residence in Minneapolis in 2017. Her works have been supported by Summa Artium, the National Cultural Fund, and The Ministries of Human Capacity of Hungary.

Her performance will be accompanied by bassist, composer, producer, and educator Alexis Cuadrado, born in Barcelona and now in Brooklyn, NY. Alexis has released six albums as a band leader, composed for many venues, and is on the faculty of the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

Declaration of Independence will be preceded by Sleeping Giant, a new piano composition by Maura Bosch inspired by and performed over a video projection of photographs by Vance Gellert on lumbering and mining on northern Minnesota Native lands.

Friday, October 27 at 7:30pm
Saturday, October 28 at 7:30pm

Price: Donation-based.

Beer & Ballet

Beer & Ballet is a fun evening featuring new choreography along with a few repertoire pieces.

This event is a fundraiser for Continental Ballet Company.

Beer will be served by Northstar Tavern and the company is selling raffle tickets for great prizes. Company members Hope Easter, Adrienne Berrington, Kerry Parker, Wesley Rocha and Founder/Director Riet Velthuisen all have new pieces to premiere at Beer & Ballet. This is a fun casual look at classical ballet and many different styles of choreography.

Join us for this exciting and creative evening of dance!

James Sewell Ballet: In the Shadows

Frankenstein, zombies, and characters of Edgar Allen Poe come to life in this family-friendly performance steeped in spooky delight and tragic majesty.

Anchoring the performance is a new choral ballet titled Unfashioned Creature, featuring Twin Cities beloved artists Timothy C. Takach (composer), Penelope Freeh (choreographer), and the MPLS (imPulse) choral ensemble. The work is poetically rooted in Shelley’s Frankenstein, and explores key aspects relating to personhood: otherness, abandonment, despair, and hopeful yearning. Music includes cello, percussion, and the stellar singers of MPLS who will perform a fractured libretto comprised of Shelley’s text.

Also on the program, remounts of two Sewell fall favorites: excerpts from “Takes on Poe” (2012); and “Grave Matters” (2011), which combines undead charm and morbid wit in a playful zombie ballet.

Saturday, October 28
2:00pm and 7:30pm

Tickets: $5-34

The Arena – Workshop with International Artist Kata Juhasz

Sensing the Flow
Saturday, October 28
10:00-11:30am

Pricing – suggested donation $25
Register via email: cie.ooops@gmail.com
Teaching Artist: Kata Juhasz

Workshop Description
After an exhilarating release technique-based technical warm-up, which allows flowing movements in space, we will have a short phrase followed by some creative improvisation tasks. The exercises open up and disrupt movement vocabulary and composition methods to propose an unprecedented dance language and helps dancers to explore non-habitual, spatial, dynamic and body-level choices.

In addition to the work on the individual body we’ll focus on composing the movement of a group. The movement of individuals within a group can be connected and united. Shapes or positions in space can be related and given the visual equivalents of harmony or dissonance. As dancers, we can create connections referring to past or future events, like melodies, rhythms and dynamics. As a result of the workshop, a short joint group choreography will be created.

Kata Juhász is a dancer, choreographer from Budapest, Hungary. She has presented her own choreographic works internationally since 2005. Read more about her background here.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet – Deep River

Submerge yourself in this deeply soulful, powerful new work that fuses Black and Jewish spiritual music with stunning dance. Set to a score by jazz pianist, composer, and MacArthur Fellow Jason Moran—with vocals by Grammy Award-winning vocalist Lisa Fischer—the piece celebrates the 40th anniversary of this artistically innovative ballet company. Master choreographer and visionary Alonzo King reveals Deep River is a reminder “that love is the ocean that we rose from, swim in, and will one day return to”—that love can set us free.

A Sensory Friendly Lounge equipped with sensory supports and staffed by trained volunteers will be available to all guests who are seeking a safe and soothing atmosphere during this and other select performances. Learn more on the Accessibility Services page.

Thursday, November 2 at 7:30pm