Andy Mor and CABARAVE: Glass Ceiling

The Cowles Center’s MERGE program pairs artists from varying genres in unconventional collaborations, culminating in the premiere of an evening-length performance.

Andy Mor and CABARAVE break the rules in their new, dynamic experience you can’t get anywhere else!

Featuring

  • Aerialists
  • Fire performers
  • Performance painting
  • Live music
  • Pole, and
  • Dance – tap and hip hop to African and jazz

The ominous glass ceiling (suspended above the stage) is a reminder, not only of where we are, but what is yet to come. Throughout the night, the audience will participate in the spectacle, and watch as the glass ceiling moves in closer and closer. The only question is, When the glass ceiling is in reach, will you have the strength to break through?

Wednesday, March 15 performance includes Pay As You Are!

James Sewell Ballet and Ahn Trio – EMBRACE

EMBRACE with the Ahn Trio

James Sewell Ballet reunites with the extraordinary Ahn Trio in a program featuring a reimagining of 2018’s Connections. Like the best embrace, there’s known comfort and new spark combined. The three sisters of the Ahn Trio – Lucia on piano, Angella on violin, and Maria on cello – were born in Seoul, Korea, and educated at the Juilliard School in New York City. These growing-up experiences in two cultures, along with their extensive international touring, infuse their celebration of 21st-century classical music with a particular flare and style.

Friday, March 17 at 7:30pm
Saturday, March 18 at 2:00pm

This performance runs approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes with one intermission. Tickets: $5-$35.

Collide Theatrical Presents SKOL!

Collide Theatrical Dance Company presents its first dance musical with an original score—
SKOL!
plays at the Southern Theater March 23–April 9, 2023

When a mysterious illness befalls a Viking clan, a young woman is called to fulfill her destiny as a great warrior leader in a battle for the cure with the Christian army. Inspired by the Norse gods, her journey tests the boundaries of her faith, shakes the ground of the relationships with the men dearest in her life, and causes her to question the definition of female strength.

Inspired by recent evidence of the grave of a female Viking holding the accoutrements and injury marks of a prestigious warrior, a discovery that cast a new light on gender roles in Scandinavian history. Collide explores this fascinating story with an original pop rock/rap score composed by Twin Cities musician Mike Michel (The Orange Goodness), with lyrics by vocalists Rush Benson (Ordway) and Katie Gearty (Dakota Jazz Club).

Created by Collide Artistic Director, Regina Peluso, the production stars Renee Guittar and Jarod Boltjes. For tickets visit www.collidetheatrical.org/skol or call 651-395-7903.

Lemi Ponifasio: Love to Death (Amor a la muerte)

“There is a keen theatrical intelligence at work here, with moving intimations of the solitude of human existence and moments of dream-like intensity.” —The Guardian (on Ponifasio’s Requiem)

Love to Death (Amor a la muerte) is a traditional yet radical work conceived and directed by internationally renowned Samoan artist Lemi Ponifasio, a champion of both the avant-garde and Indigenous people. This new work brings together Chilean artists Mapuche singer and composer Elisa Avaendano Curaqueo and contemporary flamenco dancer Natalia Garcia-Huidobro. The work was sparked by events detonated after the murder of Camilo Catrillanca, a Mapuche former student activist and farmer. Voices and bodies weave together in a ceremony revealing their own stories: two lives that reflect both Chile’s history and the search for its future. Touching on questions of identity, destiny, and nature, the work transcends conventional ideas of theater, dance, and activism.

Friday, March 31 at 8:00pm
Saturday, April 1 at 8:00pm
Sunday, April 2 at 8:00pm

Copresented with Northrop.

Tickets: $31.50; $25 Walker members.

Zenon Dance School – Youth Jazz Workshop with Hannah Pierce

Hannah Pierce offers a great workshop series for new and continuing jazz dancers who love to move! Students will learn fundamental techniques and choreography while expanding their knowledge of rhythm and movement. This class is a great foundation for any young dancer, age 7-10 years old. All levels of experience are welcome!

Youth Jazz Workshop – Sundays, 12:00-12:45pm
February 12

Single class drop-in: $15
In-person only; limited space available. Drop-ins welcome.

Click here for more information!

The Arena – Drop-In Moving Practice with Leila Awadallah ليلى عوض الله

Moving Practice is a weekly class series for professional dancers. Classes prioritize rigor, diversity of contemporary aesthetics, variety of class content, and commitment.

Leila Awadallah teaches Moving Practice in February:
Tuesdays, 10:00-11:30am

Professional-level dancers of all styles are welcome.
Pre-register here.

Suggested $17 per class; however, there is a pay-as-able option on all classes – we would rather you join us than not be able to attend due to financial limitations.

Class description: Body Watani (watani, homeland in Arabic) is 1) an improvisational movement practice and 2) a space for experimental Arabic-rooted dance research developed by Leila Awadallah in collaboration with Noelle Awadallah.

The improvisation time is a container with soft edges, where participants are called into movement research through reflective prompts and somatic/collective tasks that guide practitioners into exploring the terrain of their personal ‘body watani’. The work is currently guided with particular intentions around relationships to land and water, ancestral contemplations, bodily archives, and communal weavings.

Movement materials inspired by Arabic dance forms such as Dabke, Baladi, and Raqs Sharqi invite participants to engage in the rhythmicalities of traditional/experimental/current Arabic music. This part of the Body Watani practice conjures physicality rooted in an offering of contemporary dance that locates within contexts of cultural, social, and political content of Palestine, Lebanon, and the greater SWANA region.

Leila Awadallah  ليلى عوض الله (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker based in Minneapolis and sometimes Beirut, Lebanon. Dancing with a body of Palestinian, Arab-American, Sicilian, and diasporic Mediterranean ways and waves. Born near the Thick Wooded River (Sioux Falls, SD) she moved to Minneapolis, Mni Sota (2012) to pursue a BFA in Dance at the University of Minnesota, and found home in the Twin Cities.

Leila is the Artistic Director of Body Watani Dance (body-as-homeland) project/practice in collaboration with Noelle Awadallah. She has received fellowships celebrating her performance, research in Arab-rooted contemporary dance, and choreographies: McKnight Dancer (2022), Jerome Hill (2021-2023), Daring Dances (2019) and Springboard 20/20 (2018). Her newest work, TERRANEA received support from National Performance Network, MSAB, Arab American National Museum, Links Hall, and Goethe Institute. Leila was a member of Ananya Dance Theatre (2014-2019) and the Kelvin Wailey trio (2015-2019). She lives and works part-time in Beirut where she’s a collaborator with Theater of Women of the Camp.

Summer Placement Class for BCL Programs

Ballet Co.Laboratory is holding Summer Placement classes on Friday, February 17 to help students determine which intensive program is the best fit for them.

Join us on Friday, February 17 from 5:00-7:00pm at the BCL studios.

Two classes will be offered, for ages 10-14 and 15-22, during this time.
It is free to attend.
Students will receive their placement in approximately a week.

Learn more about our summer programs or sign up for the placement class: https://bit.ly/BCLSummer23

Winter Dance Experience at Young Dance

Join us on Monday, February 20, for a day of classes featuring a variety of fun styles! Spend your day off from school exploring new styles of dance with your friends! Classes include Family Dance, Creative Movement, plus a full-day or half-day Variety Camp.

Family Dance
Join us for a morning of dancing together. Children and caregivers will get a special start to their day, exploring movement and stories in a fun environment. Taught by family dance extraordinaire Julia Davidson
Ages 1–6 with Caregiver
9:15–10:00am
$15

Creative Movement
Your little one can explore the possibilities of movement with a focus on storytelling. From a personal experience to the depths of their imaginations, children will spend time expressing the stories that reside in their bodies and minds. In this fun-filled class led by Denise Gagner, children develop large and fine motor skills, rhythm, and listening skills as they go on their creative adventures.
Ages 4–7
10:00am–12:00pm
$25

Variety Dance Camp
Send your dancers to us for the whole day, or just the afternoon! In this camp, dancers will experience a variety of styles. Dance genres include Improvisation with Blake Nellis, Capoeira with Guerrerio, Modern with Kathleen, Afro-Latin with Belle Alvarez, Choreography with Judee Shui Xian, and more! 
Ages 7–13 and 14–18
Full day: 9:30am–4:30pm – $110
Half day: 12:00–4:30pm – $70

Register

Save the Dates for a New Feldenkrais Series with Sarah Baumert

Posture Matters
Change Your Posture, Change Your Mood!
An 8-week Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement Series with Sarah Baumert
Beginning March 1, 2023

Everyone’s posture, or how they “use” themselves, isn’t always optimal, with the help of the Feldenkrais method, your postural habits can improve to make everyday movements more enjoyable and easy. Your posture, or, how you navigate being upright with gravity, profoundly affects not only your physical comfort, but your overall health and emotions too.

With awareness, specificity, and practice, we will free the muscles of the neck, shoulders, spine, and face. As one moves towards more freedom in the neck, lower back, and jaw, one also moves towards a more easy, elegant, and upright posture. Our aim is not a perfect posture, but a place of less tension and conflict in the body where our posture is fluid, not rigid.

Available to take via livestream on Zoom or using the self-paced recordings.

Classes begin March 1, 2023
Sundays, 4:00-5:00pm CT
Wednesdays, 6:30-7:30pm CT

$175 for the 8-week series.
Pay-as-able available for this series.
For full scholarship, please inquire directly with Sarah.

Threads Dance Nexus NexGen Youth Dance Project

Threads invites students ages 12-16 to apply for our 12-week pre-professional dance training program, NexGen> Youth Dance Project (YDP).

NexGen> YDP uses a holistic approach to training future dance artists. The program enables youth to enhance technical skills, explore creativity and manage stress and trauma in a safe, supportive environment. Students will receive 6 hours per week of high – level training and education from professionals in dance and health care professionals in the areas of ballet technique, modern dance technique, dance/movement therapy, and nutrition.

Program Schedule: Tuesdays, 4:30-8:00pm and Thursdays, 4:30-7:00pm
Begins March 7. Ends with a student performance the week of May 23.

Program Cost: $450, with need-based scholarships available.

Who Should Apply? The program is seeking 20 students ages 12–16.

How to Apply: Complete the application. Students will be asked for demographic information and to submit a link to a 2-3 minute movement reel that may include studio and/or performance footage. Video link is required at time of submission.

Applications will be accepted January 23–February 17. Students will receive notification of acceptance into the program by February 20, 2023.