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The seventh annual Twin Cities Tap Festival Concerts and Showcase shines a spotlight on the dynamic and ever-changing art of tap dance.

Thursday, October 21 – The first night of the Twin Cities Tap Festival kicks off with the annual showcase, featuring phenomenal local and emerging tap artists and ensembles, including this year’s Elite Tap Feet – some of the best teen tap dancers in Minnesota!

The Twin Cities Tap Festival celebrates the incredible breadth, depth, and artistry of the ever-evolving American art of tap dance. The Festival provides opportunities for dancers of all ages and abilities to participate in classes, workshops, and performances all centered around enhancing technique, expanding creativity, and experiencing this uniquely American art form. We aim to foster learning, inspiration, and innovation as well as provide a venue to showcase tap artists, companies, and choreographers.

Covid-19: Effective September, 1, 2021, all visitors to the Cowles who are attending a performance/event in our theater spaces are required to show either proof of a full course of COVID-19 vaccinations administered at least 14 days prior to the show or a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of the performance/event. Masks are required throughout the Cowles.

The Twin Cities Tap Festival (TCTF) celebrates the incredible breadth, depth, and artistry of the ever-evolving American art of tap dance. The seventh annual TCTF Concerts and Showcase shines a spotlight on the dynamic and ever-changing art of tap dance.

Friday and Saturday, October 22-23 – This year’s concert features live music accompanying the best in local and national tap artists, including Jumaane Taylor and Max Pollak! In-person and livestreamed.

Celebrating John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme with live jazz and tap dance, Jumaane Taylor’s Supreme Love displays the spiritual, artistic, and historical values that infuse human life, using a symbol of nature to transcend hope. Max Pollak will perform All in One, a solo performance of uniquely arranged drum rhythms, songs, dances, and stories that outline Pollak’s artistic evolution. All music is created live by Pollak, only using his body.

Covid-19: Effective September 1, 2021, all visitors to the Cowles who are attending a performance/event in our theater spaces are required to show either proof of a full course of COVID-19 vaccinations administered at least 14 days prior to the show or a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of the performance/event. Masks are required throughout the Cowles.

Twin Cities Ballet is excited to invite you to our world premiere of Dracula, and Other Tales on October 27 and 28 at Ames Center! 

This exciting production features the world premiere of Dracula, a new ballet with an original story adaptation by TCB Artistic Director Denise Vogt based on the classic novel, and an original musical score written for this production by Minnesota composer Simon Sperl. Vogt used the plot of the Gothic novel as a jumping off point to explore the themes of social and physical isolation, mind control, fear, and seduction that permeate the novel, but reinvents the setting. “In this version, the Dracula character is in solitary confinement in a prison,” says Vogt. “It’s not your regular Dracula.” 

Twin Cities Ballet will also be performing Denise Vogt’s RED, an intellectually provocative and emotionally powerful ballet with an all-female cast, inspired by themes from The Handmaid’s Tale. RED explores women’s individual reactions to forced conformity and the stripping of their individuality: compliance, collaboration, and/or rebellion. The evening is rounded off by the premiere of a new piece choreographed by TCB company dancer Micah Chermak.

Tickets can be purchased in person at the Ames Center box office or via Ticketmaster.com.

About Twin Cities Ballet: Twin Cities Ballet of Minnesota (TCB) is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit professional ballet company located in the South Metro. Our mission is to make ballet approachable, relatable and fun through innovative, professional and original productions.

These activities are made possible by the voters of Minnesota through grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

ARENA DANCES kicks off its 26th season of favorites with LIVE dance at The Southern Theater!

Mathew Janczewski brings his subtle, rich and viscerally honest choreographic voice to the historic Southern Theater stage for performances by ARENA DANCES. Noted for their unique physicality and humanistic performances, this bill of favorites is a complimentary array of ARENA’s diverse talents. As the company gears up for a fall of touring, be a part of this celebratory home kickoff. 

Run With Me
The show’s title work is a popular work from the past—revitalized for today. Opening the show, this lush, sinuous men’s quartet is a display of immense endurance, inspired by the writings of David Wojnarowicz. Lightsey Darst for MN Artists called it a “…vivid whirl, densely layered and evocative…with moments of crystalline clarity. Melancholic, romantic, dramatic and lovely.” 

One Room
One Room is an all female sextet that surges with the central theme that personal viewpoints shared among collective power will prevail. As the dancers negotiate the space around them, and each other, the movement builds layer by layer, working toward a powerful resolution. The movement is a meditation on the need to join together in one room, coming to the table to face conflict, negotiation, compromise, and strength as one voice.

hold my hand
hold my hand is built on the score “Requiem” by Minnesota composer and 2018 McKnight Fellowship recipient, Joshua Clausen. The score and work is inspired by Sophie Chou’s sonification of gun violence statistics.

Open Eyes
A symbiotic relationship of two movers melting and embracing into one another with technical prowess and risk that only can be obtained with pure trust in each other. This duet was originally choreographed with long-time ARENA dancer and muse Amy Behm Thomson with artistic director, Mathew Janczewski.

Quartet
An angularly stark, white-hot cool quartet driven by the music of fourtet. The full body movement of each dancer must fit within the group pushing, pulling and fitting together. Quartet was honored to be selected for performance through the American College Dance Festival at the John F.  Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. 

Thursday, October 28 and Friday, October 29 at 7:00pm

Tickets: https://www.showtix4u.com/events/runwithme2021
General admission, $20 in advance if purchased by October 24. $24 week of show and at the door. 

Opening night Dine and Dance
6:00pm hosted happy hour reception and performance. Thursday, October 28. $40

About ARENA DANCES: 
The mission of ARENA DANCES is to make dance accessible to all through the presentation of contemporary dance, educational outreach, and community gatherings to inspire and promote dialogue and diversity. We continually re-draw the boundaries of our work, challenging physical extremes and exploring bodies as they relate to each other and space. The work is abstract in form, giving shape to emotions and exploring the depths and limits of what drives us as humans to connect. Learn more at http://www.arena-dances.org, and follow our latest moves on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Cassandra is your DJ and dance inspiration so grab your sparkly hip belt and join her for some at-home shimmy fun!

Happy Hips Halloween Dance Party

$5, reservations open until noon (CT) the day of the party in order to get your Zoom invite.

Saturday, October 30 at 6:00pm