From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.The M’s new wing triples its exhibit space in downtown St. Paul Architectural historian Marjorie Pearson of St. Paul wants people to know that the new, expanded wing of the Minnesota Museum of Art, commonly known as the M, is now open in the historic arcade of the Endicott building in downtown St. Paul. The major renovation triples the available exhibit space for Minnesota’s oldest art museum. The exhibit in the new wing, entitled “Here, Now,” features 150 works from the M’s permanent collection, ranging across centuries and styles. The museum is open Thursdays through Sundays and admission is free. When you visit, Marjorie recommends you take time to admire the architecture in addition to the art.Marjorie says: This is a premier office building that was designed by Cass Gilbert in the early 1890s and the arcade with its wonderful arch stained-glass ceiling, beautifully restored by Stonehouse Stained Glass Studio in Avon, Minn., really enhances the whole gallery space.  The Endicott building was constructed around the historic Pioneer building … the two buildings were combined. The galleries now are in the historic arcade, which was a shopping arcade for people in the offices downtown — a precursor to a shopping mall.[Note: Cass Gilbert (1859-1934) was a prominent architect who lived and worked in Minnesota for portions of his life; he designed many important buildings, including the Minnesota State Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court Building.] — Marjorie PearsonArtist created, student-curated Black joy Billy Nduwimana Siyomvo got an early view of the exhibit “Layers of Joy,” which he called “mind-blowing.” The exhibit features five Minneapolis artists — Leslie Barlow, Alexandra Beaumont, Eyenga Bokamba, Cameron Patricia Downey and seangarrison — whose selected works celebrate Black joy and identity. Billy loved the work, and he recommends taking your time to take it in from all angles. He was also struck by the exhibit’s backstory: the show was curated by University of Minnesota students enrolled in ARTH 3940: Black Art in Minneapolis, taught by Dr. Daniel M. Greenberg and Dr. Dwight K. Lewis, Jr. Billy describes the show: When you walk in, the first thing that embraces you is colors —different textures, colors, different stories. Each art piece I felt like was made with love. What I love about this [exhibit] is that this class is basically giving these artists a platform. I don’t think it’s every day that you hear about curating art; people need to understand that, yes, these artists are very important, but without the right curated spaces, their art is not put on a platform that it deserves to be on. — Billy Nduwimana SiyomvoWhere design meets play Rebecca Montpetit of Rochester is a lifelong fan of the Rochester Art Center, and she’s already making plans to go back again with her family to see Mini Golf and Chairs. The interactive exhibit consists of 20 chairs from the private college of an Owatonna family, which artist then used as inspiration to create five mini golf holes. You can’t sit on the chairs, but you can play the golf holes. Clubs of all sizes, including adaptive clubs, are part of the exhibit, and there is a par for each hole. The exhibit runs through May 4, 2025. Rebecca describes what it was like to visit the exhibit with her kids, aged 8 and 10: The beginning of the exhibit leads you through this hall of chairs. And it was a really fascinating discussion with our kids to talk about. We said, all of these have the same purpose: to sit! But look at all of the materials and ways that you can create ways to sit. They’re everything from corrugated cardboard to molded plastic to, a kind of a shag material. So we had all sorts of different ways to explore, ways to sit. So it gave the artist creative license as well to really be inspired by the materials or the shape or even the thought process as they created the mini golf elements. — Rebecca Montpetit

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Hankering for a crankeringNorah Rendell is the executive artistic director of the Center for Irish Music in St. Paul. She saw — and loved — the original storytelling musical “The Well Tree” by the Heartwood Trio last spring.  The trio consists of Sarina Partridge of Minneapolis, Heidi Wilson of Vermont and Willie Clemetson of Maine. They’re back for performances of “The Well Tree” tonight at 7 p.m. at the Twin Cities Friends Meeting House in St. Paul and Friday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. at New City Center/Walker Church in Minneapolis. Norah says she imagines the acoustics of the church venues will be well-suited for a show with beautiful harmonies. Norah says: It’s an original singing story performance that includes songs and instruments and acting and illuminated paper cut art called a “crankie” [so named because a person turns a crank to scroll to new images]. It tells a story of a young woman who finds herself running away from home, and along her journey, she meets songbirds and snails and ancient trees as she finds her way home. And the three artists who perform are super talented. They’re beautiful harmony singers. There’s a fiddle player, a banjo player and they’re all actors and they invite the audience to sing along.  It seems like it would be geared towards children, but it really suits anybody of any age who loves the experience of singing together with other people. You leave the show feeling great; it’s very inspiring, very positive. The show itself is really inspiring.— Norah RendellThe male gazeErin Maurelli is an artist and educator in the Twin Cities. She wants people to know about the MCBA / Jerome Book Arts Residency show which is up now at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, inside Open Book in Minneapolis. Free and open to the public, this show displays the work of the three winners of the Jerome Book Arts Residency: photographer Christopher Selleck; papermaker Jelani Ellis; and artist and printmaker Louise Fisher.  Erin says: Christopher Selleck is a photographer who takes on the body, the figure and what we think of as idealism, and through the lens of the camera, he’s able to capture kind of the ideal masculine body — which, in my experience, we don’t see a lot of that in art and art history. Christopher brings issues of identity and sexuality into his work as a gay man, I think the male gaze becomes part of his narrative. Christopher was selected to be part of the Jerome book arts fellowship, and the show is through January 4 of next year. He’s one of three artists that are part of that show, there are some hand-crafted books featuring his photographs as well as sculptural elements. He’s exploring bringing the photographic process into bookmaking.  — Erin MorelliBaroque in GaylordCharles Luedtke is a retired professor of music at Martin Luther College in New Ulm, and he is heading to Gaylord tonight to see La Grande Bande. The group specializes in performing music written from 1600-1800, using instruments of the period. Their November concert celebrates the 340th birthday of Handel with two of his works set near water, his famed “Water Music Suites” as well as his cantata “O come chiare e belle.”  Handel’s "Water Musicks" is tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Gaylord. Michael Thomas Asmus, the founder and artistic director, will give a talk before the performance at 6:45 about the music. Charles says: It’s rather spectacular because he lives in Gaylord, just outside of Gaylord and his music performances have been kind of centered around that area, sometimes in St. Peter, sometimes in New Ulm. So, it’s kind of local, but [it’s] tremendous quality. They’re not amateurs, never amateurs. They are all really professional performers and on period instruments — baroque instruments.— Charles Luedtke

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Dance a mile in another’s shoesErinn Liebhard is the artistic and executive director of Rhythmically Speaking, a jazz and American social dance-based company. She’s looking forward to the Threads Dance Project’s fall show, “Impressions,” this Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Luminary Arts Center in Minneapolis. Erinn elaborates: Their artistic director, Karen L. Charles, is a really fascinating artist. She was a mathematician and statistician who ended up shifting into dance education and eventually was able to open her own company. So she’s got a really sort of methodical yet artistic way of creating choreography.Something that I love about Threads’ work is that I feel like it’s really artistic and accessible at the same time. So it’s saying something, but you don’t have to have special training in dance in order to understand.(As part of the show), Threads is going to be re-exploring a piece about shoes. The piece is called “Abolition in Evolution, Part 2 – Shoes,” and it’s based upon the shoes we wear and what they say about us. I think it’s really interesting that they’re taking this metaphor of walking in someone else’s shoes into a visual and artistic representation that causes you to ask questions about identity, race, class and how we see each other.— Erinn LiebhardAlice in NorthfieldMargit Johnson of Northfield appreciates the work of ArtMakers, and she’s looking forward to their new, original musical, “Alice’s Wonder.” Shows are this Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. (with audio description) at Northfield Arts Guild Theater. Admission is free for this family-friendly show. Margit says: What I like about ArtMakers’ storytelling through music and theater is the genius of the artists with and without disabilities. For 10 years now, ArtMakers start with individuals from the Northfield area, from Colorado and even from Norway; they craft a production around and adapt to the talents and special needs of each participating artist. This way, they create authentic, artist-centered projects in the community. I know that “Alice's Wonder” is going to surprise and delight me. Alice is blind, and so is her friend, the White Rabbit. Their Wonderland is going to come alive with sound and what they call the brave idea of living your life as you choose. The ensemble includes local performers with disabilities alongside professional musicians from Northfield and the Twin Cities.— Margit JohnsonTake me to the riverAuthor Marcie Rendon of Minneapolis recommends that people see “The Adventures of a Traveling Meskwaki,” written by and starring Oogie Push. Originally a one-woman show, the multimedia performance has been expanded to a cast of five. Full Circle Theater is producing the show, which will be staged at Park Square Theatre in downtown St. Paul. There’s a preview performance tonight ahead of the opening Friday. The show runs through Nov. 24, and tickets are pay-as-you-are-able. Marcie says: It follows her adventures as she’s exploring and working with other Native people around issues of protecting the water. It’s broader than just the water: it incorporates many of the things that she’s learned on all of these different travels that she’s done, from Alaska to Vancouver to Washington to California to out East. As a young person, she was a pow wow dancer. So she’s also got stories from that part of her life that she incorporates into her work. The thing to know about Oogie is that she has a wonderful sense of humor. She can also go really deep into the emotional aspects of a piece, like into a character that she's taking on.— Marcie Rendon

This week’s Art Hounds look at an art exhibit about a walk along the Mississippi, Gilbert and Sullivan relocated to Scotland and a blend of concert band and technology.

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Portraits of immigrationRachel Coyne, a writer and painter in Lindstrom, loves outdoor arts events. She’s looking forward to seeing Cadex Herrera’s outdoor exhibition on the campus of the White Bear Center for the Arts in the north metro. “First Person Plural” features 10 larger-than-life black-and-white murals, each featuring the faces of immigrants living in White Bear Lake, where Herrera also used to live. The installation is intended to honor the diversity of immigrants in the area and their contributions. Herrera also directed a documentary about the project, which will be on view. The exhibit opens to the public Thursday with an artist event and celebration from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.  Rachel says: I just like the idea that, you know, this could be somebody you’re passing on the street. But also they’re a work of art. — Rachel CoyneWorthington marks Dia de los Muertos Eric Parrish is the instructor of music and theater at Minnesota West Community and Technical College and the conductor of the Worthington Chamber Singers. He’s looking forward to a series of free events in Worthington to mark Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Events start this weekend and run through next week, culminating in a performance by 512: The Selena Experience, a Selena cover band, on Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. Most events are held at the Memorial Auditorium in town. Among Saturday’s events: Puppeteer Gustavo Boada will unveil two commissioned 8-foot Catrina sculptures at noon. His performance group Little Coyote Puppet Theatre will perform “Skeletons in the Closet: A Day of the Dead Story” at 1 p.m., followed at 2:30 by a puppet-making workshop. The event coincides with the annual meeting of the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council, which comprises 18 counties and two sovereign nations. Art studios and public art will be open for self-guided tours.  About 512: the Selena Experience, Eric says: This is the premier Salena cover band in the country. So it’s a really big swing for our small community. People don’t know Worthington is one of the most diverse communities outside of the Twin Cities in the state of Minnesota. And it’s very exciting for us as a community to embrace this holiday and in this way with all the artists and activities. — Eric ParrishReflecting on water as a relative Diane Wilson is a Dakota author living in Schaefer, and she got a sneak peek at the art exhibit Mní Futurism at Metro State University’s Gordon Parks Gallery in St. Paul. Mní is the Dakota word for water. In this exhibit, two Minnesota-based Native American artists reflect on our relationship with and use of water.  The exhibit is a joint show of photographer Jaida Grey Eagle, who is Ogalala Lakota, and multimedia artist Abby Sunde, of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. The exhibit opens with an artist reception Thursday at 5 p.m. and runs through Dec. 5. Diane says: Their work is very thought-provoking. It’s visually stimulating, and it ranges from impacts on water from pipelines, from pollution but also looking at the impacts on issues like food sovereignty and treaty rights and access to healthy water. Jaida Grey Eagle’s photographs, for example, evoke the beauty of some of the traditional food practices. There are photographs of wild ricing. And there’s one that is so poignant of a young boy in a canoe, and it just evokes that generational relationship to wild rice and how dependent that traditional food is on clean water. And then Abby Sunde looks at from a little more of a critical thinking lens. She looks at, for example, some of the impacts that pipelines have had on water in her community. So there is one series of drawings that are created from rust on glass, and it’s called “Stolen Water.” It’s about aquifer breaches that occur when a pipeline piling is driven too deep, and it breaches into the aquifer, and all this water is released that isn’t supposed to be released. It’s stolen water.  It’s a small and intimate gallery on the first floor of the library. The work of these two women complements each other beautifully in terms of the way that they think about and portray water as a relative.— Diane Wilson

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Let’s meet at the Halloween Tree Kira Pontiff of St. Paul is a self-described occasional actress and full-time lover of all things autumnal and Halloween. She was thrilled to catch a rehearsal of the play “The Halloween Tree,” which she described as a magical Halloween adventure.It’s playing at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis, Oct. 20 – 27. The world-premiere play is adapted from Ray Bradbury’s 1972 novel of the same name. The 90-minute show is recommended for ages 8 and up. Kira describes the show: A group of trick-or-treaters meet up on Halloween night, and they get taken on a magical Halloween adventure by a very mysterious character who takes them through time and to different locations to teach them about the origins of Halloween, how different cultures celebrate where the holiday come came from. It is a very fun adventure story. Light tricks, some shadow puppetry. It’s really a good, magical time, so definitely appropriate for kids. But if you're anything like me and grew up on the story of “The Halloween Tree” by Ray Bradbury, or watched the movie when you were a kid, it definitely hits those nostalgia notes.  I think the cast is just a ton of fun. A lot of very funny moments, a lot of really poignant, heartfelt moments. There will be trick-or-treating at some of the productions in the lobby, and there will be a place to light a candle to remember lost loved ones. So really, I think they’re really creating an environment in this space to celebrate the season.— Kira PontiffWhat will people say? Ellen Fenster-Gharib is a freelance director in the Twin Cities, and she had an opportunity to read in advance an original play that takes on mental health stigma and community pressures. The world premiere of “Log Kya Kahenge (What will people say?)”, written by Aamera Siddiqui, is a co-production of Exposed Brick Theatre, Lyric Arts and South Asian Arts & Theatre House. (“Log Kya Kahenge” is a well-known Hindi and Urdu saying that translates to “What will people say?”)The show runs at Lyric Arts in Anoka Oct. 18 – Nov. 3. The play is recommended for ages 16 and up and takes on themes of mental health and grief. Ellen says: I love Aamera’s playwriting voice and how she investigates her own history with such wit and sensitivity. The play is about a family, and specifically about some daughters who are trying to navigate their way in the U.S. with pressures put on them by their family and by their community.  I loved what Aamera had to say about it. She said that in her particular South Asian culture, there is this sort of collective interest and investment in everyone’s personal business. And she said in her playwright’s notes [paraphrase]: Now this might be making some of you feel very uncomfortable, like, Get out of my business. Shouldn’t you live for yourself? This is what happens in collectivist cultures, cultures in which each individual is seen as being responsible for the reputation of the whole community, and it’s sort of for better and for worse. Everybody has your best interest in mind and also has a lot of opinions about how you’re living your life and the decisions that you’re making. So everyone’s in this pressure cooker of achieving and then also you can’t display any weakness. So the play addresses the stigma around mental health issues. — Ellen Fenster-GharibA tale of monsters and men Loren Niemi of Minneapolis is the founder of the American School of Storytelling. He’s heard Chris Vinsonhaler perform excerpts of her new translation of the old English epic “Beowulf: Monsters and Men,” and he’s looking forward to her bardic performance next Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 6 p.m. at the Episcopal Church of Saint John the Evangelist in St. Paul. Loren says: What is interesting to me about this performance is that A) it’s been a long time since there’s been a new translation that updates the language, and B) she is translating it with a slightly feminist view, so that her concerns, at least as I understand it, is that it's not “boys with swords” so much as the larger issues of politics and heredity and obligation. So when I say heredity, I mean the who begat who, and who succeeded who, and how they arrived at power. One of the things I think I like about her performance is that she is very she is faithful to the rhythms of the material. The Beowulf text has a very rhythmic form to it.— Loren Niemi

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Not your kids’ Halloween play Actor Julie Ann Nevill of St Paul is looking forward to getting into the Halloween spirit when the play “Broomstick” opens Thursday at the Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis. The one-woman play features Cheryl Willis as a witch telling the story of her long life. The show is recommended for ages 14 and up. It runs through Halloween night, with a mask-required performance Sunday. Julie Ann says: “It is billed as both a spooky and hilarious comedy. I am very intrigued by that. So many things around Halloween become kid-centric, and there are many of us adults, myself included, for whom this is our favorite holiday. And so we want something like this that speaks to us and not just to, you know, the small children or the family situation.” “The Open Eye space is so very intimate. And for a one-person show, I think that really gives you a chance to connect with the artist that you’re watching. Joel Sass is a wonderful director. Cheryl Willis is an amazing actor who is so intriguing and sucks you in and really connects with audience members.” — Julie Ann NevillCommonweal stages ‘Doubt’Delia Bell, a potter in Lanesboro, recommends seeing the play “Doubt: A Parable” at the Commonweal Theatre. The play won a 2005 Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for Best Play. Performed by a local cast, the show explores both fact and faith, and Delia says it leaves the audience questioning. The play runs through Nov. 10. Delia explains: “I felt like I was thinking about it for days after. ‘Doubt’ is a story about two sisters, two nuns at a school, and a priest. They suspect that he’s done something inappropriate with one of the students. And so that’s how it stems: it’s this story of which side do you believe? And this nun is adamant about this, and the priest is adamant that he is innocent. It just creates doubt within the viewer. That’s the whole point; the story is never truly resolved.” As for the production, “It’s a simple set. There’s a huge window that’s very striking. And with the music, you really felt like you were in a church at times. It was just what the story needed.” — Delia Bell

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click hereGrief without words Theatermaker Kurt Engh saw The Moving Company’s performance of “SPEECHLESS” in 2017, and he’s thrilled the show is back again. The show opens Friday and runs through Nov. 10 at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. As the name implies, the play is entirely without words, but the emotions run deep. Kurt explains: Someone passes away in the play, and that person is ironically or symbolically named Hope. I think it’s intentionally left to be ambiguous. The play is about five people going through grief in this very melodramatic but real way, and they find that the only way forward is to support themselves, but also support each other. The play shows how people are able to support each other when they don’t even know what to say, when they’re so upset and they’re so at a loss, truly, that they move forward through physical kindness to each other. The collaborators of this production have been working together for many years. They are my favorite theater company in the Twin Cities, and this was voted as a best play of the year in 2017 by the Star Tribune. There are performances on Wednesdays that are pay-as-you-are starting at $15.— Kurt EnghA smorgasbord of short films — or hot dish, if you will Rachel Coyne of Lindstrom is looking forward to seeing the Franconia 5 Minute Film Fest, a short film festival featuring works from Minnesota and Wisconsin artists. The top 15 judge-selected films will be screened at Franconia Sculpture Park this Saturday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. and at the Trylon Cinema in Minneapolis Thursday, Oct 10. The Franconia screening is free with a suggested $10 donation. Seating on benches is limited, so Rachel recommends bringing a blanket or lawn chairs. Rachel adds: There’s a claymation artist, some live film, some animation. In the years in the past, when I’ve gone, you know, it’s kind of like eating like a really pungent spice. You’re just like, wow, that’s an idea, and it hits you over the head, and then before you know it, you’re onto the next film.Given that the filmmakers are all from Minnesota and Wisconsin, Rachel adjusts her metaphor: It’s more hot dish. So there’s peas, there’s carrots, there’s tater tots and there’s probably even some mushroom soup in there. — Rachel CoyneDid you hear that classic Irish epic about the cow? Anna Maher is a classically trained singer and actor living in the Twin Cities, and she’s glad that one of her favorite theater companies, Clevername Theatre, is remounting a fan-favorite from the 2022 Minnesota Fringe Festival. “Connor’s gonna tell: The Tain Bo Cuailnge” is a one-person recounting of the “Táin Bó Cúailnge,” an old Irish epic tale about a cattle raid. See it at Bryant Lake Bowl & Theater in Minneapolis, Fridays, Oct. 4 and Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 13 at 3 p.m. Anna says: It’s kind of like the Irish Odyssey. It’s an epic, and it chronicles a war that was waged between two factions, and then there’s a hero. And the whole thing, the whole fight, revolves around a cow. And so, Connor will tell the story. He uses different voices. There are some different outfits that happen. There’s a mask, there's a little bit of puppetry involved. And then he has a mandolin player who accompanies him for the entire show.” (Note: Anna Maher works for American Public Media Group, the parent company of MPR News.)— Anna Maher

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Divine narratives in theaterSuzy Messerole, co-artistic director of Exposed Brick Theatre, is raving about the play “A Walless Church: The Black Woman’s Guide to Making God.” The original play was written by AriDy Nox and developed at the Playwright Center, and it includes music by Queen Drea. The play runs through Oct. 13 at the Pillsbury House +Theatre. Suzy says: It is a beautiful combination of ritual and movement and storytelling. It is about three godlings that come back to Earth, and they are exploring how Black women experience divinity, so they are here searching for the divine. There is an incredible ritual that happens, really gorgeous movement, and there’s also three concrete storylines that you can really latch onto. There’s all kinds of ways that this society tells Black women, explicitly and not explicitly, that they don’t deserve divinity, and this is a reclamation of the kind of faith and joy and beauty that Black women need and deserve and should have. The three actors drop in and out of multiple different characters, from a mom to a grandma to an auntie to a teenager and back to a godling. And the great thing about seeing a show at Pillsbury House + Theatre is that it’s an intimate setting, so you’re getting up close and personal with these powerhouse actors.— Suzy Messerole Landscapes alive with lightArt lover Bill Adams of Erhard appreciates the arts scene around Fergus Falls. He wants people to know about a current show at the Kaddatz: “Scott Gunvaldson: Paintings, Drawings, Graphic Art,” which runs through Oct. 19. Bill says: Scott is a former student of [the late] Charles Beck, and like Charlie, he really captures the essence of west central Minnesota in his landscapes. Scott uses light in just an extraordinary way to bring out the heart and essence of the landscape. Scott is also just an extraordinary portrait painter. He has several portraits in this show that I think are just amazing. When you stare at those portraits, the people really come alive. And again, he uses light in just an extraordinary way to bring life to those portraits.— Bill Adams Rising from SuperiorArtist and educator Marjorie Fedyszyn of Minneapolis recommends Annie Hejny’s multidisciplinary solo show about humanity's impact on Lake Superior. “Imminent Change/Rising Potential” runs through Oct. 26 at Kohlman & Reeb Gallery in the Northrup King Building in Minneapolis. Supported by the Kolhman & Reeb Project Space Grant, Hejny spent 24 days circumnavigating Lake Superior in 2023, during which time she took water samples that she incorporated into paints and gathered images and video. Marjorie describes the show: In the gallery, you will see large-scale acrylic paintings based on Superior’s vast shoreline, rusted steel wall sculptures in response to the years of taconite tailings running off into the lake, intimate watercolor works in a mesmerizing, layered video projection of water, highlighting the entanglement of personal, political and social aspects of our magnificent Lake Superior. Humans have altered this highly revered and significant waterscape, and inevitably, more changes lay ahead as shoreline development, invasive species mining threats and water temperatures continue to increase. Annie’s care and interest in the stewardship of the environment inspired her solo journey and informed these new artworks, aligning her firsthand experience with imaginative experimentation, she reckons with the past and finds hope in the possibilities ahead. This body of work is so surprisingly different from her former work that it feels like it’s a launching point for whatever’s coming next in her career.— Marjorie FedyszynCorrection (Sept. 27, 2024): An earlier version of this story misstated the title of AriDy Nox's play. It has been corrected.

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click here.Remembering the Great Hinckley Fire and those who saved lives Christine Wade of Elision Playhouse was able to see snippets of Bucket Brigade Theater’s original play “Survivors of the Fire” when it was at the Hinckley Fire Museum, and she’s looking forward to the full production at Art House North in St. Paul. The play with music tells the stories of people who died and people who saved lives during the great Hinckley Fire of 1894, which was 130 years ago this month. The show runs Sept. 20-Oct. 12. Christine says:  This play tells the story of the tragedy and the people that died in the fire — anywhere from 400 to 600 people, they don’t really know for sure — and also the heroism of people who saved a lot of lives. The show tells stories that you may have heard from the fire, but it also tells a lot of untold stories of people whose acts really didn’t get highlighted and celebrated in the way they should have at the time, including a Black porter who saved many, many lives by bringing the train back out of Hinckley with people on board. The story is tragic, but there’s a lot of joy involved. There are multiple instrumentalists playing along. There’s singing; there's some dancing. So it really is the whole gamut that we experience in a tragedy: we see the hope, we see the fear and the sadness and they tell it in a really all-encompassing way that leaves you ultimately hopeful, I think, at the end of the day.— Christine WadeDancers unveil solo artistryCláudia Tatinge Nascimento is chair and professor of Theater and Dance at Macalester College in St. Paul. She’s planning to take students this weekend to see “SOLO,” the performances of the McKnight Dancer Fellowships. In this 20th anniversary event, six dancers — three fellowship recipients from 2022 and three from 2023 — will perform original solo dance pieces, choreographed by artists of their choosing. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the O'Shaughnessy, with an artist talk-back following Saturday’s performance. Cláudia says: One of the things that really is exciting to me is because you have six different dancers who have pieces commissioned for them by these very specific choreographers, then it’s an opportunity for the audience to see a really wide range of styles, and to also see dance as research because each one of these dancers have a particular way of connecting with dance. If they choose a specific choreographer it’s because that other artist is going to help them with their research. This year, the six dancers will present solo pieces by international guest choreographers from Beirut, London, Amsterdam or affiliated with major U.S. organizations such as the José Limón Foundation. This is really a unique opportunity to view works executed by some of the strongest dancers in our community.— Cláudia Tatinge NascimentoArtists in their natural habitats: Visit artist workshops in St. Peter this weekend Eli Hoehn of St. Peter is the executive director of the Minnesota Original Music Festival, and he’s happy to share about another event in his town: the St. Peter Art Stroll. Local painting, sculpture, ceramics, fiber arts and more will be displayed in artist studios and local businesses. The event runs, rain or shine, this Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Find a map of artist locations in St Peter and nearby Kasota here. Eli says the Art Stroll is worth a visit to St. Peter, adding “I’ve been to these in years past, and it’s pretty much a full-day event.” 

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click here. Thinking about the future with all your senses Theater artist and educator Kathy Welch of Minneapolis saw the multidisciplinary show “Legacy Dream Space” at the Owatonna Arts Center last year. She’s thrilled that the project has continued to expand and will now be on view at Modus Locus Expansion in Minneapolis. Created by Craig Harris and Candy Kuehn in collaboration with Kym Longhi and Jim Peitzman, “Legacy Dream Space” opens Wednesday and runs through Sept. 25. Kathy says: This is an exhibition that evokes all of the senses. It’s an immersive and interactive exhibition that includes sound and lights and projections. The theme is “legacy,” so the exhibition asks you to think about what sort of legacy we want to leave behind. The audience gets to interact with buttons, and they can record responses, and they can be captured on video, and all of that is incorporated into future iterations of the work.  It was a way to think about the future with all of my senses. It does apply to your intellect, but also when you walk in there, the sounds and the colors and just the tactile [experience] — it was absolutely enlightening to me to see a way to think with your entire body, with all of your senses.— Kathy WelchLearning from strong women of the past Rebecca Damron of Lanesboro appreciates how History Alive Lanesboro looks to the past to draw connections to our present and our future. She’s looking forward to seeing their production this weekend, entitled, “Time for Women: 150 Years of Leadership.” The original play highlights the roles of real women in southeast Minnesotan history who have worked for women’s rights and civil rights. The play also celebrates the centennial of Indigenous suffrage in 2024. The two acts span 1870 to 1970. The show wraps up its tour, which has included Red Wing, St. Paul and historic Forestville, back in Lanesboro this weekend, with performances Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. at the St. Mane Theatre. Tickets are free for people under 18. Rebecca adds: Something really fun that will happen is that History Alive Lanesboro will invite the audience to take part in a suffrage rally during the intermission of the show, and then the show will end with a discussion that’s led by the League of Women Voters. I’d really love for people to come see it, because women’s issues are still at the forefront, especially in this political year.— Rebecca Damron And now, let’s all look at horses Doris Rubenstein of Richfield is the arts reporter for the American Jewish World newspaper. She recommends seeing the new show of equine portrait artist Nanci Fulmek. The opening date for the show is currently being revisited, but check with the ArtBarn52 Gallery for updates.Doris tells it best: The State Fair is over, and since I fractured my ankle, I wasn’t able to go to my favorite place, the horse barns. The little girl who loved horses desperately still lives on inside me, and I need a horse fix badly as soon as possible. Looks like I’m going to get it, though.Oil painter and instructor at the Atelier Studio Program of Fine Arts Nanci Fulmek will be exhibiting her fantastic portraits of beautiful horses, amongst other subjects, both serious and whimsical. Please refrain from trying to feed the horses any carrots or sugar lumps. The paintings are so lifelike that you’ll be tempted! Nanci shares that same girlish adoration of horses of all breeds as me, and she went on to paint amazingly life-like portraits of horses. You can almost feel the breath escaping from those flaring equine nostrils, and you'll have to control yourself to keep from patting one of those velvety noise noses.— Doris Rubenstein

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Art Hounds podcast serieshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-hounds/id525807829Space cowboys and stolen moonMaria Ghassemlou of Minneapolis is a longtime Minnesota Fringe house manager, and that’s where she saw the play “Moonwatchers” in 2022. The two-person show won the Best in Venue and Underdog awards that year. Now, she’s delighted to share that the show is back at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis. The show is created and performed by Corey Farrell and Nigel Berkeley, who attended the University of Minnesota / Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training program together. The show opens tonight and runs through Sept 22.  Maria says: “Moonwatchers” is a show where there's two office workers, and their job just happens to be watching the moon and making sure that things happen on time — just a normal office job — but something goes awry when somebody steals the moon. Now they have to go on an adventure to go find it. This is a two-person show where they play multiple characters. There’s Space Cowboys, there’s aliens, cows, space Jane Austin and space grass. It’s just a lot of silly and fun.— Maria GhassemlouCloudland celebrates DIY spiritPhil Schwarz of Minneapolis volunteers at Extreme Noise Records, and he wants people to know about Cloudland Theater, a 150-seat music venue on East Lake Street that celebrates its first anniversary this fall. He describes Cloudland as filling a need for a small venue for DIY musicians (read: artist book gigs themselves) outside of a traditional bar setting. Phil says: There’s not a lot of smaller venues in town. And when venues came back [after pandemic closures], there was an explosion of new bands and stuff, and a lot of these venues were a lot harder to book shows in, so Cloudland came along at a perfect time. The shows are very intimate: you can converse with the musicians and stuff like that, and it’s very kind of communal.  I’m super excited for Feast of Lanterns, which features Alan Sparhawk of the band Low and also Pete Biasi, who used to be in a great post-punk band from here called Signal to Trust. It’s kind of different than what Alan’s done with Low: I would say noise punk and more abrasive. They will be playing Saturday, September 21 at Cloudland.— Phil SchwarzPortraits of fame on displayGabi Marmet is a senior at The Blake School in Minneapolis, where she works on the student journal, Spectrum. She had a chance to interview Blake alum Thea Traff, who has photographed portraits of President Joe Biden, the Rolling Stones, Rachel Weisz, Sofia Coppola and Jessica Chastain, among a host of other entertainers and newsmakers, for such publications as The New Yorker and New York Times Magazines. A selection of her mostly black and white photography is on display at the Bennett Gallery at the Blake School, open to the public through early October. Gabi was struck by how Thea got her start as a Blake student taking photographs, and how her current schedule means sometimes she’ll get a call and have 48 hours to show up and photograph a subject.  Gabi says: They’re all very different styles, depending on the person. The Rolling Stones looked like they were having such a fun time in their photo shoot; they were just like laughing or like smiling really big.(Most impressive photography subject, in Gabi’s opinion? Actor and singer Ben Platt — Gabi’s a fan.) — Gabi Marmet

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click here.Memory and magicNanci Oleson describes herself as a visual artist, Montessori teacher and musician. She recommends the play “Five More Minutes” from Sod House Theater, which is currently on a tour of western Minnesota. This moving play about an elderly couple facing dementia will be at the YES! House in Granite Falls Thursday, the Little Theater Auditorium in New London Friday and at the Madison Mercantile in Madison, Minn., on Saturday night. Social worker Adenike Ade provides a post-show talk-back about Alzheimer’s and dementia.  Nanci says that show creators and performers Luverne Seifert and Joy Dolo are two of her favorite performers in the Twin Cities: You are watching an old couple who is playing” they’re imagining adventures under the sea, into space … this is a way that they escape from their sort of mundane older lives. But as the show goes on, we see that one of them is starting to lose memory, starting to move into dementia, and the fear that accompanies this from both of them and the poignant way that they tell this story, the ups and the downs, [makes this play] just this really incredible, important piece.  It provides everything I love, very good acting, amazing, delightful use of props and space, just gorgeous symphony between the two of them, as well as an educational experience and familiar experience of confronting dementia.— Nanci Oleson Dreamscape at duskSinger and artist Sarah Lynn of Brooklyn Park admires the work of Rimon, the Minnesota Jewish Arts Council. She wants people to know about Rimon’s “Gallery of Dreams” Thursday night. It’s the organization’s annual fundraiser and an immersive art experience, featuring five local visual artists. The event is at 6:30 p.m. at the Machine Shop in Minneapolis. Sarah says: Every single one [of these immersive fundraisers] that they’ve had has been incredible, and it will help support the broader arts community and start building some bridges of understanding. — Sarah Lynn Painted dialogues exhibitElizabeth Millard is delighted to have the 210 Gallery & Art Center in her town of Sandstone located north of Hinckley.  She recommends the current show “Deja Vu,” which features the work of two local artists, Jodie Briggs and TJ Rajala, who have created paintings in response to each other’s work. That show runs through Oct. 20. Elizabeth says: The gallery is just delightful. It’s in a former church, and it does have a kind of community-church kind of feel to it. They’ve brought a lot of cultural resources there: they have different types of shows, music and events.  I’ve lived up here in the Northwoods for about 10 years and it’s very challenging to find a lot of kind of passionate, cultural, artistic community-oriented resources and I think that this is really leading the way in terms of showing people that it can be done up here.— Elizabeth Millard 

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click here.Cabaret of ancestorsMusician and cultural organizer Sarah Larsson wants people to know about singer-songwriter Carlisle Evans Peck’s show “Iconoclasm,” which is touring in western Minnesota. She describes the show as part cabaret, part ritual, where the audience travels back in time to re-imagine stories from Carlisle’s family through a queer and often trans lens. The show, originally developed as a Cedar Commission, will be at the YES! House in Granite Falls on Thursday at the Little Theater Auditorium in New London on Friday, and at the Madison Mercantile in Madison (the one in Minnesota) on Saturday.  Sarah says: So many of these stories are dramatic and amazing to begin with. Like, there’s a story of a great-grandfather who actually was hit by a train. But coming out of these kind of fantastic true stories, Carlisle is exploring, you know, in those times and places, maybe people’s queerness wouldn’t have been able to come out or be public in the same kind of way. So what if there were some of these queer identities among these people, and they were just waiting to be told. Or maybe not! Maybe for these individuals, that’s not the way they would describe themselves. But there’s power in telling those stories and in seeing ourselves in these people from the past. It’s an all-musical production with an amazing five-piece band and two backup singers, and then Carlisle embodies each of these characters, kind of like a series of sung monologues. Carlisle is this amazing, amazing, totally stunning performer carrying on the music throughout the entire piece.— Sarah LarssonFolk fusion nightFolk musician Emily Wright recently traveled to Montevideo for an evening of poetry and music, and she’s thrilled that these western Minnesota artists are bringing their work to the MetroNOME Brewery in St. Paul, Saturday at 7 p.m. Brendan Stermer will read from his new book of poetry “Forgotten Frequencies” with musical accompaniment by his brother Andy Stermer and their friend Malena Handeen. (Sidenote: Andy and Brendan also produce the “Interesting People Reading Poetry” podcast.) Emily says: Andy’s poems and their music are wide open and make me think about the prairie. They remind me of Montevideo, where they are all from. Brendan’s book of poetry has this amazing section in it where he took the writings from the Journal of an explorer whose last name was Nicolet and turned them into poetry. I think my favorite poem is this one called “Forgotten Frequencies,” which is the title of his of his book, and it’s talking about how the muse of poetry and the muse of art is there, you just have to turn your dial just a little bit to hear her voice.— Emily WrightA feast of puppetryMinneapolis puppeteer David Hanzal is looking forward to attending the Minneapolis Puppetry Palate: a Taste of Puppetry,” which is this year’s Midwest regional puppetry festival. The four-day event promises to be a smorgasbord of puppetry performances and events. More than a dozen workshops held at St. Paul’s Church in Minneapolis encompass the craft and business of puppeteering and how to incorporate puppetry into classrooms and therapy settings. The festival runs Thursday through Sunday at several Minneapolis venues. You can purchase passes for the whole festival, individual performances or for Saturday only.  David says: Something that’s really exciting for me as a puppeteer is being able to see, you know, such a diverse array of performances from all across the region, and also artists from other parts of the country. [I enjoy] that really saturated three- or four-day window where you just get to see lots of different kinds of puppetry. There’s a mix of puppet performances for the family as well as adult-only audiences. There’s a puppet slam. There’s a puppetry panel on education and therapy. There’s also the puppet flea market. And there’s the community puppet build and performance workshop, which is immediately followed by the puppet parade in Stewart Park on Saturday, Aug. 17.— David Hanzal

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click here.Winds of changeKate Saumur of White Bear Township is a freelance bassoonist, and she recommends seeing the Neoteric Chamber Winds Saturday, Aug. 10 at 7 p.m. at Roseville Lutheran Church in Roseville.Kate says it’s a wonderful opportunity to see very contemporary, push-the-envelope compositions for winds. Kate offers this background: They started as an offshoot of a really wonderful group called Grand Symphonic Winds, which is an adult concert band. I would say it’s the best in the Twin Cities area. They don’t have a summer season, so the folks who are involved in that group decided that they wanted to do something in the summer. And that’s how Neoteric Chamber Winds got started. It’s self-directed, self-run. They specialize in contemporary music. I would say for sure everything from the 20th century on. And in fact, they really do focus intentionally on 21st-century music.— Kate SaumurArtistic emotionsTina Burnside is the co-founder and curator of the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery in Minneapolis. She recommends seeing the art exhibition “Blak Grit,” opening at the Northrup King Building’s 3rd Floor Gallery in Minneapolis on Friday. Tina says: They’ll be showing about 35 pieces in the exhibit, and the art ranges from abstract realism, Afro-futurism, sculptures and projection design. And it’s a really powerful show because it shows a range of emotions reflected in these pieces, from love, violence, pain, heartache, beauty, joy and determination. What I really like about this exhibit is that all of the artists are Black men, and I think that that’s really important, because in society and in the United States, men, in general and particularly Black men, are not allowed to show emotion. So, this exhibit is a collective of Black men coming together to take space and to have the courage to express themselves and to show their emotions, show a range of emotions, and show their humanity.— Tina BurnsideJake’s Waits odysseyArt lover Lanny Hoff of Minneapolis is looking forward to A Tom Waits Revelry this Saturday. Hoff says he’s seen various versions of this performance, in which St. Paul artist Jake Endres embodies the spirit of musician Tom Waits. This Saturday, Endres will be joined by a full band when he takes the Belvedere Stage at Crooners in Minneapolis. The show starts at 8 p.m., with dinner and cocktail seating 90 minutes before showtime. Tom Waits began his career as a mellow crooner, Lanny says, and his work evolved to include such off-the-beaten-path instruments as circular saws and car horns. "His songs range from, you know, crazy sort of demonic sounding celebrations to deeply heartfelt lyrics that will rip your heart out. It's beautiful music that rewards a lot of re-listening.”Lanny says: Jake takes a deep dive into Tom Waits: his catalog from beginning to end. He uncovers a lot of gems we haven’t heard before, and he fully inhabits the spirit of Tom Waits. It’s not a tribute band. He’s doing his own take on it, but it’s the spirit of the performance. And the show has an arc to it that is beautiful: it’s up and it’s down, it’s raucous. It’s a gospel meeting. It’s also a therapy session. It’s a high-energy, high emotion, fantastically professionally done show that I have enjoyed greatly every time I’ve seen it.— Lanny Hoff

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click here.Troll trail trekAnn Treacy of St. Paul has a radio show with Macalester College called “Mostly Minnesota Music.” Recently, took a drive with a friend to Detroit Lakes to see the new troll installation. Created by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, these five enormous, playful trolls created from recycled materials are hidden in and around Detroit Lakes. Local Project 412 offers several map options to start you on the scavenger hunt, which begins with Alexa’s Elixir in accessible Detroit Lakes City Park.  Ann says seeing the trolls was worth the day trip: The trolls are amazing. When I say they’re giant, they run between 15 and 20 feet tall. Although there is one, Long Lief, who is 36 feet tall! I had childlike expectations of the trolls, and they were far exceeded. There’s a scavenger hunt that helps you find them, and each troll will have little tasks that you can do. If I still had small children, we would have done each task, but as an adult, I felt less need to. There’s a clue that each troll has that will help you find the golden rabbit. What we ended up doing was driving about 20 minutes to each location. And then it’s about a 30-minute walk there and back. Not all the trolls are accessible to all: some are stroller-friendly, some are not. It was a good four-and-a-half-hour day for us.— Ann TraecyNavigating identitiesChristian Novak of Minneapolis recently visited the Public Functionary Upstairs Gallery in the Northrup King Building in Minneapolis, where he saw BearBOI’s photography exhibit. Titled "Blackness in Transit (BGBM)," the portrait series focuses on two Black trans individuals. The show runs through Aug. 17, with an event Aug. 8 at 7 p.m. that features BearBOI and Word M. Musinguzi in conversation. The gallery is open Wednesdays through Saturdays 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Christian says: What I love about [this exhibit] is that it really challenges expectations, to think about what it means to be a man or a woman, and how these individuals have to navigate a society that really focuses on this binary idea of gender. And then on top of it, what it means to be Black. Walking out of this exhibit, it reminded me that I need to understand my own expectations and I need to understand my own assumptions.— Christian NovakBluegrass bonanzaDerek Johnson is a bluegrass/folk musician who performs with Monroe Crossing and Gentleman Dreadnought and as a solo artist. He wants people to know about the Minnesota Bluegrass August Festival, a multi-day campout music festival that’s happening next weekend, Aug. 8-11 at El Rancho Mañana in Richmond, southwest of St. Cloud.  Derek describes the scene: El Rancho Mañana is kind of a dude ranch and a camping ground, and they have one of the finest outdoor amphitheaters in the state because it’s in a shaded, wooded area. There will be a whole host of bluegrass entertainers and old-time music from local bands to national acts performing on multiple stages throughout the weekend. It’s a very family-friendly event. People camp out and listen to music all day and into the evening. And not only that, they gathered around the campfires after the live shows on the stage and they pick all night long. There’s also a dance tent, so there’s going to be a lot of square dancing and a lot of line dancing throughout the weekend.— Derek Johnson A Bluegrass Jam Camp and Old Time Jam Camps run Aug. 6-8 before the start of the festival. Correction (Aug. 1, 2024): An earlier version of this article misspelled Ann Treacy. The post has been updated.

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.  Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click here. Winona wondersStephanie Lynn Rogers is the executive and artistic director of Anderson Center at Tower View in Red Wing, and a visual artist in her own right. Amid preparations for this weekend’s Red Wing Studio Tour, she pointed listeners to Winona to see Judy Ofronio’s exhibition “Deep Dive” at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum.  Stephanie says: It’s an absolute must-see. Judy has had a phenomenal impact on Minnesota’s arts community over the past 50 years, and she’s one of the artists I respect most in our state. She’s reinvented and reinvigorated her artistic style multiple times over a storied career, which takes guts and vision. This exhibition is not a retrospective, but it is definitely a very broad survey of the last two decades, going from colorful mosaic works from the early 2000s, through works that Judy made out of bones and bone castings that were more monochromatic in the 2010’s. And in the last two years, her work has exploded back into this colorful three-dimensional collage that is one of her most known styles. I’m also really excited about the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in general. They’ve been through a leadership and programming transition in the past few years, and they’re really hitting their stride with top notch exhibitions. I also think they do family-friendly museum experiences better than any other museum I’ve seen that isn’t focused just on kids. For me, the expansion of their rotating exhibition program has changed MMAM from “must see when in Winona” to “Must plan to visit Winona so I make sure I see these shows.” — Stephanie Lynn Rogers Energetic ecosystemsVisual artist Pete Driessen of Minneapolis recently traveled north to Park Rapids to see the new exhibits at the Nemeth Art Center, which he recommends. The two solo shows each take a look at the natural world. Wayne Gudmundson’s exhibit “What Stillness Has to Offer” encompasses large-scale photographic prints that zoom in close on forest scenes. Gudmundson is a retired art professor from Moorhead State University. Madeleine Bialke’s exhibit “The Long View” consists of landscape paintings. Both exhibits run through Sept. 28. Pete says of Madeleine Bialke’s work: The vibrant acrylic works, recently created during her residency at the Nemeth, are highly energetic and expressive works, with brilliant use of color. Her works have a unique idiosyncratic style, visually embracing the natural beauty within the gentle shapeshifting that occurs in our local ecosystems and environments. Of particular interest to me as a viewer is how Madeleine captures the transitional glowing light qualities of sunrises, sunsets, moonscapes and how that light filters through flower petals, long grasses, tree leaves, or branches in a dense forest. Whether it’s a becoming pinecone, wiggly birch or pine branch, the tipped Big Dipper, or night lights in cottage windows on side of lake, the body of work electrifies our innate and subtle connections with rural bucolic countryside.— Pete DriessenShakespeare squashedTheater artist Stephanie Kahle saw Jackdonkey Productions’ staging of “The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged)” when it was at the Phoenix Theater in Minneapolis, and she thought it was hilarious. The show now heads to Stillwater, presented by the Zephyr Theater, July 25-27. The performance is at the Washington County Historic Courthouse at 7 p.m. Billed as London’s longest-running comedy, the high-energy show features three actors attempting to squash all of Shakespeare’s works into two hours. Stephanie says: It is so fun. It has three really talented actors who are very smart in their playfulness and very committed to the silliness of the show, and is just a treat to see new and young artists taking new approaches to the classic arts. And I think that Zach Christensen, the director, has also given a lot of freedom to modernize and make it local and fresh, so not only is it really fun as a script, but I think their interpretation is also really fun.  Not only is it completely local talent who are amazing actors, but they take a lot of of modern social media trends. For example, they have an entire bit featuring chamoy pickles [referencing a TikTok trend.]— Stephanie Kahle

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.  Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Rustic gallery glamFood writer Amy Thielen of Park Rapids recommends a gallery space in Detroit Lakes with a show that opens Thursday for the peak summer season. The gallery, run by ceramicist Ellen Moses, is called Art Project 605. Visitors can see the abstract landscape paintings and drawings of Jennie Ward of Lake Park. Entitled “Love Song in the Chaos,” the show will be up through Aug. 2.  Thielen offers this background: Ellen moved back from New York City during the COVID time. I feel like we gained in the North Country — we gained a lot of very cool people who moved back up north, where they are now working remotely. She and her wife Lori O’Dea bought a storefront. In the back, it’s Ellen’s studio: She makes plates, cups and 3D sculptures. In the front space of the storefront there’s a gallery, and [Thursday night] a show opens by Jennie Ward, an artist who lives a little bit further west in Lake Park.Jennie’s paintings are really interesting. They’re very beautiful. They’re abstract expressionist landscapes. The colors are big, swaths of thick paint; she’s a great colorist. I’m very excited for this work. I think everybody in town will love it.  It’s a beautifully renovated storefront: a beautiful, clean, minimalist working space. It reminds me of a corner in a bigger city, like New York or Chicago.— Amy ThielenGlobal grooves galaPadma Wudali is an amateur musician who plays the veena, a South Indian classical carnatic instrument. She loves the band Maithree, whose work combines Indian and Western classical music styles and instruments.Maithree will be performing this Saturday, July 13 at 6:30 p.m. at the Hindu Society of Minnesota’s campus in Maple Grove. The concert is a fundraiser for a new Cultural, Arts and Heritage Center.Padma says: Maithree is a band of Minnesotans who collaborate with classical music, both Western and Indian. So it to me it’s not about them diluting any of their art forms, but rather stepping into each other spaces to create amazing music. The music that we will get to hear is Indian, classical Irish, Turkish melodies all seamlessly blended together and various compositions.Shruthi Rajesekar is the youngest member, and I’m super excited to see her work be represented by this group. She is a Western classical music composer who very much grew up in Plymouth and how her work is just being admired by so many people in the United States and abroad.— Padma WudaliBand blitz bashAmanda H. Malkin runs the PaperLoves Conservation in St. Peter, where she’s involved in the local arts scene. She’s looking forward to the 2024 Minnesota Original Music Festival, which starts next Wednesday, July 17 and culminates in two days of live, local music on July 20 and 21 at MN Square Park in St. Peter. Amanda describes the events leading up to next weekend: There are workshops and jam sessions. There’s also this really awesome event called the 48-Hour Band Challenge. They basically invite musicians who are interested to put their names in a hat. New bands are formed by picking names out of the hat, and then those new bands have 48 hours to write a song together and then perform it. It’s a way for musicians to find each other, workshop together, learn, practice, vibe!— Amanda H. Malkin

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.  Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click here. Shakespeare in the sculpture park Rachel Coyne of Lindstrom is looking forward to heading to nearby Franconia Sculpture Park on July 27 to see Shakespeare in the park. Classical Actors Ensemble will perform Shakespeare’s mistaken-identity comedy “Twelfth Night, or What You Will,” The show is free. Picnics are encouraged, as are patrons of all ages. This week’s performances include Friday at Newell Park in St. Paul, Saturday at Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis and Sunday at Vermillion Falls Park in Hastings. All shows start at 7 p.m. and run for two hours. “Twelfth Night” runs at various Twin Cities parks through July 14.  The Franconia Sculpture Park is a particularly special location, Rachel says, because the actors move around the sculpture park and incorporate some of the art into their performance. She still remembers the group’s performance of “The Tempest” last year, which staged the show’s happy ending with Franconia’s giant ring sculpture in the background, forming a literal full circle for the story. She looks forward to seeing which sculptures the performers play around — and on — this year. Pro tip from Rachel: Bring a picnic, and don’t forget your bug spray. — Rachel Coyne Romeo and Juliet with Latin flair Claudia V. Garcia, who describes herself as a “paralegal by day, actor/singer/artist by soul,” loved Teatro del Pueblo’s adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet,” entitled “Love in a Time of Hate.” Developed in association with the Bach Society of Minnesota, the show’s run continues tonight through June 30 at Luminary Arts Center in Minneapolis.  Claudia says: I laughed, cheered, got butterflies cried and was very proud, mucho orgullo, to see our raza represented in such a beautiful production. The cast is excellent, represented by a plethora of talented local Latinx artists and people of color in the Twin Cities. You hear hip hop, spoken word, little bit of bilingual Spanglish. A lot of connections to modernity. And that really resonated with younger crowds, bringing “Romeo and Juliet” into the now.— Claudia V. Garcia A North Shore soundscape Minneapolis musician Crystal Brinkman wants people to know about “The Seeker,” a self-led audio story with original music designed for Sugarloaf Cove in Schroeder on the North Shore. Created and voiced by Diver Van Avery, “The Seeker” is a 45-minute story that unfolds along an easy, one-mile hiking trail. The story is available through October. Avery has been very connected to that specific location in their own life and got the opportunity to research and be at that site over many months, creating an immersive story experience to connect with the land. There are two upcoming events this summer. On July 27, there will be a free, family-friendly community concert featuring the musicians Crystal Myslajek and Peter Morrow, who contributed to “The Seeker” soundtrack. The concert is 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. On Aug. 18, Diver will conduct a free creative writing workshop at the Sugarloaf Cove Nature Center. Registration required.  “The Seeker” is available through October. Crystal says: This story really brings you through Diver’s very gorgeous and poetic words through the headphones that you are wearing — which can either be your own or Sugarloaf Cove Visitor Center does have headphones to borrow. Their voice is leading you through spaces and places that very much have to do with where you are but then also is grounded in themes of love and connection. And it's all supported by this gorgeous original music.— Crystal Brinkman

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.   Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Swipe right for this modern romance Minneapolis playwright Liqing Xu is looking forward to seeing the play “Only Ugly Guys” at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis. Written by local playwright Kurt Engh, the play coincides nicely with Twin Cities Pride this weekend. The show runs June 21 – 30 and is recommended for ages 17 and up. “I think so often a lot of queer media these days have to do with coming-out stories. But I think in Kurt's play ‘Only Ugly Guys,’ what’s really nice is that these characters are queer, but they’re just trying to look for love like everyone else in the world.  “The play is about four queer men who are sort of entangled in these relationships with the with each other and are trying to find like love or romance or affection, but they’re doing it in all the wrong ways. And the play is sort of looking also at the way that technology nowadays allows us to find anything that we want, but we’re not really able to hold on to  important or genuine connections because there’s just so many options. “I think it’s an excellent choice for people who are celebrating Pride because it’s a really interesting, thought-provoking, raw, sexy play that will definitely get people talking and having conversations about intimacy and privilege.” Liqing Xu Say ‘Yes, and’ to improvised art films Comedian and improviser Jex Arzayus of St. Paul is a big fan of the improv group Babe Train, and they recommend checking out Babe Train Presents: B24 Improvised Films. The final shows are Friday June 21 and 28 at 7:30 at the HUGE Improv Theater’s’ relatively new location at 2728 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis  “It’s a parody of the very artsy surreal films of A24 Production House. The audience gets to choose what they want, and what adventure they want. They’re gonna take a name of a movie and a word of inspiration, and then Babe Train — which is made up of Hannah, Laura, KQ, Nora and Shelby — they are going to play all of the characters, all of the scenes, and give you a narrative long-form improvised version. You can get horror; you could get a coming-of-age story; you can get a story about time travel! Every show is different.“And then after the movie, they’re gonna have an actual art talkback where people can ask questions, just like if you were going to be in a film festival. There’s a different improv guest-interviewer each time.” Jex Arzayus Dance that honors our connection with water, performed along the MississippiEileen Moeller, director of the Frozen River Film Festival in Winona, is looking forward to attending an outdoor dance collaboration by two dancers as part of the McKnight International Choreographer Residency. The performances were co-created by local artist Sharon Mansur and visiting choreographer Meryl Zaytoun Murman. The free performances take place Tuesday, June 25 and Wednesday, June 26 at sunset at the Prairie Island Campground, located along the banks of the Mississippi River near Winona.  “I think there’s something really spectacular about seeing a performance that has to do with a specific piece of nature and being in the nature at the time. These performances are going to be especially related to the river: the way it is right now, and the way that the artists relate with water. Meryl is typically based in Greece, and so a lot of her relationship with water had to do with the Mediterranean. Whereas Sharon is here, and so a lot of that has to do with the Mississippi River.Sharon is a very active community members. She’s a very talented dancer and interdisciplinary artist and we have worked together on film related projects. Sharon’s pieces always feel really relatable. A lot of Sharon’s work is really grounded in community and accessibility. These performances are free.” Eileen Moeller 

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.  Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. Click here. Puffy mushroomsLaurie Byrne of Chatfield is looking forward to the opening artist talk and hike on Lost Creek Hiking Trail this Saturday. Fiber artist Lydia Hansen will discuss and lead people on a hike to see her life-sized crocheted models of native mushrooms tucked along the trail. Lost Creek Hiking Trail is located 25 minutes south of Rochester. Laurie says: As a teen, Lydia started crocheting, and she has grown her crocheting into these very unique pieces of art. Last year, she made a sculpture garden — all out of fiber, crocheting and making those little pom poms. It was a lot of fun! And this year, she’s doing mushrooms and she’s adding it to a hiking trail in Chatfield. They are very lifelike. She’s done her research. These are all mushrooms that are from Minnesota. She has signage up identifying these mushrooms. Just a very cool idea. The trail is just over six miles. And it goes through public and private lands. It’s a beautiful hiking trail, mostly through the woods.— Laurie ByrneMusic from the north countryDuluth musician Zack Baltich recommends Duluth-stämman, a gathering that includes Nordic folk music, dance and workshops. The event runs this weekend, June 8 and 9. Friday’s events will be held at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Saturday’s events are outside at Chester Bowl, with UMD as a rain contingency location. Saturday admission is free to youth 17 and under who bring an instrument, and non-performing youth get in for $5. Zack says: So much music is about an audience witnessing musicians play. What is interesting to me about this event is that it kind of removes that wall. A lot of these events are workshops where people can play. People are invited to dance — it’s a very community-oriented thing.  It’s kind of mind-boggling if you go on their website. Like, 150 musicians are coming from all over North America to play. It’s a very accessible event. Tickets go from $5 to $35, depending on how much of it you want to see.— Zack Baltich ASI Spelmanslag performing The drama of codependencyTwin Cities theater maker Kurt Engh recommends the play “Devoured: Notes on Love and Enmeshment,” which explores codependency through three queer, intimate relationships. Written by local playwright Liqing Xu, the show includes depictions of mental health issues and sexual situations. The 60-minute show runs this Friday, June 7, through Sunday, June 9, at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis.  Kurt says: “Devoured” breaks down these three relationships whereby two people co-create this unhealthy dynamic. One starts to relate to these characters only to feel uncomfortable. When you realize how much you relate to this by the end of the play. It’s kind of scary. The playwright’s writing unpacks these therapy buzzwords — codependency, trauma, triggering — and places them out to this granular level as people try to communicate with one another. How do you prove to someone you love them? How quickly does care turn to harm? And who’s right and who’s wrong in a relationship? I keep telling people that if you are in a relationship or you’re looking to be in a relationship, you should see the show. No spoilers (but) it’s not a super happy ending, but at least I think the characters start to realize their own patterns, especially by speaking about it and by recognizing their behavior. Then they can start moving forward with hopefully something that’s healthier and in the next iteration.  I’m obsessed with the show “Couples Therapy” on Showtime, in which this psychologist — her name is Orna [Guralnik]. She’s iconic — she breaks down the psychology of how people have gotten to these really weird relationship dynamics where you’re going, “Why aren’t these people just breaking up?” And I think there’s this direct line between this play and “Couples Therapy,” where we’re seeing how people get enmeshed in these relationships.— Kurt Engh 

On Art Hounds this week: 1) BALLS Cabaret is back every Sunday at 2 at Strike Theater! 2) the Minnesota Bach’s Society’s Mini Mobile Concerts in St Cloud and 3) Choir! Choir! Choir! teaches the audience to sing Prince, in harmony, at First Ave on June 1. 

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. A play about a teamDenise Tennan of St. Louis Park is a musician, writer, visual artist and dancer. She recently saw the play “Flex” at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, and now she’s singing from the rooftops to encourage others to see this in its final weekend. Shows are tonight (Thursday) and Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m. Denise says: I think it’s worth everyone’s time to go see this production. The show takes place in rural Arkansas. It’s about a girl’s high school basketball team and their coach. They’re practicing drills and shooting baskets right there on stage. The play touches on themes of poverty, sexual abuse, sexual identity, religion and racism. But at its heart, the play explores a tension between the needs of a team and the needs of individual players. I’ve never seen anything that addresses that specific tension before. And as the coach repeatedly tells them, they are only as strong as their weakest link.   I was astonished. They are so good.  There are no weak links in this cast of six. Renowned Twin Cities actress Regina Marie Williams shines as the kick-ass coach to five young women. The versatility of these young actresses is remarkable. They can move, they can act and they can sing. I was astonished. They are so good.  The set design is brilliantly minimalist, and it supports every scene with subtle changes to clearly indicate a new location. The relationship between team members is rich and it’s varied. The depth of relationship the coach has with each of these girls is exactly what you’d want in a coach and it extends beyond the game. And it reminds me of the vitally important role a coach can play in a young person’s life, even more so, because she has her own flaws and she’s able to admit them. What I took away from this performance is the importance of knowing each other and being deeply known.— Denise TennanHook, ladder and HellcatsTroy Lanoux of St. Louis Park is a big fan of local music. He’ll be in the audience for the show Mama Hellcats at The Hook and Ladder in Minneapolis. Six singer/songwriters who are also mothers take the stage. They are Nikki Lemire, Kashimana, Katy Tessman and the Turnbuckles, Annie and the Bang Bang, Samantha Grimes Band and Haley E Rydel. Hosted by Ann Treacy of Mostly Minnesota Music, the evening of music also includes resources from local organizations that provide support for survivors of domestic violence. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Troy says: I’ve been a longtime fan of Katy Tessman and her band The Turnbuckles, and I’ve gotten to know many of these artists that she works with. It’s a fantastic group of singer-songwriters, and they all support and uplift one another.True to the theme of motherhood, Troy points out that Katy’s band includes her son, Louis Tessman Stanoch, who rocks on electric bass. — Troy LanouxAs divine as discoAllyson Palmer is co-owner of Thesis Beer Project, which is a craft brewery and music venue in Rochester. She’s looking forward to the Divine Disco, a burlesque event produced by Out Rochester and Burly Bluffs, Saturday evening at the Chateau Theatre in Rochester. Doors open at 7 p.m. for this age 18+ event. Allyson says: This will be the perfect night out after attending the Rochester Pride, which is also happening on Saturday. It’s a community-focused, body-positive queer-centered event that will feature eclectic performances including burlesque, drag and live music, featuring performers from across the country, as well as local performers. I’ve been fortunate to attend several prior Burley Bluffs performances in Rochester and always find them to be entertaining, energizing and full of glitz and glam. The producers create safe and inclusive spaces and most importantly know how to have fun. It’ll be the biggest event that Burly Bluffs has thrown in their history.— Allyson Palmer

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Alanna Morris is a professional dancer-choreographer in St. Paul. She saw Minnesota Dance Theatre’s spring production, and she wants everyone to know about the Ensemble’s final weekend. Shows are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Alanna says: Minnesota Dance Theatre are a legacy intuition. Going back to its founder, Loyce Houlton, who in 1962 made innovative contributions to the performance of classical ballet and the Graham technique, which still sets the company’s dancers apart today, not only locally but nationally. The company has undergone a lot of administrative changes in recent years, and yet the love of dance and performance is still so strong. They are presenting three world premieres.They are actually closing their doors and celebrating this legacy this weekend.They’ve had such a rich history of performance for decades, then carried through by Houlton’s daughter, Lise, and now directed by Elayna Waxse, who is the interim artistic director. They are actually closing their doors and celebrating this legacy this weekend. This is the performing ensemble’s farewell concert and celebration concert. Minnesota Dance Theatre’s school will remain open and continue to thrive with training young students and young dancers. This performance features four choreographers. Three of them are local to the Minnesota dance community, and one of them (Nia-Amina Minor) is an artist that’s been commissioned; she’s a Black and female choreographer from Seattle. And you’re going to see a range of works in the classical ballet idiom, also traversing into contemporary ballet. You’re gonna hear classics like Frederick Chopin to contemporary and experimental jazz music from Makaya McCraven. I went to the performance and I was amazed by the diversity of the musical selections there. It’s really worth seeing.Over these long years, some of our most amazing dancers and teachers and arts leaders have come out of the Minnesota Dance school and company here. The Ensemble is taking their last bow this weekend, but the school will continue to thrive and train young students and young dancers.— Alanna MorrisRasputin: There lived a certain man, in Russia long agoTheater maker Shanan Custer of White Bear Lake saw Four Humors Theater’s play “Rasputin” at the Twin Cities Horror Festival last fall, and she’s thrilled that the show is getting a second run at Open Eye Figure Theatre in Minneapolis. “Rasputin” opens tonight and runs through May 18. The show runs 70 minutes without intermission. The May 12 matinee requires masks for all audience members. (All other shows are mask-optional.) Shanan says: The play is a dark comedy created by Four Humors Theater. It’s a very deeply hilarious investigation of all of the versions of Rasputin’s gruesome death. It’s brilliantly conceived, the actors are so strong and there are so many incredible physical comedy moments. A very deeply hilarious investigation.And yet while that’s happening, the play is dealing with this political nightmare: this greedy, horrifying zealot who’s getting all the attention. It plays really well in 2024. It hit me so hard last year, and I’m really excited that they’re bringing it back.— Shanan CusterCheck out Mankato’s arts scene Dana Sikkila, director of the 410 Project Community Art Space in Mankato, is looking forward to the second annual Manifest event this Saturday. The free, all-day event (11 a.m. to 10 p.m.) celebrates the local arts scene and its vibrant history. Put on by the Midwest Arts Catalyst and River Valley Makers, Manifest is a new, larger iteration of its (pre-COVID) Post-Holiday Extravaganza. Location: Kato Ballroom. Dana says: It’s our time in Mankato here — and really truly for anyone who wants to join us — to celebrate arts and culture. It also celebrates the history of the arts in the Mankato area, to reflect on the importance of keeping these things alive in our cities.  It’s going to be an all-day event. There are art vendors. There’s going to be art raffles, a silent auction and food trucks. We have a huge community mural project that’s going to be happening on a building outside next door to the Kato Ballroom. We’re going to have our Mankato community collage photo shoot happening 11 to 5 p.m., too. And that’s where people can come to get a photo taken of themselves with their friends with their families. And that photo gets put into our big community collage that happens yearly. And then starting at 7 p.m., we’re having live music.It is free to attend and everyone’s welcome. They are asking for a $20 suggested donation at the door. Any of the proceeds that come in at the door go back into the arts in our community throughout the year. It’s a great event all the way around.— Dana Sikkila

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art.Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Click here.Exploring the artistic journeyDive into the captivating world of Stuart Loughridge, a local artist renowned for his mastery in etching, painting and drawing. Recommended by Gary Korlin, an independent fine artist in the Twin Cities.Gary says: I’d like to introduce — or basically maybe reintroduce — Stuart Loughridge. He’s a local artist, and what I like about the guy is that he’s got three excellent elements working for him: education, talent and then it’s all run by his intuition. He’s very interested in etching, which is sort of a lost art. And but he paints and draws. He paints in watercolor, he paints in oils. He does portraits, figures, still lifes — but, you know what, his passion is landscapes and a lot of them are very local. This whole process is very exploratory. It’s definitely a show worth experiencing.The show that Stewart is going to be having at the Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis is going to be a little bit of everything. But the main focus is going to be on landscapes. But the interesting thing is that this is going to be sort-of a tracking, or a tour, of his history. He’s going to have sketchbooks there, he’s going to have his plein air sketches, which he calls just “fieldwork” and it’s going to be leading up to finished pieces. This whole process is very exploratory. It’s definitely a show worth experiencing, I would say.Stuart Loughridge’s show runs through May 25. This Saturday, Stewart is going to be doing a portrait demonstration. So that might be fun for a lot of you who are interested in just expanding your knowledge — Gary KorlinResilience and recoveryDiscover the profound and poignant narrative of “Ugly Lies the Bone,” a play that explores the themes of healing and resilience. Recommended by St. Paul visual artist Bebe Keith.Bebe says: “Ugly Lies the Bone” is playing at the Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro. A friend actually recommended this to me. She said the excellent portrayals and important subject matter were so compelling that she has already seen it twice. It’s moving and, most of all, it’s hopeful.The story is about Jess, a soldier returning home from war with injuries both — visible and unseen. She finds some relief through something called “virtual reality therapy.” It plunges her into an Arctic setting that helps with her burnt skin. So she strives toward healing, and she’s also trying to restore her relationships, home and all that she’s lost. I’ve read the script and it had me in tears. Jess is broken and in despair — and she’s got some grit. It’s moving and, most of all, it’s hopeful. They are offering a free performance on May 5 for anyone who has served or is currently serving in any branch of the military and their families. “Ugly Lies the Bone” is playing at the Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro through July 6.— Bebe KeithCelebrating diversity and joyWatch a unique collection of four short plays, penned by LGBTQ+ playwrights from across the country. Recommended by Minneapolis theater director Gretchen Weinrich.Gretchen says: Threshold Theater’s new collection of plays is called “4Play.” It’s opening at the Bryant Lake Bowl on April 26. It’s a collection of four short plays written by LGBTQ+ playwrights that came from an open call for playwrights all across the country. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this show for a couple of reasons. First of all, Threshold has been holding staged readings of its place for a couple of years. But this is their first fully staged version with movement and sets and costumes. And they’re really excited to put that on and I’m really excited to see it. These plays really look at things that are great about community or support — and joyful things about life.The great thing about this collection, from what I understand, is that it shows LGBTQ+ folks in a bunch of different stages of life and experiences. And what I really like about it, from what I read about it, is that it’s really upbeat. Oftentimes when we talk about groups that are quote-unquote marginalized sometimes the topic can be really depressing or sad. But these plays really look at things that are great about community or support — and joyful things about life.— Gretchen Weinrich

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art.Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Click here. Confronting shadowsFull Circle Theater Company’s thought-provoking new production “They Wear Teal Ribbons Around Their Tongues” delves deep into the dynamics of a family grappling with the aftermath of their patriarch’s death.St. Paul actor Chris Collier had a chance to read the script for Full Circle Theater Company’s current show, “They Wear Teal Ribbons Around Their Tongues,” and he’s looking forward to the staged production. Written by Minnesota playwriter Siddeeqah Shabazz, the play follows a family reconciling with the loss of their patriarch and a burgeoning secret that threatens to shatter their long-held perfect image.  Trigger warning: the play deals with sexual assault and mental health issues within the family dynamic. “Especially as it pertains to communities of color and to black families, specifically, I think that there’s such a stigma surrounding mental health and sexual assault that just doesn’t get talked about,” said Collier. “And I think that this show does a great job of addressing a much-needed conversation.” “They Wear Teal Ribbons Around Their Tongues” runs through April 28 at the Gremlin Theatre in St Paul. Rhythms and threadsRevel in the vibrant energy of the Guild of Middle Eastern Dance’s Spring Spectacular. MJ Gernes is a St. Paul fiber artist and drummer who has had a chance to drum before with members of the Guild of Middle Eastern Dance. For more than 40 years, the Guild has drawn dancers from around the Twin Cities and beyond to perform a variety of folk dance styles from across the Middle East as well as other American-fusion styles. Gernes loves the high energy, the beautiful costumes and welcoming atmosphere of the Guild’s dance performances, and she’s looking forward to their Spring Spectacular, this Sunday, April 21 at 4 p.m. at the Elision Playhouse in Crystal.  For those interested in learning new dance skills, the Guild is offering six workshops this weekend in St. Paul and Crystal. Revisiting rebellionExperience a timeless tale of struggle and satire with An Opera Theatre’s production of “The Cradle Will Rock.”Twin Cities illustrator and designer Jerrald Spencer Jr. had a chance to see a preview production of An Opera Theatre’s performance of “The Cradle Will Rock.” Written in 1937 by Marc Blitzstein and billed as “The Working Man’s Musical,” the opera still feels relevant today; Spencer described it as “Succession meets The Producers.”  The villainous Mr. Mister (whose wife, naturally, is Mrs. Mister) seeks to control the media and crush rising labor unions. The opera is laced with some “very, very funny lines,” says Spencer, along with beautiful singing and shadow puppetry, which adds to the emotional depth of the story. The Cradle Will Rock runs April 18 – 21 at the Heart of the Beast Theatre in Minneapolis. The show is 90 minutes without intermission.  

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art.Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Click here.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-hounds/id525807829Future stars shineExperience the talent and dedication of tomorrow’s musical stars at the Schubert Club student scholarship competition winners' recital.Aimée Baxter of St. Paul loves the arts, and one of her favorite concerts of the year is “Musicians on the Rise — Competition Winners Recital.” Over 200 high school and college students compete in 15 categories that include piano, strings, voice, guitar, brass and woodwinds for scholarships to support their musical education. The winners (listed here) perform this Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Ordway in St Paul. The concert is free. “It is truly a gem,” says Baxter. “The wide range of musicians that are playing and the skill of these young people — it just blows you away, and you feel like you’re kind of finding out about somebody before they really hit it big.” Weaving awareness“Making Climate Change Visible” by Carolyn Halliday uses the unique medium of knitted wire to create a powerful commentary on our environment and the impacts of climate change.Twin Cities fiber artist Amy Usdin recommends a visit to the Kolman & Reeb Gallery in northeast Minneapolis for a textile exhibit, “Making Climate Change Visible.”Halliday’s exhibit of knitted wire draws you in with a large, central piece of brilliant blue that recalls how blue the skies were without traffic during the pandemic lockdown.Other pieces recall skies gray with wildfire smoke from the summer of 2023, as well as the paradoxically beautiful sunsets that occur on smokey evenings. Usdin calls Halliday’s use of color “exceptional and unique in wire knitting.” There is an artist reception Saturday at 7 p.m., and a music and dance performance in the space on Thursday, May 2 at 6 p.m., followed by an artist talk. The exhibit runs through May 11.Celebrating Native fashion“Celebrating Native American Fashion” illuminates the rich tapestry of Indigenous design, featuring community members as models, many of whom will present their own creations.Jill Doerfler is the department head of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. She says contemporary Native fashion is having a moment right now, and she’s thrilled that there will be a Native American fashion show at the Tweed Museum on campus this Saturday from 12-2 p.m.The models include some 25-30 community members, many displaying clothing they have made, including jingle dresses, ribbons skirts, applique and bandolier bags.Doerfler says it’s an inclusive show — all are welcome to attend and encouraged to wear their own Native American fashions that they have made or bought. The event is free, with refreshments to follow. A surprise special guest is scheduled to attend the event.Doerfler highly recommends continuing your visit with a tour through the Tweed Museum’s art exhibits while you’re there.The three co-sponsors for “Celebrating Native American Fashion” are the Tweed Museum of Art, the American Indian Housing Organization (AICHO) and the McKnight Foundation. Recently, AICHO held workshops teaching how to make ribbon skirts, and Doerfler expects some of those participants will be strutting down the runway.

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what's exciting in local art.Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Click here.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-hounds/id525807829A tribute to Jim DenomieExplore the vibrant legacy of Minnesota artist Jim Denomie in "Conversations with Jim," an exhibition at ArtsReach St. Croix in Stillwater. This showcase features 60 new works by artist Dougie Padilla, Denomie's longtime friend, who has created a series of pieces as a dialogue with Denomie posthumously.Carleton College art professor and photographer Xavier Tavera wants people to know about an exhibition of new artwork memorializing Minnesota artist Jim Denomie (1955–2022). His longtime friend artist Dougie Padilla began a series of works in response to — and in conversation with — Denomie after his death. Related Art Hounds celebrate milestones of life Both artists, Tavera says, are masters of color whose paintings tell stories. He says Padilla’s bold, spiritual work shows characters with teeth, tails and antlers caught up in conversation with each other. The longer you look at these works, Tavera says, the more deeply you see the narratives these paintings create. “Conversations with Jim,” which contains some 60 new works by Dougie Padilla, is on display ArtsReach St. Croix in Stillwater, which also housed Denomie’s final show. The exhibit opens tonight with an artist reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Padilla will also host a gallery talk on April 14 and a poetry reading on April 28. The exhibit runs through May 11. A glimpse into Zelda Fitzgerald’s lifeDive into the tumultuous and fascinating life of Zelda Fitzgerald in the one-woman play "The Last Flapper." Staged at Yellow Tree Theatre in Osseo, this compelling production opens its curtains on Friday, offering a unique portrayal drawn from Zelda’s real letters and stories.Actress Sarah Dickson recommends the one-woman play “The Last Flapper” about Zelda Fitzgerald, which opens at Yellow Tree Theatre in Osseo on Friday. Zelda inspired her husband, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, to create the character Daisy Buchanan in “The Great Gatsby.” This show is drawn from Zelda’s real letters and stories, and it’s told on the last day of her life, which ended in an insane asylum. The show stars Broadway actor Monette McGrath of Marine on St. Croix. “The Last Flapper” is the first of two back-to-back shows mounted at Yellow Tree in partnership with Frosted Glass Creative, and it’s billed as a collaboration for Women’s Month: two theater companies led by woman artistic directors, mounting a one-woman show. (Dickson performs in the ensuing show, “Seven Keys,” which starts in May.) “The Last Flapper” runs April 5 – 14. Music of the cosmosJoin the celestial journey as the Bakken Ensemble presents a performance inspired by the majesty of the cosmos. This Sunday's concert promises an auditory exploration of the stars and the sky, fueled by recent cosmic discoveries and celestial events.Malinda Schmiechen, an amateur violinist and violist living in Excelsior, has been attending performances of the Bakken Ensemble for years, and she says they’re “always extraordinary.” In particular, she loves watching violinist and artistic director Stephanie Arado. “I love how excited she gets when she performs. She’s so dynamic. She plays with so much emotion and energy.” Of cellist and artistic director Pitnarry Shin, “She has great expression, great intensity when she plays.” Schmiechen says she always encounters a new, diverse selection of music at their concerts. This Sunday’s performance focuses on music that celebrates the stars and the sky. Inspired by recent photographs from the James Webb telescope as well as the solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, this performance contains five works that reach for the stars and the sky. Two are by living composers (Max Vinetz’s “Stars on the Ground” for string quartet and Stephen Hartke’s “The King of the Sun: Tableau for Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano.” The concert is Sunday, April 7 at 4 p.m. at MacPhail Center for Music’s Antonello Hall in Minneapolis.  Pro tip: Schmiechen recommends arriving early to the concert, as tickets are open seating. She loves to sit in the front to get a close-up look at the performers’ techniques.

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what's exciting in local art.Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Click here.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-hounds/id525807829?mt=2Crafting tales in silverDiscover the enchanting world of Norwegian folk tales reimagined through contemporary jewelry at the Nordic Center. Renowned artist Liz Bucheit's exhibition "Hand of Huldra" showcases the tradition of silver as protection against evil, blending myth and craftsmanship. Alison Aune is a professor of art education at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and a former board member at the Nordic Center. She recommends a show currently at the Nordic Center, “Hand of Huldra” by Liz Bucheit of Lanesboro.“What she specializes in is reimagining Norwegian folk tales, folk traditions, through her contemporary jewelry,” Aune explains.“In Norway — and in a lot of the Nordic and Baltic countries — silver was thought to protect you against evil. So there’s a tradition with the bride wearing a bridal crown of silver, having all sorts of silver pendants so that she's protected.”On display are crowns, as well as other silver objects, which Aune describes as “phenomenal. She's just really an expert on taking those Norwegian stories and finding their way to jewelry.”“Hand of Huldra” is on display until April 27.Celebrating NowruzJoin the Twin Cities Iranian Culture Collective for a vibrant celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, at the Ordway in St. Paul. Experience international and local musicians in a concert followed by a reception featuring tea and cookies.Visual artist Katayoun Amjati says she’s been hearing from friends in the northeast Minneapolis arts and music scene about the concert “Voices Unveiled: A Nowruz Celebration and Community Gathering,” presented by the Twin Cities Iranian Culture Collective. Nowruz is the Persian New Year, which was celebrated on March 19. The concert includes both international and local musicians and will be followed by a reception afterward that includes tea and cookies. Amjati says the concert will be a chance to celebrate and also to honor and mourn alongside those women struggling for rights in Iran. She notes that two of the singers recently moved from Iran to the U.S., and she looks forward to hearing their voices.  “Voices Unveiled: A Nowruz Celebration and Community Gathering” is Saturday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ordway in St. Paul. Tickets are limited. A tragicomedy journey Embark on a poignant yet uplifting journey with "Phantom Loss," a puppet show by Oanh Vu, staged by In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in Minneapolis. Join a Vietnamese American girl in a tale of haunting, friendship with ghosts and the struggles of generational trauma and deportation. Anh-Thu Pham of Theater Mu has seen previous workshops of Oanh Vu’s puppet show “Phantom Loss,” and she’s looking forward to seeing the final version staged by In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in Minneapolis.It’s a tragicomedy about a Vietnamese American girl who moves to a new small town with her mother to run a nail salon. The house where she lives is haunted, and she becomes friends with the ghost. It’s a refugee story about generational trauma and deportation, told with heart and humor. Pham, who grew up watching “Sesame Street” and “Mr. Rogers,” points out the power of puppetry to take on heavy subjects without losing sight of joy.  “I think, for any of us that have dealt with generational trauma, or any hard things in our lives,” says Pham, “if you sit in the darkness, you won't be able to live, you won't be able to process through that. And I think that's when good art is done: you kind of see and experience life in its wholeness. I think this is what ‘Phantom Loss’ can do.” The show opens Friday with a preview show Thursday, and it runs through April 7. There is a pay-what-you-can performance on April 2. The show is rated PG/PG-13. 

Fiber and textile artist Shannon Twohy of Minneapolis recently saw the Northern Clay Centers exhibition “Edible,” which she found thought-provoking. The show brings together works by five Asian American artists, including Anika Hsiung Schneider of Minneapolis, all investigating food and culture through clay. Twohy appreciates that each artist explores the medium differently, creating sculptures that vary from stylistic representations to creations that look good enough to eat. “Edible” is on view through April 21 both in-person and online, here.   Edible at Northern Clay Center Charlie Leftridge is the executive director of the Carnegie Art Center in Mankato, and he wants people to know about the vibrant local music scene. Leftridge served as director of operations of Mankato’s Symphony Orchestra heading into the pandemic, and he continues to enjoy their music from the audience. He loves that MSO showcases a diverse mix of composers, presented in a friendly and accessible way.  The MSO’s Chamber Music series, known as Music on the Hill, presents its next concert this Sunday, March 24 at 3 p.m. at Bethany Lutheran College’s Trinity Chapel in Mankato. This performance’s theme is Bohemian Folk, and it includes Antonín Dvořák’s “Cypresses” for string quartet, among others. Minneapolis musician Dylan Hicks is looking forward to listening to some great jazz when the Chris Thompson Quartet perform next week at Berlin. The group is led by Chris Thompson on clarinet and saxophone, who also composes electronic music under the name Cedar Thoms. Hicks has performed with Thompson in the past and calls him a creative, lyrical player with a great ear for improv.  “He can pay to play very advanced harmony, but he always really draws you in melodically. And so I think he will appeal to people who are, hardcore jazz aficionados and maybe people who are exploring the music.” Thompson joins with Kavyest Kaviraj on piano, Jeff Bailey on bass, and Abinnet Berhanu on drums — all leaders in their own right. Hicks recommends checking out Berlin, an intimate, European-inspired jazz club in the North Loop of Minneapolis that he says fills a much-needed niche in the music scene. There is no cover charge for this show.  

Phil Schenkenberg is an attorney practicing law in Minneapolis and a resident of New Brighton. He recommends “The Doctor Wee-Woo Show,” although he admits, “I don’t know quite what to expect.”It’s a call-in show, of a sort, that, according to the website, “follows the eponymous Doctor Wee-Woo and his friends (Mailbag, Mrs. Apple Tree, Sedrick the Sasquatch and more) as they perform their award-winning and long-running children’s television program.” Audiences were asked to send in their life problems in advance. “DO NOT write about failed dreams, letting go of the past, and/or sasquatch politics,” they warned.The show was created by Jake Mierva and Danylo Loutchko of an alleged Theatre Company (the proper name of the company, lower-cases deliberate). “They have great chemistry on stage together. I always expect to have a lot of fun — and we always do,” Schenkenberg says.The show plays March 15-24 at the Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis.Bruce Gerhardson of Fergus Falls is an arts enthusiast. He recommends the art collection at Fergus Falls campus of Minnesota State Community and Technical College, which contains more than 400 works, calling it a “hidden gem … I think it really would stack up against any campus art collection in the state.”Gerhardson is especially excited that the art now features a self-guided tour. Through the use of QR codes that are at various works of art, visitors can access more information about and interviews with the artists.“The art collection is open to the public. It’s not in a closed gallery setting. It’s really in the hallways of the campus, which creates a vibrancy but also it makes it accessible to anybody who happens to be visiting the campus,” Gerhardson says.Marie Denholm lives in the Powderhorn neighborhood of south Minneapolis and considers herself to be “a music head of all types.”The music that has attracted her attention at the moment is a requiem. The composer is Minnesota musician Doug Weatherhead. “He’s a singer-songwriter, rock and roll guy from lots of different bands,” Denholm explains. But Weatherhead decided to write a classical requiem, and will perform it with a 32-member choir.“Requiem” will be performed on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Judson Memorial Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Requiem

Michelle Wegler of Duluth recommends seeing the exhibit of fellow plein air painter Cheryl LeClaire-Sommer. Her current show, “Scents to Scenes: A Project Space Exhibition” consists of oil paintings of landscapes inspired by scent. LeClaire-Sommer used essential oils to inspire her choice of location for each painting. Balsam or cedar scents, for example, might lead her to paint a cedar grove. The oil paintings, created from locations across Minnesota specifically for this show, range from 8x10 to larger pieces, which she finished in-studio. Both the studies and larger pieces are on view, along with the essential oils that inspired each project. Wegler says that you stop and look at a painting in a new way after sniffing the accompanying oil. (Saturday, March 2 is a scent-free day from noon to 4.) Her work is on view at the Kohlman & Reeb Gallery in northeast Minneapolis through March 23, with an artist talk on March 7 at 7 p.m.  LeClaire-Sommer also has an exhibit at the Plein Air Collective at the Bell Museum in Roseville through May 26. Singer/songwriter/troubadour Larry Long of Minneapolis recommends “DO NOT FORGET US: Poets, Writers, Musicians Against the War (s) on the Earth.” The event was organized by poet James Lenfestey and is described as “a remembrance in words and music of the victims of wars on the creatures of Mother Earth, and of the activist legacy of Robert and Ruth Bly.”Participants will include James Armstrong, an award-winning poet and naturalist from Winona; Sarina Partridge, a community song circle leader; and soul singer Robert Robinson, among many others. There will also be a special presentation of poems by Robert Bly.The event will take place Thursday at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis at 7 p.m. Jeanne Farrar of Minneapolis has seen several shows by The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company in Minneapolis, and she’s looking forward to seeing “Utopia, Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress” this month. One of Gilbert and Sullivan’s lesser-known works, the operetta is a political satire. A British ship has arrived at the remote island “Utopia,” and its king has earnestly undertaken to emulate all things British. His Cambridge-educated daughter has just returned and is trying to help her father reform the nation’s government. Meanwhile, the king’s unscrupulous wise men are out to enrich themselves. As the characters and situation grow increasingly absurd, the show serves up its satirical bite with a dose of sweetness with its loveable — or at least laughable — characters. Farrar notes that Gilbert and Sullivan “are really good at making fun of pretentious manners and mores, incompetence in powerful positions and the slavish adherence to a rule or philosophy to the point of absurd.” The company has revised “Utopia, Limited” for a modern audience; read more about those efforts here.  Performances will be at the Conn Theater at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis March 1 – 24. 

Performance artist and musician Tri Vo loves the work of Theater Mu, and he’s looking forward to seeing them take on the horror genre in the world premiere of Keiko Green’s play “Hells Canyon.” As with many classic horror pieces, we’re headed to a cabin in the woods with a group of unsuspecting friends. They’ve booked a weekend trip in eastern Oregon, near Hells Canyon. In 1887, it was the location where white gang members massacred 34 Chinese gold miners, an actual event called the Hells Canyon Massacre.As the night progresses, supernatural forces threaten to break in, raising the temperature of the simmering tensions among the friends. Vo recalls being "freaked out” by the digital stage effects in Theater Mu’s staging of “The Brothers Paranormal” in 2019, and he looks forward to seeing how this play and its stage effects work together to create an atmosphere of horror. “Hells Canyon” runs Feb. 24 — March 17 at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. There is a post-show playwright talkback on Feb 25. This show is recommended for ages 16 and up. Arts appreciator Natasha Brownlee of St. Paul enjoys both the music and the art of Ian Valor. She calls his solo art exhibit “Wild Imagination” at Vine Arts in Minneapolis a “conceptual dreamscape.” Brownlee was particularly intrigued by Valor’s line drawings. Look closely, and you can see a single line of changing thickness; stand back, and the line coalesces into a single image. Valor is color blind, and his earlier work is in black and white. More recent works in color includes bold, eye-catching color combinations. Valor is the frontman of the rock group The Valors, and his art show also includes a wall of hand-lettered show posters for his and other bands. It’s a visual dive into the local music scene. “Wild Imagination” is on view at Vine Arts Center in Minneapolis this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a closing artists reception from 5-8 p.m. John Carrier of Winona is a retired scenic carpenter and an ongoing jazz enthusiast. He’s spreading the word about the debut album from H3O Jazz Trio, a father-and-sons group based in Winona. The father in the trio is a composer and former St. Mary’s University assistant music professor named Eric Heukeshoven, who plays keyboard, among other instruments. The band also includes his sons, Max on bass and Hans on percussion and vibes. Carrier loves watching the trio improvise when they perform in person.  Their new album, “TafelJazz,” translates from German to “table-jazz,” a play on “table music.” Carrier says it’s the perfect album to set the mood while sitting around the table with friends. The 12 original songs include guests Janet Heukeshoven on flute, John Paulson of Paulson Jazz and John Sievers of the Rochester-based D’Sievers. H3O will perform the full album this Sunday from 2-4 p.m. at Island City Brewing in Winona. Island City Brewing also hosts a Jazz Jam on the third Sunday of each month that combines local live jazz, local beer and local support; it’s a fundraiser for a rotating series of area nonprofits. As of early February, H3O Jazz Trio and Island City Brewing helped support local nonprofits with over $43,000 in total donations from its monthly Jazz Jams. 

St. Paul actor, vocalist and community organizer T. Mychael Rambo wants everyone to know about “The Sounds of Gospel” presented by 2nd Chance Outreach this weekend at the Cowles Center in Minneapolis.  The two-hour show highlights the range and evolution of gospel music, from spirituals to psalms to contemporary songs. Rambo says to expect an evening of music that will have you clapping your hands, stomping your feet and raising up a shout for more.The performances are Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Padma Wudali of Minneapolis describes herself as an amateur musician who plays the veena, a South Indian Carnatic classical instrument similar to a lute. She is excited to see local musician Shruthi Rajasekar take to the Ordway stage this Sunday. Presented by the Shubert Club Mix, Rajasekar’s show is entitled “Parivaar — a Celebration of Community as Family.” (“Parivaar” is Hindi for “family.”)Rajasekar’s music combines both Carnatic and Western classical traditions. Wudali loves her approach to this performance: in addition to presenting her own original, commissioned work, Rajasekar has invited other South Asian Twin Cities artists working in theater, music and visual arts to take part in the performance, thus celebrating the local creative community. The performance will include a new work by Rajasekar commissioned for the event and film, dance and writing by other Twin Cities performers.  Schubert Club Mix is a regular event designed to make classical music feel less formal and more approachable to audiences. The performance is Sunday, Feb. 18 at 3 p.m. at the Ordway in St. Paul. Children and students can attend for free. Shruthi Rajasekar video Musician Leslie Vincent of White Bear Lake saw the one-person play “Honey, I’m Home” twice during its first run, and she’s excited that the show is back for a new run at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis.In “Honey I’m Home,” the main character is a brick house who wants to be a home to a new family. From there, writer and actor Madeleine Rowe goes on to play other characters as well.It’s a show that combines comic clowning and poignant, heartfelt observations about the metaphorical houses we inhabit. Vincent recalls the two performances she saw last time felt “so different, because both audiences were so different, and the performer Madeline Rowe is incredibly adept at reacting to an audience.”The show opens tonight and runs through Feb 24. 

Myron Johnson of Minneapolis, former artistic director for Ballet of the Dolls, recommends “The Conference of the Birds” from Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre. The dance piece is based on an epic poem by 12th-century Persian mystic Farīd al-DīnʿAṭṭār.“It’s been performed and created by one of my absolute favorite artists in this community, Susana di Palma,” Johnson said. “I can’t imagine anyone taking this story and doing an interpretation any better than Susana and her live musicians and singers and flamenco dancers and original music.”“The Conference of the Birds” plays Feb. 10-11 at the Cowles Center in Minneapolis.Minneapolis resident Mary Thomas is an art historian and arts administrator. She is looking forward to “In the Middle of Somewhere,” an exhibit by artist Martin Gonzales.An alum of the University of Minnesota’s art department, Gonzales is based in Massachusetts. Thomas sees Gonzales “grappling with questions of how he takes up space and how he can occupy space in different ways.” “The sculptures are a way to think through and meditate on some of those questions through his own life and his own experience,” Thomas said.The exhibit is on display at the Silverwood Park Visitor Center in St. Anthony through Feb. 29. Linda LeGarde Grover, a member of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa in northern Minnesota, is a professor emeritus of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She’s very pleased to recommend the Indigenous Writer Series at AICHO in Duluth. The series features Indigenous writers from around the region. “Some of them will actually have drawings for some of their books, and the community will get to listen to them, ask questions of them and especially hear them talking about their writing,” Grover said. The event Saturday will include authors Tashia Hart of Red Lake Nation and Staci L. Drouillard of Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, from 2-4 p.m. at the Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center in Duluth.

Puppetry artist Sandy Spieler plans to attend Minneapolis author Patrick Cabello Hansel’s book launch Thursday night for his poetry collection, “Breathing in Minneapolis.”The collection arises from the tumultuous events of 2020: the COVID pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, the destruction along Lake Street and the challenges immigrant communities faced.It’s Cabello Hansel’s third collection, and he draws in part from his work as pastor of a bilingual Spanish-English speaking church in south Minneapolis, from which he recently retired.“These are poems of immediate relevance. Here are poems of hiding, of being torn apart, of mourning, of marching, of anger and ultimately of reverent adoration,” says Spieler, “true to the calling of his holy office.” Poets Joyce Sutphen, Walter Cannon and Dralandra Larkins will also participate in Thursday’s reading, along with Chilean musician Ina-Yukka. The event is at 7 p.m. at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, which Spieler says feels fitting since it served as a medic station during the uprising following George Floyd’s murder.  Art lover Colette Hyman of Winona attended the opening weekend of the exhibit “Aabijijiwan / Ukeyat yanalleh, It Flows Continuously” at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum.The show, which first appeared at All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis, pairs the textiles of Ojibwe artist Karen Goulet and the photography and collage of Houma artist Monique Verdin. The two artists live at opposite ends of the Mississippi River, and their work explores the health of the water that connects us all.The exhibit includes several collaborations that tie deeply to land and water. There are a series of weavings that the artist buried and later retrieved from various locations along the river, allowing the natural colors of the soil to permeate the work.Hyman also appreciated a “stunning, understated” star quilt Goulet created from cotton dyed by medicine plants grown by Verdin. The light fabric flows and ripples as visitors walk by.The exhibit is on view now through July 7 at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona.Actor and theatermaker Greta Grosch of St. Paul is looking forward to Theatre 55’s production of “Cabaret,” opening Friday night.Grosch appreciates Theatre 55’s role in the Twin Cities arts scene, mounting iconic musicals with talented actors who have aged out of the roles they previously might have played. Grosch enjoys how they push the envelope of the expected, including “Rent,” “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Hair.”  All actors are 55 and older, and the show includes a mix of veteran and amateur performers. She’s looking forward to seeing the role of Sally played by Prudence Johnson, whose long career includes appearances on “A Prairie Home Companion.”“Cabaret” runs Feb. 2 – 10 at Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis.

Opera lover Miluska Novota of Minneapolis says she’s “saltando en dos patitas — jumping on two feet” for joy as she looks forward to seeing Venessa Becerra in Minnesota Opera’s “Elixir of Love.” Novota loved the soprano’s performance in “The Daughter of the Regiment,” and she’s happy to see a Latina performer take the lead role as Adina. In Gaetano Donizetti’s popular comedic opera, lowly farmer Nemorino (Andrew Stenston), tries to win the heart of the beautiful, strong-willed Adina, and a love potion feels like just the way to go. It’s a plot worth of a telenovela, says Novota, but with beautiful arias. Novota appreciates that the Minnesota Opera has been “doing such a good job … recruiting singers of color, and bringing communities that may not have felt welcome in the classical world and in opera.” The production is set in 1916 California. It will be sung in Italian with English captions projected above the stage. The show opens Saturday, Jan. 27, and runs through Feb. 4.Minneapolis-based performer Sam Johnson has long followed the work of choreographer Morgan Thorson, and he’s looking forward to watching her newest creation this Saturday night. “Untitled Night” stands out for its location: it takes place on a frozen lake at night.  “She often tackles these big, huge issues, concepts that we're all dealing with in our lives. But she comes at it in this in a really interesting, very dance-centric way that I really appreciate.” The 30-minute dance performance investigates our relationship with winter and the night sky, performed as a collaboration of a dozen interdisciplinary artists. There are two shows at 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Silver Lake in St. Anthony. This performance is part of The Great Northern, a Twin Cities Arts festival that runs Jan. 25 through Feb. 4. Art lover Marc Robinson of Northfield is looking forward to seeing the third and final installment of an interdisciplinary art project traveling southeast Minnesota that investigates the concept of home. Artist Cecilia Cornejo Sotelo created a traveling recording studio, and she interviewed people in Northfield, Lanesboro and Red Wing about home, belonging and community. In each town, their words were transcribed, and community members embroidered selected phrases onto squares that were then pieced together into a giant quilt. Red Wing’s exhibit includes three large quilts with the Mississippi running across all three, uniting them. “Embroidering Red Wing: stories of home told with needle and thread” is on view at the Red Wing Arts Depot Gallery through Feb. 24. There is a public reception Saturday, Jan. 27 from 2-4 p.m. “Embroidering Red Wing” also features an interactive touchscreen, that allows the public to listen to the original, anonymous recording made in 2022, on which the embroidered work is based.  The exhibition also includes The Wandering House - Sonic Archive, a repository of testimonials and ambient sounds designed as an exploration of home from a rural perspective. The archive comprises testimonials that Cornejo has been recording since 2019 with community members in Northfield, Lanesboro and Red Wing.

Carleton College senior Esme Krohn loves the Perlman Teaching Museum on campus, and she was at the opening night of its new exhibit “Towards a Warm Embrace” by Finnegan Shannon and Ezra Benus. The hands-on, interactive exhibit explores themes of ableism and disability as well as the power of touch in a post-pandemic world. Both artists are New York-based, though Shannon is a Carleton grad, and some of the pieces were created in collaboration with Carleton art students. One such piece that Krohn particularly liked consists of a series of heating pads with original cyanotype prints for covers. The heating pads are in a room with warm lighting, creating a space where she could imagine chilling with friends. Many pieces invite visitors to touch them, and there are numerous places to sit, including a bench whose label says, “This exhibit has made me stand for too long.”  The show runs through April 14. The Perlman Teaching Museum is free and open to visitors. It’s located inside the Weitz Center for Creativity on the Carleton College campus in Northfield.  There will be an event connected to the exhibit on Jan. 19, Convocation with Jerron Herman.Sarah Larsson is a Minneapolis-based singer and an organizer of next weekend’s Klezmer on Ice. This Friday evening, she’s looking forward to Abinnet Berhanu’s Ahndenet at Icehouse in Minneapolis. Ahndenet means “unity,” and this performance will combine music from both the East and West African diaspora. Ethiopian drummer and composer Abinnet Berhanu of Minneapolis brings his deep knowledge of Ethiopian and American jazz and pop, featuring the talents of local Ethiopian vocalist Genet Abate. They share the stage with Kevin Washington, who incorporates Afro-Latino, hip hop and R&B beats along with West African diaspora rhythms and jazz. “One thing that I think is really interesting about Abinnet and his music,” says Larsson, is that “he talks a lot about how there are so, so many different styles and traditions of music that come from Ethiopia, but kind of what people tend to hear is only one very kind of sterilized and also almost Americanized style of pop music. And he’s been doing a lot of work for many years to go down into the roots and study these very specific different lineages. He names the teachers and the singers of the songs. And what he’s trying to do is illuminate and bring together these different styles, by actually naming them and where they come from.” Artist Brian Sago teaches photography and printmaking at Blake School, and he often includes the photography of Gordon Parks (1912 – 2006) in his classes. Sago was excited to see a collection of Parks’ photodocumentary work at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Parks, who lived in St. Paul during his teens and young adulthood, is considered one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, in addition to his work as a composer, author and filmmaker. He was the only Black photography fellow with the Farm Security Administration when he met Ella Watson, who worked cleaning the building. The 60 photographs on display portray Watson’s life and work, which Parks used to document the social inequities in Washington, D.C., in 1942. His most famous photograph shows Watson holding a broom and a mop in front of the American flag — a visual reference to Grant Woods’ “American Gothic” painting. Sago says Gordon Parks’ photographs offer “a window of the history on what it's like to be a Black American. His photographs give such a nuanced level. They’re beautiful to look at: his photographs are all gorgeous. But the sensitivity with which he was taking pictures and the situations he was able to get into by being a Black photographer who was paid by the federal government for much of his career, that’s really profound.” “American Gothic: Gordon Parks and Ella Watson” is on display through June 23 at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Admission is free. 

Theatermaker Joe Hendren wants people to know about History Theatre’s Raw Stages new works festival, taking place through Sunday in St. Paul. There’s a reading of a new work-in-progress each day. These are plays and musicals commissioned by the History Theatre, and this festival is an opportunity for the shows’ playwrights and artistic team to see how an audience reacts, and for the audience to ask questions and offer feedback in a Q&A following each performance. Find the line-up here.Hendren is especially interested in seeing “Secret Warriors,” a new play written by Rick Shiomi, a founding member of Theater Mu and co-founder of Full-Circle Theater. The play is about the nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) who worked with the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II as translators, codebreakers and interrogators. The show highlights a piece of Minnesota history: the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling. That reading is Saturday at 2 p.m.St. Paul artist Stuart Loughridge is looking forward to the opening this Saturday of David Cunningham’s exhibit “City Life” at Gallery 360 in Minneapolis.Cunningham’s oil paintings focus on urban landscapes and on liminal times of day when the light of dusk or dawn does magical things to a city. Loughridge says Cunningham’s paintwork is “exciting and active,” with elements of abstraction, and he appreciates the mysterious narratives of the people who populate his canvasses. Visitors can expect to see familiar Twin Cities sights in a new way. The show runs through Feb. 25. St. Paul playwright Kyle B. Dekker is a big fan of the Minneapolis band Sycamore Gap, who he always enjoys seeing perform at the Renaissance Festival. The group sings old world, revival and original folk music about working people, with sea shanties and some yodeling thrown in for good measure. Dekker loves their harmonies and bass rhythms.  This Saturday, Sycamore Gap will be the closing act in a four-band local concert in South Minneapolis. The event is a fundraiser for the Arbitrarium, an artist coop that is raising money to buy their building and create housing for low-income artists. The show starts at 7 p.m. and will be livestreamed on YouTube.  

Maricella Xiong of St. Paul admires the work of Urban Roots, a nonprofit community and safe space that serves local youth. This November, around the Hmong New Year, local Hmong youth dressed in their traditional Hmong clothes and took photograph portraits at the Urban Roots’ Rivoli Bluffs Farm. Youth at Urban Roots then selected the final pictures for the show. “I thought it was a phenomenal expression of cultural revitalization, indigenous solidarity, and Hmong indigeneity in general," says Xiong. The photo exhibit “Rooted Legacy” is on view now in the front window display of Indigenous Roots, which is a center for arts and activism dedicated to “Native, Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples” in St. Paul. Xiong also recommends stepping inside to enjoy Indigenous Roots’ excellent café and programming. Rachel Mock of Duluth’s Magic Smelt Puppet Troupe has long been a fan of Bold Choice Theatre Company. Its veteran stage actors are all adults with disabilities, and they’ve been working for more than a year on this Saturday’s country western musical “Sundown on the Jasper County Jewel.” The original show has songs and music by Duluth’s Toby Thomas Churchill. In the show, a traveling band shows up for their booking at the Jasper Jewel, a grand old country music hall that has most decidedly seen better days. Based on past experiences, Mock is looking forward to a high-caliber event with good music and some classic western danger, romance and intrigue. The musical is one night only, this Saturday, Jan. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Duluth Playhouse.  Improv actor and comedian Bailey Murphy of Minneapolis is glad that “Off Book” is back at HUGE Improv Theater this weekend. The half-improv, half-scripted show is a long-running HUGE Theater favorite. Murphy has acted in the show several times over the years, but every night is different. The performance is adapted with permission from Upright Citizen Brigade's Gravid Water. In it, one actor goes on stage with a memorized script for a show, and the other must improv their way through. No matter what the improv actor throws at them, the scripted actor must stay on script. Murphy says the show always gets huge laughs.  “Off Book” opens Jan. 6 at 7:30 p.m. and runs Saturdays through Feb. 24. 

Skylark Opera Theatre performs “The Gift of the Magi” this weekend, and members of the Armstrong High School Opera Club from Robbinsdale will be in attendance. Opera Club adviser Mark Mertens and student officer Grace Pawlak recommended this show for Art Hounds.  They appreciate Skylark Opera Theatre for its short, accessible operas, typically sung in English. This 90-minute opera, based on the O. Henry story, tells of a newlywed couple who each make sacrifices to try to buy the other the perfect Christmas present.  The theater stages operas in intimate settings, so you can see the orchestra and performers up close. “The Gift of the Magi” will be at the 150-seat Lowry Lab Theater at the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Arts. Shows are Friday, Dec. 15 at 7 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Sontha Reine and her 96-year-old mother, actress Vivian Fusillo, are superfans of Johnson Street Underground, a local four-man a cappella group. The singers are all current or former educators who met singing choir in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Reine loves the group’s energy and their wide range of songs, from the Beatles to Jason Mraz. This Saturday, they’ll be donning Santa hats for their holiday concert, which takes place at the Winona Arts Center at 7 p.m. Winona has a great music scene, and Reine gave a shout-out to an additional event: the Sleepy Weekend Festival. It’s a two-day music festival, new this year, featuring and curated by Sleepy Jesus, all-local line-up of including eight other bands. Events take place Friday, Dec. 15 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 18 at 5 p.m. at No Name Bar in Winona. Mixed Precipitation founder and artistic director Scotty Reynolds says there’s still time to catch the play “A Christmas in Ochopee” in its final weekend. Reynolds says New Native Theatre originally commissioned the play by Miccosukee playwright Montana Cypress for its 10-minute playwriting festival. COVID delayed its production, giving Cypress time to create a short film of the piece and expand it into the full play that’s currently on stage. There’s plenty of drama and laughs, as well as some alligator wrestling, in this story set in the Everglades about a Native American college student who surprises his family by showing up for Christmas with his new fiancee. The final shows are tonight through Sunday, Dec. 17 at Red Eye Theater’s new performance space in the Seward Neighborhood of South Minneapolis. Tickets are pay-what-you-can, with a suggested price of $35. The upcoming evening performances are theme nights. Thursday is Family Night, with crafts and snacks in advance of the show; Friday is Ugly Sweater Night, and Saturday’s performance invites the audience to “wear your Christmas Best, whatever that means to you!”  

Singer and retired vocal teacher Mary Heston Dahl of White Bear Lake has a special place in her heart for the St. Croix Valley Chamber Chorale. She sang with them for about eight years, but this year she’s looking forward to hearing the performance from the audience. Now in its 49th season, the VCC is the longest-running amateur choir in the Twin Cities, and in that time it’s only had two artistic directors. The chorale includes some 40-50 singers across a range of ages.  This weekend is “Christmas with the Valley Chamber Chorale,” with four performances Fri., Dec. 8 through Sun., Dec. 10. Dahl says the audience can look forward to some familiar carols, beautifully arranged and sung, as well as an opportunity to sing along with a few of them. Performances are Fri. Dec. 8 – Sun. Dec. 10 at the St. Croix Prep Performing Arts Center at St. Croix Prep Upper School. This is a change from the chorale’s typical venue, the historic Washington County Courthouse, which is under renovation. 'Audience members are seated at tables, so buying tickets in advance is best to ensure your party can sit together. Classical music lover Pauline Marlinski of Gaylord plans to be in St. Peter tonight for a performance by the Gaylord-based ensemble La Grande Bande. Now celebrating its fifth season, La Grande Bande specializes in music written from 1600-1800 (Early Music and Baroque). Their instruments, including harpsichord and viola da gamba, are original to the period. Marlinski appreciates the group’s focus on education as they perform in schools and communities across southern Minnesota.  This weekend’s French Baroque Christmas will include eight singers and six musicians, with artistic director Michael Thomas Asmus on organ. The performance will include a selection of works written for Christmas by French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704). Marlinski is looking forward to singing along (in English) to some traditional French carols as part of the performance.  Performances are Thursday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 at First Lutheran Church in St Peter. Sunday, Dec. 9 at 7:30 at Church of the Assumption in St. Paul. Each performance includes a short pre-concert talk at 6:45 to guide the audience through the music and composers. Not all annual holiday shows are serene and thoughtful. If Klingon battles are more your style, then actor and physical comedian Gregory Parks of Minneapolis recommends that you check out “It’s an Honorable Life” at Historic Mounds Theatre in St. Paul. In this telling, Bailey is a Klingon warrior who has a high standing in the empire because of his bravery and his feats in battle. He fears that because he is so skilled, he will never meet a glorious death in battle, which is a great problem for a Klingon. Enter the mysterious Q, who guides Bailey through many possible scenarios of his life. (Parks originated the character of Bailey but for the past three years has enjoyed the show from the audience seat.) Written by local Star Trek fans, with a local make-up artist ensuring that each actor has a proper Klingon forehead, this play is filled with references familiar and obscure. The show is not endorsed or affiliated with any Star Trek enterprise. “It’s An Honorable Life” runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, and some Sundays at 2:30 through Dec. 23. Trekkie uniforms of all empires are encouraged but not required. Masks are requested when not eating or drinking. 

Art lover Bill Adams was delighted to visit the Kaddatz Galleries to see Charles Beck: Rarities and Masterpieces. The Kaddatz and other Fergus Falls venues have been celebrating “A Year of Beck” throughout 2023, marking what would have been the Minnesota artist’s 100th birthday. Charles Beck (1923 – 2017) created woodcuts, paintings, and other artworks that often celebrated the landscape of Ottertail County in west central Minnesota. This is the final show in the series, and it runs through Dec. 23. The pieces in this exhibit include works from private collections that would not otherwise be available, spanning from Becks’ college drawings to his final piece. “I would say that Charles Beck's works are quintessential Minnesota pieces,” says Adams, who was thrilled to encounter new works of Beck’s at this show. “Yesterday when I was driving home from Fergus, I looked through some bare trees and in the background was a blue sky with white clouds above it, and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, that looks just like a Beck piece.’” Don Fortner has retired as music director from First Presbyterian Church in St. Cloud. Still, he wants everyone to know about the wonderful music series that Granite City Folk Society hosts at the church and at Bo Diddley’s Deli every month. Fortner was involved in connecting the Granite City Folk Society with the church as a venue during Covid, and he’s delighted to see how the First Fridays concert series continues to grow in popularity. He says the 100-year-old church has excellent acoustics.  Folk artist John Gorka will perform December’s First Fridays concert, Dec 1 at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church. Rupert Wates will be at Bo Diddley’s on Friday, Dec. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at the door. Find the concert series schedule here.  Oil painter Laura Lindquist of Stillwater says her favorite holiday show each year is “Letters to Santa,” a one-woman show that had her “hooting and hollering” when she first saw it last year. Actor Janelle Ranek transforms into 10 characters, each writing letters to Santa. Sitting in the intimate setting of Bryant Lake Bowl, Lindquist was astounded by Ranek’s versatility and humor. Each year’s show is different.  This year’s version, “Letters to Santa: Shaken, Not Stirred,” runs at Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis from Dec. 2 – 23. 

Artist and photographer Theresa Drift of Cook, Minn., and theatermaker Payton Counts of Net Lake, Minn., both saw the “Native American Art: Past and Present” gallery show at the Northwoods Friends of the Arts in Cook. It’s a mixture of contemporary and historical pieces by local artists, including paintings, metalwork, birchbark baskets, beadwork and quilting. The show also includes a few pieces from Grand Portage artist George Morrison, a well-known mid-century painter. Counts appreciated the range of the show, which is presented in one room. “I thought it was nice to see a mixture of contemporary as well as older pieces of work, kind of this like partnership of art connecting to the community." “It definitely shows the changing culture and [that] it's not a static thing,” agrees Drift. “It's constantly evolving and growing.” The exhibit runs through Sat., Nov. 25. The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. Art teacher and illustrator Heather Zemien of Brooklyn Park, Minn., has been following Off Leash Theater Productions for the past year, ever since she saw their original “Off-Kilter Cabaret.” She’s looking forward to seeing the second annual production this weekend. The cabaret features seven artists living and making art with a range of mental and physical abilities. The performance includes dance, comedy, puppetry, musical composition, spoken word and storytelling. The show is emceed by storyteller Amy Salloway, whose work Zemien has followed since seeing her on stage last year. The show strikes a special chord for Zemien, whose late partner was in a wheelchair. She says she’s excited to see and support this all-inclusive show.  “Off Kilter Cabaret” will be performed at the Cowles Center for the Performing Arts in Minneapolis Fri., Nov 17 and Sat. Nov 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Sun., Nov 19 at 2 p.m.  The building is fully accessible. All three shows have American Sign Language and audio descriptions available. Masks are required. Please note: the accompanying music in the radio piece is “Interlude 4” from A.J. Isaacson-Zvidzwa’s composition “Angels Sang to Me.” Isaacson-Zvidzwa is one of the seven artists featured in this weekend’s “Off Kilter Cabaret.” Philip Muehe, managing director of the Rochester Repertory Theatre, suggests a romantic comedy musical in Lanesboro, Minn., for your entertainment this holiday season. The Commonweal Theatre Company in Lanesboro is staging the musical “She Loves Me” through Dec. 23. The show features cheerful, catchy numbers about two shopkeepers who get on each others' last nerve. Secretly, though, they’ve become pen pals through a lonely hearts group. When they finally find out that the person with whom they’ve fallen in love over letters is, in reality, the person right across the shop, heartwarming hilarity ensues.  If that plot sounds familiar, the Commonweal put on an adaptation of the play “Parfumerie” on which the musical “She Loves Me” is based back in 2011. The story was the inspiration for several movies, including the 1998 romcom “You’ve Got Mail” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  

"History repeats itself,” says Twin Cities actor James Craven. That was one of his takeaways after he saw a workshop of Combustible Company’s production of “The Hairy Ape” last summer. Written in 1922 by Eugene O’Neill, this play about labor rights and immigration feels just as timely today. Combustible’s production, staged with the company’s signature focus on actors’ physicality, will be performed Nov. 10-18 at the Center for Performing Arts in Minneapolis. “It aggravated me. It aggrieved me. It made me fearful. It made me sit on the edge of my seat because I realized that the same things that were going on in 1922 are going on in 2023,” says Craven about the version he saw. “That is to say, the rise of Make America Great Again, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the rise of political violence, all these things are on stage done by the Combustible Company." Sarra Beckham-Chasnoff has followed Fortune’s Fool Theatre for years, particularly the shows they’ve done at the Fringe Festival. This week, she’s looking forward to attending their production of a new musical, “Cold Planet Warm Heart” at Crane Theatre in Minneapolis. The script and lyrics are by producing artist director Daniel Pinkerton and the show features his fellow producing artist director — and daughter — Ariel Pinkerton, who is part of an all-female cast. “Cold Planet Warm Heart” is billed as a family-friendly sci-fi musical: A spaceship has landed in a small Minnesota town, carrying with it a being from another galaxy, which prompts misadventures and eventually a pageant.The score is by Robert Elhai, whose wide-ranging by-line spans Broadway’s “The Lion King,” six of the Fast and Furious movies and many works for Minnesota theaters. “I’m sure it will be really quirky,” Beckham-Chasnoff says. “Fortune’s Fool Theatre does a great job with very adventurous plays.”Twin Cities actor and director Ansa Akyea recently saw Full Circle Theater’s production of Naomi Iizuka’s play “Anon(ymous)” at Park Square Theatre in downtown St Paul.  “Anon(ymous)” is a take on Homer’s “The Odyssey” and is the story of a young man who is a refugee. He crosses the Atlantic as he seeks to reunite with his mother in the U.S.  “You’re sitting there and you’re wondering, what does that have to do with today,” says Akyea. “And right away, they make it clear that this is about immigration, immigrants, and they’ve done the specific work of placing Liberia also in that narrative. And so you know, which has resonance for our community, in the Twin Cities in particular.” The play was directed by Stephanie Lein Walseth and continues through Nov. 19.

Minneapolis art lover Ali Kennedy is a huge fan of the DaDa Duende Record Club, a subscription box by Twin Cities creators Chris and Hannah Lynch. Each quarter, subscribers receive a lathe-cut record hand-made by the Lynches, a glossy zine containing photography, poetry and other visual arts and a limited edition 8x8” print of one image from the zine.  “It looks like something you’d buy in a museum gift shop because it’s so beautifully put together,” says Kennedy.According to Hannah Lynch, subscriptions are still available, and Volume Two will be released in late November/early December. The theme will be “Duende,” featuring the Minneapolis-based tango quartet The Charles Gorczynski Tango Quartet. The accompanying book will feature work and photography by Alessandra Sanguinetti, Daniela Spector, Rachel Elise Thomas, Ashima Yadova, Dawn Surratt, paintings by Minneapolis artist Megan Bell and poetry by Kelly Gray.To hear the music from the record club or to subscribe, visit the website.Duluth-area artist and curator Wendy Savage is looking forward to the exhibit that opens at AICHO this weekend. “Mazinibii’igewininiwag: Two Woodland Artists” brings together the work of two Minnesota artists painting in the Woodlands Style, a style of art with brilliant colors that shows animals, plants and people as though through x-ray vision, revealing the internal organs. Savage likens the effects of the color to stained glass, adding that the works often have religious connotations.  The two artists featured approach this style through different media. Gordon Coons is a self-taught painter and an enrolled member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. He is a fumage artist who paints with smoke from burning cedar. Paired with his work is digital art created by Steven StandingCloud, an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. Savage appreciates this combination of painting and digital work, all of it brilliantly colored.  There’s a catered artist reception this Saturday, Nov. 4, from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. The exhibit runs Monday through Friday, Nov. 6 – Dec. 29. It’s free and open to the public, and Savage says there’s easy parking, too. John Sievers, trombonist of the jazz band the D’Sievers is looking forward to Mayo Clinic Presents: An Evening with Michael Feinstein on Saturday, Nov. 4. Sievers appreciates that this joint performance and learning opportunity celebrates the power of music for everyone, particularly for people living with dementia.  Feinstein is a singer and pianist an Ambassador of the American Songbook. He will perform and participate in a panel discussion called “Your Brain on Music,” which includes a neurologist and an Alzheimer’s researcher from Mayo Clinic. Also part of the panel is Suzy Johnson, artistic director of Resounding Voices, a Rochester-based chorus for people living with dementia and their supporters. Resounding Voices will give a demonstration, and other dementia choirs, including the Minneapolis-based Giving Voice, will lead the audience in a sing-along. The event is free, but space is limited and registration is required. Sat., Nov. 4 from 6 – 8 p.m. 

Maria Asp is the director of education and community engagement with the Speaking Out Collective. She’s a huge fan of Frank Theatre, which for more than 30 years has focused on mounting plays that address social, cultural and political issues. The theater is staging its first live production since the onset of the pandemic, and the new play by former Twin Cities resident Trista Baldwin is certain to spark discussion.  “FETAL” is set in a clinic that provides abortions in Texas on June 24, 2022 — the day the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion through the Dobbs ruling. The show focuses on three women in the waiting room that morning, each with a radically different reproductive journey, as well as a female health care provider.  Asp is excited to see both the show and the space: Frank Theatre is staging this show in an intimate setting within their rehearsal space on the second floor of the Ivy Building for the Arts in south Minneapolis. The show runs Oct. 27 through Nov. 19. Artist Preston Drum of Burnsville says his whole family was drawn in by the Chronicles of the Chronic exhibit at the Rochester Art Center.  Curated by Zoe Cinel, this group show celebrates the creativity of people living with chronic illness.  The exhibit includes works by local, national and international artists, responding to the subject of chronic illness through a range of media, including 2D, audio, film and interactive works.  “One might walk into the show and see it as a disparate pairing of artworks because they are all different media and all different colors and all different types of expression,” says Drum. “But I think that variety brought a sense of cohesion to the show because everyone lives with their own chronic illness in their own way.”Drum says his children liked the color and tactile experience of the show. He also noted that one corner of the one-room exhibit offers a place to sit and rest, engage in a weaving activity, read literature and take in the view. The exhibit is open through April, 2024. The next virtual program, including Cinel and three of the artists, will be Dec. 2 at 1 p.m.Art lover Veronica Bedon recommends a visit to two arts-driven Minneapolis events on Saturday for Día de Muertos. At the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, there will be a community altar created by local artist Mónica Vega. The free, family-friendly event Saturday includes music, dance, art-making and food. That event runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. That event is in partnership with Minneapolis-based Latine organization Centro Tyrone Guzman. Vega has created ofrendas at Mia and Centro for Roxana Linares Arrieta, former Centro executive director, who passed away in August. A mile and a half away is a celebration at the Midtown Global Market, which features live music, dance, ofrendas, activities and food for purchase. That event runs from noon to 3 p.m. 

Twin Cities arts enthusiast Florence Brammer loves Girl Friday Productions and Open Eye Theatre’s production of “Life Sucks,” a play she called “smart and funny and poignant.” The play was loosely adapted by playwright Aaron Posner from Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.”“First of all, when I walked into the theater, I was blown away by how gorgeous the set design is,” Brammer says. “And the performances are so good.”Brammer was struck by the broadness of the performances — but says it became obvious that this was a decision on the part of the playwright, as well as director Joel Sass. “Because as the play continues, the characters become more and more layered and complex. It's sort of like us, isn't it?“ Brammer says that the play made her laugh and cry, “which is my very favorite theatergoing combination.” “Life Sucks” runs through Nov. 5 at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis.Eric Heukeshoven is the director of worship music and arts at Central Lutheran Church in Winona, Minn. He's looking forward to this Saturday’s Winona Symphony Orchestra performance, which features work by three contemporary Minnesota composers — and one Mozart symphony for good luck. Included is the premier of a new piece by Minnesota composer Libby Larsen. Titled “Haying,” the composition will feature local baritone soloist Alan Dunbar. “On the surface, it's about the toils and rigors of bringing in the harvest,” Heukeshoven explains. “But it gets into some other interesting areas of about war and distress and it's incredibly visceral — very vivid.”Additionally, the orchestra will perform “Minnesota Suite” by Reinaldo Moya and “Superior” by Katherine Bergman, along with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Symphony No. 41.” The first two are Minnesota composers; Mozart hailed from Austria.The performance takes place Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. at DuFresne Performing Arts Center, Main Stage, Winona State University.Bassoonist Tracy Carr is looking forward to hearing the bassoon shine in the Bakken Ensemble’s upcoming performance this Saturday. Carr is particularly looking forward to hearing them play Wynton Marsalis' composition “Meeelaan” for bassoon and string quartet, written for renowned bassoonist Milan Turković (also from Austria). “It really features the bassoon in a unique way,” Carr says. “It leverages the instrument in a way that's outside of a typical orchestral setting. And also is playful with the instrument in a way that you don't usually see.”The performance features Fei Xie, principal bassoonist of the Minnesota Orchestra. Also on the program: Sergei Prokofiev’s “String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92” and Jean Françaix’s “Divertissement for Bassoon and String Quintet.”The performance will be Oct. 22 at Antonello Hall at the MacPhail Center in Minneapolis.