“May this review or commentary be as queer as the work. May it disrupt our normative ideas of ‘the review’ with humanity and the historical realities of viewing and commenting on brown (racialized) bodies.” Artist and writer Taja Will shares her perspective on last night’s performance of This Bridge Called My Ass by Miguel Gutierrez.
In a conversation following the November 30 show, the Walker’s Kayva Yang spoke with artists Samantha Johns, Mary Moore Easter, Valerie Oliveiro, and HIJACK’s Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder about their reflections on this year’s Choreographers’ Evening.
Viewers respond to performances by Judith Holo (J. H.) Shuǐ Xiān, Herbert Johnson III, and Jonathan van Arneman, presented in July 2019 as part of Momentum: New Dance Works.
“Borborygmus is predicated on relentless narratives—personal, impersonal, fictional, true—of each actor’s lived experiences, memories, and mismemories. It is in these narratives that we can locate, actually, not merely the facts surrounding violent acts, but the effects of violence upon the entire social body, its nervous system.” With particular attention to affective and metabolic processes, scholar André Lepecki reviews Borborgymous, a new theater work about “life, death and the digestive system” by Mazen Kerbaj, Lina Majdalanie, and Rabih Mroué, which premiered at the Walker in January.
Artist and writer Isela Xitlali Gómez R. shares her perspective on the Walker’s performances of What Remains by Will Rawls and Claudia Rankine.
“Mr. Threadgill may have said it best: ‘When you make things for people, for the public, you just do it. Is not like tennis where the ball comes back. You just send it out, you know. We don’t even wait for it to come back. The whole point is to send it out.’” Drummer Davu Seru reflects on his experience being part of last weekend’s Henry Threadgill festival.
“In asking us to spend time with these men and their ghosts, [Lola] Arias asks us to attend to them as we would attend to our own past. To more than acknowledge their experience or their existence, but to be haunted by it along with them.” Playwright David Caruso reflects on Minefield, the final work in this year’s Out There festival.
Multimedia artist and writer Rene Meyer-Grimberg shares her perspective on last night’s presentation of BERLIN’s Zvizdal [Chernobyl, so far—so close].
“JACK & tells a story of dreaming deferred by the American criminal justice system, and of a search for the ingredients needed to get those dreams back.” Artist and writer Malakai Greiner offers their recipe for the Out There 2019 performance by Kaneza Schaal in collaboration with Cornell Alston and Christopher Myers.
“Public Love shows the climactic collisions of together, the soothing tenderness of together, the constructive power of together; togetherness that is energetic, loving, tactile, resonant, and so, so broad.” Malakei Greiner reflects on the new collaborative work by Morgan Thorson and Alan Sparhawk.
Artist and educator Maija Brown shares “fragments of [her] memory and a gratitude for live performance” in her review of Choreographers’ Evening 2018.
From beautiful and mesmerizing to blisteringly loud and grating: music writer Michael Cyrs shares his thoughts about the first evening of Thurston Moore: Moore at 60, a two-night celebration curated by Moore at the Walker.
“I’ve been to countless live shows but nothing was quite like this evening.” Maya Clark reviews Saturday night’s performance by Hailu Mergia at The Cedar.
“Don’t be fooled by the ethereal, they are grounded in their soft power.” Dance artist Penelope Freeh reflects upon Cellular Songs by Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, a work that Monk said she created “as an antidote to the values that are being propagated right now.”
“Rather than a sense of limited vision, the music of the evening suggested that Iyer, Cole and company, on the contrary, share an elevated sense of intuition and awareness, and are completely tuned in to the numerous stimuli within the world surrounding them.” Jazz writer Jon Morgan reflects on the recent Walker performances of Vijay Iyer and Teju Cole’s Blind Spot.
“No ceremony can last forever, and while Arocena assured us that she would love to come back, we should all petition Eleggua to make sure that happens.” Terrell LaMarr, cohost of KFAI’s Radio Pocho, reviews Daymé Arocena’s recent performance at the Cedar—one that conjured both the orishas of her Cuban homeland and Minneapolis’s own patron saint, Prince.
“The performance is a battle.” Penelope Freeh shares her perspective on Nora Chipaumire’s Portrait of Myself as My Father, in which the Zimbabwean choreographer attempts to come to terms with her estranged father, who died in 1980.
“Along the way, if you’ve had the right kind of day or are in the right frame of mind, it may just hit you at the level of transcendence, an experience to be savored for its endurance.” Dance artist Penelope Freeh reviews last night’s performance of The Dog Days Are Over by Jan Martens.
“Alternately plaintive and challenging, thrillingly threatening to go akimbo… then just as swiftly taking an unforeseen detour and yet another daring departure.” Writer Jon Morgan shares his perspective on the Sonic Universe Project, featuring Douglas R. Ewart, Wadada Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell, Oliver Lake, Antony Cox, and Hamid Drake.
“Instead of offering a break from violence, injustice, and inequality, Quizoola! mixes these realities up with trivia and one-liners, and then throws them all back in our faces.” Artist John Fleischer shares his thoughts on Forced Entertainment’s six-hour performance at the Soap Factory, part of the Walker’s Out There 2018 theater festival.
“All you have to do is stay to the end.” Chantal Pavageaux explores her thoughts, which she’s still untangling, on Forced Entertainment’s Real Magic.
“Isn’t it funny how we are only all equal when we are all no one and nothing?” Artist Billy Noble shares his perspective on The Fever by 600 Highwaymen, presented as part of Out There 2018.
In Mercurial George “Dana Michel bends time to explore the unseeable and makes physical the research of self.” Dance artist Amal Rogers reviews last night’s solo performance by Michel during the second week of Out There 2018.
In his overnight review, Argentinean-born performer and educator Dario Tangelson shares his perspective on Antigonón, un contingente épico, the opening work of Out There 2018, by Havana’s Teatro El Público.
Playwright Benjamin Benne explores the impressions, images, and thoughts that remained with him after experiencing the recent performance of Leila’s Death by Ali Chahrour.
Performance maker and SuperGroup member Sam Johnson shares “what was drifting in [his] head” during Saturday night’s performance of Choreographers’ Evening 2017, curated by Megan Mayer.
The title of Mdou Moctar’s film, Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai, translates to “Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It,” and it takes its inspiration from North Minneapolis native Prince Rogers Nelson. But as Moctar’s recent screening/performance at the Cedar attests, language wasn’t a barrier between Prince and the Tuareg guitarist. Writes Maryama Dhair: “Music is a universal language that spans across culture, creating connections along the way.”
“It felt like love”: Twin Cities-based musicians Julie and Andrew Thoreen share their perspective on Saturday night’s performance of Rhafiq Bhatia’s Breaking English and Ian Chang’s Spiritual Leader.
“A Love Supreme, a 2005 dance by Salva Sanchis and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker named after John Coltrane’s seminal jazz work to which it is set, has been re-staged for four men, and the result is electrifying.” Dance artist Penelope Freeh reviews last night’s performance.
Bass player Cody McKinney reviews the September 29 performance of The Bad Plus Bill Frisell ’85–’95, “a very special night of collaboration between some of the deeper improvisers alive.”
