As is fitting for a series that has always brought provocative, exhilarating, unexpected theatrical experiences to the Twin Cities, Out There celebrates its 20th season by presenting four American ensembles new to the Walker Art Center and Minnesota—their breathtaking dance-theater and physical drama is helping point the way to the future of live performance art.
Out There 20: Moving toward the Future opens Wednesday–Saturday, January 9–12, with New York City free radical choreographer Miguel Gutierrez and his Powerful People performers in their latest work of movement, live music, and text, Everyone. The company reworks the configuration of the William and Nadine McGuire Theater for this intimate experience. The series continues with the young and witty New York City company The TEAM (Theater of the Emerging American Moment) with Particularly in the Heartland on Thursday–Saturday, January 17–19. Polar bears, smoke, ghost rock, and the unexpected come together in conceptual and performance artist Claude Wampler’s PERFORMANCE (career ender) on Thursday–Saturday, January 24–26. Out There 20 concludes with the Walker commission of dance-theater artist David Neumann/advanced beginner group’s Feed Forward on Thursday–Saturday, January 31–February 2, featuring live music by maverick composer Eve Beglarian performed by local trombone players.
Launched in 1989 by former Performing Arts Curator John Killacky in partnership with the Southern Theater, Out There 1 featured performances by Rachel Rosenthal, David Cale, Michael Sommers, Alex Alexander, Mary Ellen Childs, David Hall, Majorie Hess, Alan Lindblad, Stephen Polk, Dave Stauffer, and Laurie Van Wieren. Over the last two decades the series has continued to be a platform for boundary-defying, courageous performers across disciplines. Senior Curator, Performing Arts, Philip Bither comments, “For 20 years, Out There has offered an inspiring platform for some of the world’s most inventive, ahead-of -the-curve contemporary theater and performance artists and ensembles. Out There performances often joyously blur the lines between dance, theater, media, music, visual art, and electronics, giving us a window on where live performance is heading in the 21st century. We are thrilled that the festival has helped nationally establish such important artists as John Jeserun, Ping Chong, Holly Hughes, SITI Company/Ann Bogart, Basil Twist, Roger Guenviere Smith, Elevator Repair Service, Improbable Theater, Rude Mechanicals, Gob Squad, Young Jean Lee, and many others. We are also proud that Out There has premiered some remarkable Walker commissions, including landmark work by Ron Vawter, Dan Hurlin, Richard Maxwell, Dan Graham, Eiko & Koma, Big Dance Theater, Cynthia Hopkins, and others.”
Inside Out There: Moving toward the Future
Again this year, Out There includes a unique interactive series on the stage of the McGuire Theater, Inside Out There, which offers an opportunity to get the inside story from visiting Out There artists and to participate in interactive workshops with them. Events take place at 11 am each Saturday. To reserve a spot, call 612.375.7600. Admission is $6 ($4 Walker members) for individual events or $20 ($12) for the series of four.
Out There and Then Some . . .
Drink
for free with the artists every opening night at a gathering held in the 20.21 Restaurant and Bar after each performance.
Talk
with the artists at a post-show discussion (dates vary).
Learn
from the artists every Saturday morning at an Inside Out There workshop.
New Out There Festival Discount Pass
Experience all four shows for only $50 with the discount pass (a savings of 40% or $30)
A complete listing of Out There performances follows.
OUT THERE 20: MOVING TOWARD THE FUTURE
January 9–February 2
William and Nadine McGuire Theater
Tickets and information: 612.375.7600 or walkerart.org/tickets
Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People
Everyone
Wednesday–Thursday, January 9–10, 8 pm (post-show Q&A Thursday)
Friday–Saturday, January 11–12, 7 and 9:30 pm
$20 ($16; $14 Wednesday, Walker members)
“At a time when so much art lacks a heartbeat, Mr. Gutierrez’s chest pounds. Everyone [is an] adrenaline burst, smart and moving and full of questions, the way only real art can be.” —New York Times
As the first event of Out There 20, Everyone (by New York City free radical choreographer Miguel Gutierrez) upends the traditional theatrical experience by seating the audience on the stage with a maximum of 80 seats. This intimate event is about the here, the now, and the personal lives of the Powerful People performers. Presented in intricately woven, beautifully realized scenes of movement, live music, and text, Everyone is a tender and daring look at what it means to be together while taking care of one’s self in uncertain and violent times.
Copresented with the National Performance Network (NPN). This project is made possible in part by a grant from the National Performance Network’s Performance Residency Program. Major contributors of the National Performance Network (NPN) include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency), Altria, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. For more information: www.npnweb.org. Support provided by the Moore Family Fund for the Arts of the Minneapolis Foundation.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
Inside Out There: Miguel Gutierrez
Saturday, January 12, 11 am
$6 ($4 Walker members)
Help Miguel create “The Big Mess,” a movement-based experiment born of confusion, beauty, and imagination. This interactive workshop is part performance, part experience, and total investigation into the creation of something from nothing. Open anyone at all levels of experience.
The TEAM (Theatre of the Emerging American Moment)
Particularly in the Heartland
Thursday–Saturday, January 17–19, 8 pm (post-show Q&A Friday)
$20 ($16; $14 Thursday, Walker members)
“Simultaneously intelligent, rueful, celebratory, delightful and devastatingly sad . . . the show actually lives up to its ambitions.” —Time Out New York
After the Rapture, Bobby Kennedy’s ghost, a group of fundamentalist orphans, and a pregnant alien converge in a Kansas field for a mischievously surreal, disarmingly dreamlike and profound rumination on the American soul. Creating new theater in the spirit of the Wooster Group, Ann Bogart, and Elevator Repair Service, this young and witty New York City company has already gained considerable notice in the United Kingdom. This is the troupe’s first U.S. engagement outside of New York. Lending raucous intelligence and exuberant athleticism to its refreshingly post-ironic world view, The TEAM reflects its generation’s interest in authentic emotion and a willingness to see goodness where one might least expect it.
Inside Out There: The TEAM (Theatre of the Emerging American Moment)
Saturday, January 19, 11 am
$6 ($4 Walker members)
What are the wonders and perils of creating performance work as an ensemble? Come prepared to write and to move as The TEAM performers and designers explore strategies, techniques, tools, and in-roads for devising dramatic material within a democracy.
Claude Wampler
PERFORMANCE (career ender)
Thursday, January 24, 8 pm
Friday–Saturday, January 25–26, 7 and 9:30 pm (post-show Q&A following the 7 pm performance on Friday)
$20 ($16; $14 Thursday, Walker members)
“Visual artists who create performance works are nothing new, but Claude Wampler, a tiny woman with austere artistic intent, is a wonder.” —New York Times
This more-than-meets-the-eye performance is equal parts rock show and art installation—polar bears, smoke, ghost rock, and the unexpected coexist, twisting between formality and playful abandon, virtuality and reality. Championed as an unfettered, boundary-hopping force, Claude Wampler has spent the past decade researching, reformulating, and destabilizing the notions of theatrical expectations to challenge audiences in the best of all possible ways. Limited seating.
Inside Out There: Claude Wampler
Saturday, January 26, 11 am
$6 ($4 Walker members)
Join Wampler and Bruce Hainley, contributing editor of Artforum, for a rare screening of Andy Warhol’s 66-minute film Paul Swan, followed by a conversation regarding concerns of contemporary performance: absence/presence, aging of a performer’s body, the meaning of a career and its ending, and other engaging topics spurred by the film. Conversation open to all.
David Neumann/advanced beginner group
Feed Forward
Walker Commission
Thursday–Saturday, January 31–February 2, 8 pm (post-show Q&A Friday)
$20 ($14 Thursday; $16 Friday and Saturday, Walker members)
“An elegant, spatially adept meditation . . . and yes, relax, it’s wildly funny.” —New York Times
Featuring live music by maverick composer Eve Beglarian, Neumann’s challenging and humorous piece re-imagines the athletic event as contemporary performance, usurping the rules, strategies, movement and behaviors of major American sports. At the intersection of sport and dance, Neumann’s diverse cast and Beglarian’s trombone choir explore themes such as the physicality of aggression and the mind’s relationship to time.
Copresented with the National Performance Network (NPN). Feed Forward is an NPN Creation Fund project co-commissioned by the Walker Art Center in partnership with Alverno College, the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, and the NPN, and supported by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund. NPN and the NPN Creation Fund are sponsored by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Altria, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). Additional funds provided by the Moore Family Fund for the Arts of the Minneapolis Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
Inside Out There: David Neumann
Saturday, February 2, 11 am
$6 ($4 Walker members)
Through a combination of moving and making things, this performance workshop asks participants to grapple with the discoveries and difficulties inherent in a multidisciplinary approach to dance and theater. Some movement experience is necessary, but a full range of dance/movement/acting backgrounds is welcome.
Tickets to Out There 20: Moving toward the Future performances are available at walkerart.org/tickets or by calling 612.375.7600
