The Walker Art Center announced its 2009–2010 performing arts season today, which features four world premieres, seven major commissions, nine artists on U.S. debut tours, and companies based in 17 countries spanning five continents, continuing its long tradition of supporting the freshest and most significant developments in contemporary performance from around the world.
Commenting on the 2009–2010 season, McGuire Senior Curator of Performing Arts Philip Bither said: “This year’s programming offers a window on some of the most arresting and influential live performance work being made around the world. The season’s dance schedule is perhaps our most globally minded ever, offering movement artists from Japan, Senegal, Congo, Indonesia, India, Brazil, New Zealand, Germany, and the U.S. combining traditional and experimental influences to dramatically move the art form forward in myriad intriguing ways. We also embrace the continued explosion of fascinating new sounds coming out of the worlds of rock and pop music, along with an ongoing commitment to contemporary jazz, world, and alternative classical forms. In addition, a spectrum of adventurous theater and performance includes a co-presentation with the Guthrie Theater, our first major collaboration in five years, of acclaimed provocateur/playwright Enda Walsh and Druid Theater’s The Walworth Farce as well as the intensely intimate and interactive one-on-one conceptual work of Germany’s Rimini Protokoll as part of the annual Out There series.”
In a season rich with commissions and world premieres, artists are crossing cultural and national boundaries to collaborate on important new work. Featured will be the world premiere of Ragamala Music and Dance and Cudamani’s Dhvee (Duality) (October 1–4), a glorious dance-theater spectacle inspired by the stories of the Hindu sacred text Ramayana that features 25 Indian and Balinese musicians and dancers, extravagant costuming and sets, and the powerful polyrhythms of the visuall_y sumptuous gamelan orchestra; the world premiere of Reggie Wilson/Andréya Ouamba’s The Good Dance: Brooklyn/Dakar_ (November 12–14), a landmark three-year collaboration that links American dance/theater-maker Reggie Wilson and his Brooklyn-based Fist & Heel Performance Group with Congolese contemporary dance creator Andréya Ouamba and his award-winning Compagnie 1er Temps Danse, based in Senegal; Erik Friedlander’s Block Ice & Propane (December 5), a collection of cinematic cello compositions combining photographic images and sound by jazz/new music phenom Friedlander (John Zorn, Laurie Anderson) that draws inspiration from years of family road trips taken by his father, famed photographer Lee Friedlander; the world premiere of avant-garde New York theater troupe Radiohole’s Whatever, Heaven Allows (January 21–23 ), a star-spangled American meta-melodrama inspired by film director Douglas Sirk’s 1950s potboilers, Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; the world premiere of Bill Frisell/Rahim AlHaj/Eyvind Kang’s Baghdad/Seattle Suite (February 6), an evening featuring Grammy Award–winning guitarist/composer Frisell, unquestionably one of the most revered musicians in the jazz world, joined by Iraqi refugee and oud master Rahim AlHaj and acclaimed violist and erhu player Eyvind Kang (Beck, Blonde Redhead, Laurie Anderson, Sunn O))), Secret Chiefs) for an adventurous program of East-meets-West compositions; Morgan Thorson/Low’s Heaven (March 4–6), an ensemble dance and vocal piece created during a Walker residency that explores the various manifestations of ecstasy—emotional, physical, and communal—present both in religious practices and in the ritualistic nature of dance in performance. Thorson collaborates with Low’s Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, who perform the music and vocal orchestration they wrote for the work live. The season’s concluding commissioned work is John Jasperse Company’s Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat Out Lies (May 20–22), a piece seasoned with Jasperse’s distinctively humorous yet intellectually rigorous choreography featuring movement for six performers and music composed by Hahn Rowe for a chamber ensemble and electronics with lighting, sets, props, and even oddball magic tricks designed by the multitalented Jasperse.
Season Preview with Philip Bither
The public is invited to a free 2009–2010 Performing Arts Season Preview on Thursday, September 10, at 7 pm in the McGuire Theater. Philip Bither will discuss the more than 25 dance, music, and theater events that make up what promises to be an exciting season.
Target Free Thursday Nights sponsored by Target.
Tickets for the 2009–2010 performing arts season go on sale Friday, July 10
. Unless otherwise noted, advance tickets are on sale by phone (612.375.7600) and online at tickets.walkerart.org.
WALKER ART CENTER’S 2009–2010 PERFORMING ARTS SEASON
Unless otherwise noted, all events take place in the McGuire Theater.
($) = ticket prices for Walker Art Center members
SEPTEMBER
Raimund Hoghe
Bolero Variations
U.S. Debut Tour
Friday–Saturday, September 18–19, 8 pm
$25 ($21)
“A mysterious and fascinating performance.” —Mouvement
Raimund Hoghe’s uncategorizable work is driven by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s words “Throw your body into battle.” Hoghe’s physical limitations due to severe scoliosis, paired with his pristine and deceptively minimal choreography reveal, as the artist says, “the power and beauty of music and confrontation with one’s own body.” Here he employs a host of recordings of the melancholy-drenched Spanish/Cuban bolero song form as well as various versions of Ravel’s iconic slow-build classical masterwork that accompanied Torvill and Dean’s gold medal ice-dancing performance (including the broadcast soundtrack at the 1984 Olympics). In Bolero Variations, Hoghe, who served as the late Pina Bausch’s dramaturge from 1980 to 1990, creates his own form of ritualized tanz theater, by turns meditative, funny, electrifying.
Bolero Variations‘ U.S. tour is presented with support from the Federal Foreign Office and the Goethe-Institut New York.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
Micachu and the Shapes + Dessa of Doomtree
Wednesday, September 23, 8 pm
$15 ($12); $18 ($15) day of show
Cedar Cultural Center, 416 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis
“Micachu and the Shapes, an English trio of music-school renegades . . . writes songs that are terse, choppy, swinging and startling. Calliope tones, synthesizer buzzes and blunt lyrics . . . jagged and abrasive but proudly feisty.” —New York Times
The leader of Micachu and the Shapes is Mica Levi, a 22-year-old, brilliant, style-smashing Brit. She writes sweetly disjointed pop, has composed for the London Philharmonic, and to her ears everything is fair game—streaming distorted loops, skiffle riffs, and grime beats through hooky hyperkinetic arrangements. Pitchfork calls the group “the freshest thing to come along so far in 2009.” Dessa of Doomtree introduces a new band featuring electric guitar, acoustic bass, and violin. The spare, melodic arrangements offer a rare and intimate take on Dessa’s melancholy lyrics and the expert musicianship of some of Minneapolis’ finest players. Copresented with the Cedar Cultural Center.
Support provided by The McKnight Foundation.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
BLK JKS + Global Roots Opening Party
Thursday, September 24, 8 pm
$15 ($12); $18 ($15) day of show
Cedar Cultural Center, 416 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis
“A myriad of sounds and influences fly out in fast and furious fashion . . . one of the most thrilling and explosive shows L.A. has seen in a very long time” —LA Times
With a wrecking-crew rhythm section, debonair vocals, and a guitar concoction that’s one part shred and two parts soul, it’s easy to understand why South Africa’s BLK JKS took music mega-gathering SXSW by storm last year. Now on its debut U.S. tour, the band shoots an African musical sensibility through the tenets of rock, electronic, and soul, reclaiming styles that have been stolen, watered down, and regurgitated for generations. BLK JKS’s fresh, forward rhythms, layered harmonies, elliptical guitar vernacular, and infectious urban Zulu mbaqanga blues combine in a swirl of experimentation and tribal energy. Catch the newest voice in African music’s 21st-century sound on this blistering opening night of the Cedar Cultural Center’s three-day Global Roots Festival. Copresented with the Cedar Cultural Center.
Support provided by The McKnight Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
OCTOBER
Ragamala Music and Dance/Cudamani
Dhvee (Duality)
Walker Commission/World Premiere
October 1–4, Thursday–Saturday, 8 pm; Sunday, 2 pm
$18 ($15) Thursday; $25 ($21) Friday–Sunday
“An entertaining, sublime dance exhibition . . . [Ragamala’s] sharp, subtle gestures become graspingly beautiful.” —Time Out New York
Inspired by the overwhelming success of the 2004 Walker-commissioned performance of Sethu (Bridge), Ragamala Dance partners again with the masterful Balinese gamelan music and dance group Cudamani, this time bringing its 10-member ensemble to the Twin Cities. Profound and joyous, Dhvee (Duality) brings together Balinese dance, the other-worldly sounds of the gamelan gendar, and the precise and rhythmic South Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam to explore the nature of myth and its influence on humanity. This glorious dance-theater spectacle, drawn from the stories of the Hindu sacred text Ramayana, underscores the internal conflict of man, between his animal and divine selves, and features 25 musicians and dancers, extravagant costuming, the powerful polyrhythms of the visually sumptuous gamelan orchestra from the village of Pengosekan, Bali, and the soulful melodies of the carnatic orchestra from India.
Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Additional support provided by The McKnight Foundation.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
Druid Theatre
The Walworth Farce
October 21–25, Wednesday–Saturday, 8 pm;
Saturday–Sunday, 2 pm
$34 ($28) Wednesday–Thursday, Saturday–Sunday matinee;
$42 ($35) Friday–Saturday evening
“A theatrical experience that claws at the imagination for days afterwards.” —Variety
It’s eleven o’clock in the morning in a council flat on the Walworth Road in London. In two hours time, as is normal, three Irish men will have consumed six cans of Harp, fifteen crackers with spreadable cheese, ten pink biscuit wafers, and one oven-cooked chicken with a strange blue sauce. In two hours time, as is normal, five people will have been killed. The groundbreaking production of this remarkable play by Ireland’s Druid Theatre was a hit in Galway, Edinburgh, and New York. Edgy Irish playwright Enda Walsh brings a punk-rock abandon and ingenious playwriting devices to a work that combines hilarious moments with shocking realism. Ultimately, he delivers achingly tender insight into what happens when we become stuck in the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. Copresented with the Guthrie Theater.
Related Event
Mack Lecture
In Conversation: Joe Dowling and Enda Walsh
Sunday, October 25, 12 noon
$10 ($8)
Walker Cinema
Join Guthrie Theater Artistic Director Joe Dowling and acclaimed Irish playwright Enda Walsh for a conversation about The Walworth Farce and the state of theater and performance in Ireland and beyond. Copresented with the Guthrie Theater.
This program is made possible by generous support from Aaron and Carol Mack.
Múm + Sin Fang Bous
Thursday, October 29, 8 pm
$18 ($15)
“Múm quietly, irresistibly, inhabit a no-band’s land between the ancient and imminent, the organic and electronic, the head and feet.” —Rolling Stone
Through murmured vocals, eccentric beats, and dreamy effects the Icelandic folktronica collective Múm (pronounced “moom”) come to the Walker in their first Minnesota appearance in seven years to create a sonic netherworld where the ethereal joins the electronic—a glistening chamber pop that is equally eclectic, charming, and mesmerizing. The seven-member Múm achieves their idiosyncratic sound by employing “a melodica, a harmonium, and two PowerBooks, piling sweet textures onto modernist crackles, like Belle and Sebastian at play in a Mac store.” (New York Times). Opening the evening is Sin Fang Bous which features members of Múm and Sindri Már Sigfússon of the Icelandic band Seabear. Copresented with Cedar Cultural Center.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
NOVEMBER
Final Fantasy + The Mountain Goat
s
Saturday, November 7, 8 pm
$18 ($15); $20 ($16) day of show
Cedar Cultural Center, 416 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis
“[Final Fantasy’s live shows] . . . compress all the wonder and virtuosity of an illusionist’s routine into three-and-a-half minute pop song” —New York Times
Join us at the Cedar for an intriguing double bill celebrating two of today’s most distinctive voices. Canadian singer/composer/arranger Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy) creates infectious violin-based experimental pop that explores the lush, lovely, and highly processed sonic spaces between contemporary composition and unconventional rock. His intricately looping polyphonic songs, startling knack for string arrangements (Arcade Fire), and unabashedly pretty melodies have earned him international acclaim. The Mountain Goats, the long-running lo-fi/highbrow project of indie-rock icon John Darnielle, inhabits a candid and clever world where dark subjects and desperate characters are elucidated by prickly lyrics and strangely sunny melodies. Copresented with the Cedar Cultural Center.
Support provided by The McKnight Foundation.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
Reggie Wilson/Andréya Ouamba
The Good Dance: Brooklyn/Dakar
Walker Commission/World Premiere
Thursday–Saturday, November 12–14, 8 pm
$18 ($15) Thursday; $25 ($21) Friday–Saturday
“Technically stunning and emotionally raw.” (Reggie Wilson) —_New York Times Magazin_e
“Choreographers like Ouamba . . . refute any assigned third world identity, claiming their rightful place on stage as contemporary artists.” —The Dance Insider
Digging deep into the vocal sounds, movement, and visual and emotional landscapes of African American and African culture, The Good Dance unearths strong connections between America’s Mississippi River delta and Central Africa’s Congo River basin. A landmark three-year collaboration, this Walker-commissioned world premiere links American dance/theater-maker Reggie Wilson and his Brooklyn-based Fist & Heel Performance Group with Congolese contemporary dance creator Andréya Ouamba and his award-winning Compagnie 1er Temps Danse, based in Senegal. Receiving nearly universal critical acclaim in recent years, Wilson makes work that is “infectiously joyous . . . [where] the sacred and the secular inform each other, and dance and music become a single art based on pulse and breath” (Village Voice).
Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Performing Arts Fund, a program of Arts Midwest. The Good Dance: Brooklyn/Dakar is a project of the Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
Dafnis Prieto Sextet
Saturday, November 21, 8 pm
$29 ($25)
“[Prieto] has transformed Afro-Cuban rhythms . . . These pieces are emotionally charged and stylistically diverse, carried along not just by rhythm but also through lovely harmonized passages, horn fanfares, and powerfully conjured moods.” —Wall Street Journal
Born and trained in Cuba, Dafnis Prieto is a drum virtuoso, a masterful composer, and a rising star on the international jazz scene. His driving, mesmerizing music, which twists folk motifs into next-generation Latin jazz, is widely respected for its sophistication, its structural and harmonic complexity, and its polyrhythmic punch. His accomplished sextet includes Peter Apfelbaum (sax), Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Felipe Lamoglia (sax), Manuel Valera (piano), and Charles Flores (bass). Copresented with Northrop Music at the University of Minnesota.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
Choreographers’ Evening
Curated by BodyCartography Project
Saturday, November 28, 7 and 9:30 pm
$20 ($16)
“A cornucopia of Twin Cities dance . . . [a] smorgasbord of emerging and mature talent from across the dance spectrum.” —MinnPost
For almost 40 years, Choreographers’ Evening has served as the major gathering for the Twin Cities’ thriving dance community. Witness and celebrate the remarkably diverse range of Minnesota dance—from established choreographers playing with new ideas to some of the freshest talent on the scene. This evening of short works ranges from traditional to conceptual and premieres to old favorites in nearly every style imaginable. Curated this year by globetrotting duo Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad of the award-winning BodyCartography Project.
Support provided by The McKnight Foundation.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
DECEMBER
Erik Friedlander
Block Ice & Propane
Walker Commission
Saturday, December 5, 8 pm
$22 ($18)
“One of today’s most ingenious and forward-thinking musical practitioners.” —Billboard
This collection of cinematic cello compositions by jazz/new music phenom Erik Friedlander (John Zorn, Laurie Anderson) was inspired by years of family road trips with all the trimmings: campers, tourist traps, picnic tables, truck stops, lonely highways, stark panoramas. In Block Ice & Propane, these new compositions are paired with family and “road cycle” images created by his father, celebrated photographer Lee Friedlander, and engaging short tales about the kind of travels familiar to so many of us. Taking inspiration from American roots music, Friedlander executes extraordinary finger-picking technique and reverberant tunings, creating a fresh form of American cello music that is lyrical, plainspoken, and emotional.
Development support for Block Ice & Propane provided by the Walker Art Center; the Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA); and Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University. Additional support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
JANUARY
Out There 22
January 7–31
As is fitting for a series that has always brought provocative, exhilarating, unexpected theatrical experiences to the Twin Cities, Out There celebrates its 22nd season by presenting four ensembles whose breathtaking combinations of text, media, visual-theater, sound, and physical drama are helping define the future of live performance art.
Rimini Protokoll
Call Cutta in a Box: An Intercontinental Phone Play
Friday, January 8–Sunday, January 31
Appointment Times*:
Tuesday–Friday, 5–10 pm (on the hour)
Saturday and Sunday, 10 am–10 pm (on the hour)
$20 ($16)
Location TBA
“Wildly entrancing, and in that way theatre at its best. One of the most puzzling, affecting performances I have attended.” —Politiken, Kopenhagen
A phone is ringing in an empty office in Minneapolis . . . it’s for you. Answer it and begin your personal performance experience that crosses continents, dissolves borders between audience and performer, and challenges cultural expectations. Over the hour-long conversation with a call center agent in India, everyday life is turned into theater, surprises are revealed, and our overly connected world is made more human. The German collective Rimini Protokoll has created “a thrillingly intimate production, which asks us to make the decision to be an audience member in an unusually active way” (Time Out New York).
*This is a solitary performance experience and an appointment is required. Please make your reservation soon as spots are limited.
Radiohole
Whatever, Heaven Allows
Walker Commission/World Premiere
Thursday–Saturday, January 14–16, 8 pm
$18 ($15) Thursday; $20 ($16) Friday–Saturday
“[Radiohole] turns out effervescent, anarchic work . . . cultivates an eccentric acting style and makes familiar text creepily bizarre.” —Time Out
Known for its radical and reckless theatricality, avant-garde New York troupe Radiohole’s newest work is a star-spangled American meta-melodrama is inspired by film director Douglas Sirk’s 1950s potboilers, Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Our heroine is an all-American “Eve” who must save her home from an evildoer while struggling to find fulfillment in a lasting relationship with a supposedly good man who looks like god. Radiohole’s newest synthesis of cultural flotsam is sure to be bawdy, silly, possibly transcendent, and a touch disturbed. The company won the 2009 Spalding Gray Award, a commissioning collaboration between New York’s PS122, Pittsburgh’s Warhol Museum and the Walker (last year’s award went to National Theater of the USA to create Chautauqua!, the runaway hit of the Out There 2009). Copresented with the National Performance Network (NPN).
Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Radiohole’s Whatever, Heaven Allows received the 2008 Spalding Gray Award from the commissioning consortium of the Walker Art Center, Performance Space 122, and the Andy Warhol Museum.
Roger Guenveur Smith
The Watts Towers Project
Thursday–Saturday, January 21–23, 8 pm
$18 ($15) Thursday; $20 ($16 Friday–Saturday
“Smith’s monologue has a freestyle bounce, like a series of vivid dreams over the course of a restless night.” —Variety
The Obie Award–winning writer/director/actor Roger Guenveur Smith (Huey P. Newton, Iceland) returns to the Walker with a funny and riveting jazz-infused meditation on making one’s mark as an artist. Inspired by working-class “outsider” artist Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles, this tour-de-force solo theater piece is a free-ranging, multicharacter trip through the City of Angels that ruminates on Basquiat and baseball, race riots and childhood, Mingus and Mongo Santamaria. Featuring a powerful soundscape/score by Smith’s longtime collaborator Mark Anthony Thompson (aka Chocolate Genius).
Hotel Modern
The Great War
Thursday–Saturday, January 28–30, 8 pm
$18 ($15) Thursday; $20 ($16 Friday–Saturday
“An astonishingly inventive and unbearably touching production.” —BBC Radio
Rotterdam’s Hotel Modern creates fascinating performance works that fuse drama, visual art, object theater, puppetry, music, and film. The company uses household paraphernalia to construct scale models of miniature worlds, then projects them on a large screen in real time. For its Midwest debut, Hotel Moderne presents its international festival sensation, The Great War, which reconstructs WWI’s trench warfare with sawdust, potting soil, rusty nails, and parsley as trees, and incorporates actual letters from soldiers. Rain, wind, landslides, and explosions become staggeringly realistic on this diminutive battlefield as the company digs deep into humanity’s war wounds. This event is presented in association with the Walker’s Expanding the Frame series.
FEBRUARY
Bill Frisell/Rahim AlHaj/Eyvind Kang
Baghdad/Seattle Suite
Walker Commission/World Premiere
Saturday, February 6, 7 and 9:30 pm
$29 ($25)
“Frisell is a revered figure among musicians—like Miles Davis and few others, his signature is built from pure sound and inflection; an anti-technique that is instantly identifiable.”—Philadelphia Inquire
Traditional Iraqi maqams, Americana, and jazz come together through the innovation and styling of three contemporary virtuosos. Grammy Award–winning guitarist/composer Bill Frisell, unquestionably one of the most important musicians in the jazz world today, joins Iraqi refugee and oud master Rahim AlHaj and acclaimed violist and erhu player Eyvind Kang for an adventurous evening of East-meets-West compositions. The ancient tones of AlHaj’s oud and Frisell’s masterful jazz guitar are spanned by Kang’s interests in new music, folk, rock, and Middle Eastern music, creating a sound that is lyrical, timeless, and universally appealing. The artists will be in residence at the Walker refining their compositions for a week before the performances. Copresented with the National Performance Network (NPN).
Baghdad/Seattle Suite is an NPN Creation Fund Project commissioned by the Walker Art Center in partnership with Outpost Productions (Albuquerque, NM) and the NPN, with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
Bruno Beltrão/Grupo de Rua de Niteroi
H3
U.S. Debut Tour
Thursday–Saturday, February 11–13, 8 pm
$18 ($15); $25 ($21) Friday–Saturday
“Brazilian choreographer Bruno Beltrão . . . is set to inflict seismic shock waves upon the hip-hop world.” —Ballet World
Bruno Beltrão became an international sensation with choreography fusing hip-hop and contemporary dance. His 10-member Grupo de Rua de Niteroi presents H3, his most complex and compelling work to date. In it, he unleashes astonishing duets and ensemble works that incorporate elements of krumping, popping, collisions, and floor-spins, but with a contemporary dance master’s conceptual and compositional sensibility. The stage is wired to transform the squeaking sounds of the dancers’ shoes into samples for a pulsing electronic soundtrack. Moving beyond hip-hop lineages, H3 foregrounds Grupo de Rua’s idiosyncratic language, adding ambiguity, richness, and density of gesture to the exhilarating world of hip-hop movement.
Support provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
MARCH
Akram Khan/National Ballet of China
Bahok
Midwest Debut
Wednesday, March 3, 8 pm
$36, $30, $25 ($32, $26, $21)
Northrop, University of Minnesota, East Bank campus
“Khan’s distinctive choreography, which leaps and whirls, thrills and surprises as it shifts across styles and continents and echoes the origins of dancers.” —The Herald (Glasgow)
British choreographer Akram Khan does something unique and captivating when he blends classical north Indian kathak (Khan’s origins are Bangladeshi) with contemporary dance forms. Here the international dance star combines members of his own company with those of the National Ballet of China to create this thoroughly entertaining vision of a modern-day Babel. Called bahok (Bengali for “carrier”), the piece depicts a globalized world in which disparate people connect briefly and communicate the things they carry with them: memories, experiences, dreams, and reasons for leaving home. They are all bahok. Copresented with Northrop Dance at the University of Minnesota.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
Morgan Thorson/Low
Heaven
Walker Commission
Thursday–Saturday, March 4–6, 8 pm
$18 ($15) Thursday; $25 ($21) Friday–Saturday
“Morgan Thorson has a mix-master mind, from which postmodern movement and the detritus of everyday life spin out as hilarious vignettes.” —New York Notebook
Both borrowing from and subverting religious rituals, Minneapolis’ Morgan Thorson, a rising star on the national contemporary dance scene, breaks choreographic conventions in order to uncover the universal allure of transformation through Heaven’s holy performance trinity: dance, music, and light. Created as an ensemble dance and vocal piece through a Walker residency, Heaven explores the various manifestations of ecstasy—emotional, physical, and communal—present both in religious practices and in the ritualistic nature of dance in performance. Low’s Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker perform the music and vocal orchestration they wrote for the work.
Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, Diverseworks, and Performance Space 122, with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Producers’ Council members Nor Hall and Roger Hale. Additional support provided by the Jerome Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, and the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Sponsored by Best Buy and Gray Plant Mooty. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
King for Two Days: A Dave King Celebration
Debut Performances
Friday, March 12, 8 pm
Buffalo Collision, The Bad Plus, Happy Apple, The Bad Apple
Saturday, March 13, 8 pm
Golden Valley Is Now, Dave King Trucking Company
$40 ($36) for both shows; $25 ($21) single
“Better than anyone at mixing the sensibilities of post-‘60s jazz and indie rock” —New York Times
Join us for two evenings celebrating the singular talent of one of the most prolific jazz/rock percussionists of his generation. Since founding Happy Apple with Michael Lewis and Eric Fratzke in 1996, Dave King has founded and played in an ever-multiplying number of ensembles, forging a reputation as one of those rare musicians who combines rigorous virtuosity, joyous showmanship, and an adventurer’s free spirit. Special surprise guest appearances by other scenesters, plus the comic stylings of the hardest-working man in show business promise to make these two evenings the music parties of the season. Friday’s show features Buffalo Collision (Ethan Iverson, Tim Berne, Matt Maneri, and King); the Grammy-nominated the Bad Plus (bassist Reid Anderson with Iverson and King ); Happy Apple; and a rare performance by the Bad Apple, a combination of the two super groups. On Saturday, two of King’s new bands debut: Golden Valley Is Now (Craig Taborn, Reid Anderson, King) and Dave King Trucking Company (Fratzke, Chris Speed, Adam Linz, and King).
Support provided by Producers’ Council members Dale Schatzlein and Emily Maltz Fund of the Minneapolis Foundation.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell
Thursday–Saturday, March 18–20, 8 pm
$18 ($15) Thursday; $25 ($21) Friday–Saturday
“A breathing portrait . . . you feel the deep, lonely ache of something precious lost. Thank Heaven that Stories Left to Tell reminds you that something precious remains as well. ” —New York Times
Celebrating the influential work and life of actor/writer/performer Spalding Gray (1941–2004) and his irreverent storytelling style, Stories Left to Tell combines excerpts from both renowned and never-before-seen works that span the artist’s career and life. Performed by a five-person ensemble made up of some of downtown New York’s most accomplished writer/performers, including David Cale, Ain Gordon, and Carmalita Tropicalia, as well as a different local celebrity guest performer each evening, Stories Left to Tell honors the 30-year history that the Walker enjoyed with Gray, which included commissions, video coproductions, and presentations of such major works as Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box, and Sex and Death at Age 14.
Support provided by Producers’ Council members Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney.
APRIL
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba
Saturday, April 10, 8 pm
$30 ($25); $35 ($30) day of show
Cedar Cultural Center, 416 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis
“The instrumental pyrotechnics never fail to amaze. But if the music astonishes with its ever increasing tightness, the whole visual show is just joyful too . . . their synchronized footwork is like one of those great 60s soul reviews . . .” —fRoots
With his captivating, utterly distinctive sound, Kouyate and his virtuoso seven-member ensemble from Mali have been attracting increasingly glowing reviews and ecstatic audience response in West Africa and at European festivals. Simultaneously ancient and modern-sounding, the ngoni is a skin-faced, four-stringed ancestor of the banjo that has accompanied African griots (oral historians and praise singers) for thousands of years. The hypnotic music that Kouyate and his three ngoni players coax from these simple instruments is extraordinary—intricately woven lines, crisp bluesy riffs, and funky ostinato patterns, and wild rocking solos—all topped by gorgeous melodies sung by Kouyate’s wife, Ami Sacko, known as “the Tina Turner of Mali.” With this concert, the Walker and the Cedar once again introduce an important new voice in global music to the Midwest in an all-standing, clublike setting. Copresented with the Cedar Cultural Center.
Support provided by The McKnight Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
Saburo Teshigawara/Company KARAS
Miroku
Thursday–Saturday, April 22–24, 8 pm
$35 ($31)
“A magnificent epic of the human spirit.” —Asahi
One of the great international artists working in dance today, Saburo Teshigawara erases the body and reaches for the dance of the soul. In a rare visit to the U.S., he presents his newest solo, a work of breathtaking visual beauty, rigor, and clarity. In Miroku, he explores space and light, extremity and velocity, creating an eternity beyond time, where everything harmonizes with delicate, yet powerful tension. Unnaturally fluid, melting movement becomes edgy, vibrating, and then blissfully still. Teshigawara has likewise received increasing international attention in the visual arts field for his art exhibitions, films, and videos as well as his set, lighting, and costume designs for all his performances. Copresented with Northrop Dance at the University of Minnesota.
Support provided by the Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts JAPAN Program.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
MAY
eighth blackbird
The Only Moving Thing
Saturday, May 1, 8 pm
$29 ($25)
“eighth blackbird’s performances are the picture of polish and precision, and they seem to be thoroughly engaged . . . by music in a broad range of contemporary styles.”—New York Times
This Chicago-based new music sextet has received national attention for combining bracing virtuosity, an alluring sense of irreverence, and joyful performances that sparkle with wit and physical energy. Widely lauded for its onstage style—often playing from memory with virtuosic and theatrical flair—the ensemble has attracted growing legions of fans, helping to make contemporary music accessible to wide audiences. In a long-overdue Twin Cities debut, the ensemble performs an evening of minimalist masterworks they call The Only Moving Thing, with choreography by Susan Marshall, featuring Steve Reich’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize–winning Double Sextet, and new works by Bang On A Can All-Stars founders Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, and David Lang.
Sponsored by Best Buy. Media partners 89.3 The Current and Vita.mn.
John Jasperse Company
Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat out Lies
Walker Commission
Thursday–Saturday, May 20–22, 8 pm
$18 ($15) Thursday; $25 ($21) Friday–Saturday
“Entertaining. Lush. Funny. Jasperse seems here to have tapped into his inner vaudevillian. Truth exerts its charms from the moment the lights go up.” —New York Times
One of America’s most astute and influential innovators turns his keen eye on the idea of veracity—and the lack thereof—in this exploration of the often fluid boundaries between fantasy and reality. By juxtaposing varied styles of dance, performance, and music in a collage that bounces between the sincere and the ironic, John Jasperse asks us to examine what we believe, what we don’t, and why. Seasoned with his distinctively humorous bent, Truth features movement for six performers and music composed by Hahn Rowe for a chamber ensemble and electronics. Lighting (with Joe Levasseur), sets, props, and even oddball magic tricks are all designed by the multitalented Jasperse. Copresented with the National Performance Network (NPN).
Coproduced by the Forsythe Company. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, the Joyce Theater, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and REDCAT/CalArts, with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Additional support provided by Meet the Composer’s Commissioning Music/USA program and the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Sponsored by Gray Plant Mooty.
