Lia Rodrigues, Fúria. Photo: Sammie Landweer.
Today the Walker Art Center announces its 2022/2023 Performing Arts Season. Across the season, leading international, national, and local artists are reimagining the boundaries of performance disciplines, and in the process tackling personal, social, and environmental themes.
Brazil’s Lia Rodrigues and Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed confront the urgency of ecological activism, and the work of Cécile McLorin Salvant and Ambrose Akinmusire focuses on vital, Black-centered racial justice. The experiences of Indigenous peoples across the globe are explored by Raven Chacone, Lemi Ponifasio, and Nacera Belaza. Metaphysical meditation and the potential for healing through live art are seen in the works of Leslie Parker, Sam Green, Andrew Schneider, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Kyle Abraham. The 2022/2023 season includes three Walker Commissions and World Premieres from Lambchop, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Leslie Parker, as well as a World Premiere by Ambrose Akinmusire.
This fall the Walker’s signature platform for Minnesota dance, Choreographers’ Evening, celebrates its 50th anniversary—a remarkable half century of movement evolution within our home state. And the annual Out There experimental performance series offers larger, more ambitious projects than ever, featuring innovative artists who are synthesizing traditional and genre-defying theater traditions.
“Woven throughout this diverse activity, the Walker’s mission to gather and strengthen artist communities continues to be paramount. We are all made stronger through the commissioning and development of new works, collaborations with area arts and community organization partners, and global exchange. We look forward to sharing a collective experience of live art with both new and longtime audiences, and welcome you back to the Walker for our 2022/2023 Performing Arts Season,” shares Philip Bither, McGuire Director and Senior Curator, Performing Arts.
Music
Lambchop: Showtunes, The Bible
Friday–Saturday, September 23–24, 8 pm
$31.50 ($25 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“Even [Kurt] Wagner’s lyrics, traditionally Lambchop’s engine, feel haunted in their spareness, the action often occurring in the gaps between words … belongs squarely to the avant-garde.” —New Yorker
It’s “show tunes for people who don’t like show tunes” and “spiritual music for the godforsaken,” deadpans indie folk/pop hero Lambchop’s lead creative Kurt Wagner. This diverse collection of new songs from Lambchop’s 2021 album Showtunes and forthcoming 2022 release The Bible features a 16-piece ensemble that includes local and national heavyweights Andrew Broder (Fog), CJ Camerieri (Bon Iver, Carm), Blake Morgan (VOCES8), Cole Davis, and Bryan Nichols. Swirling together everything from turntables and a grand piano to horns and a choir, this new work exemplifies the driving ethos of this unclassifiable band.
Walker Commission/World Premiere
Copresented by Liquid Music.
Commissioned by Liquid Music and the Walker Art Center. Presented by the Walker Art Center; produced by Liquid Music.
Music/Film
Aura Satz with Raven Chacon: Preemptive Listening
Saturday, October 8, 7 pm
$18 ($14 Walker members)
Walker Cinema
Critically examining the idea of emergency signals, visual artist Aura Satz’s ongoing project Preemptive Listening, is composed of footage of sirens, shot at sites around the globe where they are deployed. In the film, Satz works collaboratively with a roster of musicians to speculatively reimagine what a siren is. For this performance, Satz will present her feature film in progress with a live musical performance by one of her sonic collaborators, 2022 Pulitzer Prize–winning Raven Chacon (Diné). A composer, performer, and artist, Chacon often centers his diverse musical output on creating new narratives of Indigenous sovereignty. A conversation between the artists follows the performance.
Dance
A.I.M by Kyle Abraham: Requiem: Fire in the Air of the Earth
Friday, October 14, 7:30 pm
Northrop, 84 Church St SE, Minneapolis
“Lush movement, infectious music and magnetic dancers (the choreographer included).” —New York Times
Visionary choreographer and MacArthur Fellow Kyle Abraham and pioneering producer/electronic music composer Jlin have come together to create a reimagining of Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor through abstracted themes of afterlife, reincarnation, mythology, and folklore. In collaboration with costume designer Giles Deacon and lighting/set designer Dan Scully, 10 dancers from Abraham’s company—A.I.M by Kyle Abraham—take the stage to the music of Jlin, who has transformed Mozart’s score into an electronic opus that memorializes ritual and rebirth.
Copresented by Northrop.
Dance
Lia Rodrigues: Fúria
Friday–Saturday, October 28–29, 8 pm
$31.50 ($25 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“Fúria is a tour de force of violence and beauty, a modern and primitive ritual at the same time.” —Internazionale, Rome
Brazilian choreographer Lia Rodrigues’s Companhia de Danças performs with visceral physicality through scenes of dominance and submission, exuberance and apathy, joy and pain. Firmly rooted and conceived in the favela of Maré in Rio de Janeiro, the intoxicating work takes a stand against racism and social segregation. The performance depicts a transformation moving from celebration to uprising, building with energy and fury into an hour-long arc of choreographic catharsis.
This performance contains nudity and simulated violence.
Program support provided by King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Music/Film
Spektral Quartet: Enigma: A 360° Experience
Friday–Saturday, November 4–5, 7 and 9 pm
$33.50 ($27.50 Walker members)
Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Planetarium at the Bell Museum, 2088 Larpenteur Ave W, St. Paul
“Enigma sits on the border between concert music and installation art; it marshals sounds in ways that have little to do with the conventional pathways of Western classical music.” —Washington Post
An enveloping sonic and visual journey created by acclaimed Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottír and video artist Sigurður Guðjónsson, Enigma takes place in the immersive night-sky environment of a planetarium. The mesmerizing ambient score conjures ancient imaginary landscapes, while mysterious images evoke otherworldly associations. Performed by Chicago’s Spektral Quartet, the piece teleports audiences to places sublime and unknown through a 360-degree constellation of sensory experiences. The program also includes Eliza Brown’s String Quartet #1, Tomás Luis de Victoria’s O Magnum Mysterium, and Claude Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10, No III. Andantino, doucement expressif.
Copresented by Schubert Club Mix and the Bell Museum.
Music/Film
32 Sounds: Film by Sam Green, Music by JD Samson
Friday–Saturday, November 11–12, 7 pm
$28 ($22 Walker members)
Walker Cinema
“Bursting with humor, emotion and curiosity, 32 Sounds is a uniquely mind-expanding plunge into a dimension of the human experience so many of us take for granted.”
—Variety
This “live cinema” documentary explores the elemental phenomenon of sound. The film weaves together 32 audio experiences to create a cinematic poem meditating on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us. Original live music by JD Samson (Le Tigre) and Sam Green’s live narration are dynamically enhanced with headphones for each audience member.
Program support provided by Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David & Leni Moore Family Foundation.
Dance
Choreographers’ Evening 50th Anniversary: Curated by Judith Howard and Alanna Morris
Saturday, November 26, 4 and 7 pm
$31.50 ($25 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“As a snapshot of a community, Choreographers’ Evening might be the best annual curated event in Minnesota.”
—Vita.mn
The Walker’s annual dance showcase celebrates a half century of works by Minnesota choreographers, offering an exciting glimpse into a vibrant and diverse community. For the 50th anniversary of Choreographers’ Evening, guest curators Alanna Morris and Judith Howard offer a program of works that honor and recognize the rich histories, vital contributions, and power of today’s movement innovators. Join us for a remarkable evening highlighting the strength and exuberance of Minnesota dance.
Choreographers’ Evening is supported by a grant from the Jerome Foundation. Additional program support provided by Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David & Leni Moore Family Foundation.
Out There 2023
January 12–February 25, 2023
Spread over two months, Out There 2023 features some of the most expansive and breathtaking works in the festival’s 35-year history. The festival includes two world-class innovators new to the Walker—jazz singer/visual artist Cécile McLorin Salvant, who premieres a visionary interdisciplinary music/theater work, and Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed, who offer a cautionary climate parable. High-tech theater pioneer Andrew Schneider returns to create an intimate, metaphysical, visual/aural onstage experience. And in the heart of Out There, dance artist Sarah Michelson opens her first exhibition with an installation newly acquired by the Walker.
Theater
Out There: Ontroerend Goed:
Are we not drawn onward to new erA
Thursday–Saturday, January 12–14, 8 pm
$31.50 ($25 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“An admonitory piece about climate change that has a palindromic title and structure to match. … After seeing this, you may never want to hold a plastic bag again.” —New York Times
Both palindrome and sly metaphor, this absurdist theater work by Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed is an endearingly clever and surprisingly hopeful comment on the climate crisis. Bleak yet beautiful, with a startlingly fresh mix of live film and ingenious stagecraft, Are we not drawn onward to new erA questions how we got here and why. You won’t want to miss this rare US performance by a leading force in European experimental theater.
Program support provided by Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David & Leni Moore Family Foundation.
Visual Arts
Out There: Exhibition-Opening Event
Sarah Michelson: /\ March 2020 (4pb)
Thursday, January 19, 6–8 pm
Free with gallery admission
Gallery 7
For almost 20 years, the Walker has sustained a close relationship with New York–based choreographer Sarah Michelson, whose dances have been presented across the campus, both indoors and out. Her most recent Walker commission, October2018/\, informed the creation of the new installation featured in this exhibition. Built for a gallery space, /\ March 2020 (4pb) (2020) is the artist’s first object-based work, now part the Walker’s collection. This exhibition, which premieres in the heart of Out There, will be on view through April 23. Contains mature content.
Immersive Installation
Out There: Andrew Schneider: N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars)
Thursday–Saturday, January 26–February 4
January 26–27, January 31–February 3: 5–8:45 pm
January 28–29, February 4: 1–8:45 pm
$80 per timeslot ($64 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“Inventive … astounding … continually finds new ways to challenge and engage its viewers, to surprise and mystify us.” —New York Times (on Schneider’s YOUARENOWHERE)
Designed for one group at a time, every performance is a unique 45 minute experience. Each ticket includes admission for a group of up to eight people.
This new, one-of-a-kind, immersive experience comes from the mind of theater/technology pioneer Andrew Schneider (whose YOUARENOWHERE dazzled Out There audiences in 2017). N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars) draws on inspirations as broad as seeing the Milky Way for the first time to installations such as Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room and Random International’s Rain Room. On a journey from total darkness to immersion in a theatrical cosmos of 5,000 reactive points of light with an enveloping 132-channel sound design, viewers explore traces of themselves in starlight, the universe, and those who have been here before us.
This is a non-seated, interactive environment set up on a transformed McGuire stage. Audience members are free to move around the space.
Midwest Premiere
Copresented by The Great Northern.
Music/Film
Out There: Cécile McLorin Salvant: Ogresse: Envisioned
Friday–Saturday, February 24–25, 8 pm
$45 ($36 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“A story at once epic and intimate … virtually everything about it is staggeringly original.” —Wall Street Journal (on the song cycle Ogresse)
Ogresse: Envisioned is a sumptuous journey of myth and song by multiple Grammy Award–winning jazz vocalist, composer, and visual artist Cécile McLorin Salvant. Playful yet poignant, this darkly humorous fairy tale explores themes of power, gender, race, body diversity, and love. The new multimedia work is driven by an enthralling, genre-defying score composed and performed by Salvant and a 13-piece chamber orchestra, arranged and conducted by Darcy James Argue. The Ogresse and her forest home are conjured with striking, large-scale projected imagery, co-created by Salvant and Belgian animator Lia Bertels, in this special world premiere performance.
Walker Commission/World Premiere
The presentation of Ogresse: Envisioned was commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The original Ogresse song-cycle was co-commissioned by Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Program support provided by Nor Hall and Roger Hale and Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David & Leni Moore Family Foundation.
Music
Kris Davis’s Diatom Ribbons and Davis/Craig Taborn Duo
Thursday, March 9, 8 pm
$33.50 ($26.50 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“The buzzed-about pianist is expert at bringing beauty to abstraction.” —Village Voice
Jazz pianist Kris Davis has made her mark internationally as a master improviser, composer, and bandleader. Her overdue Minnesota debut features the virtuosic interplay and deeply percussive grooves of her groundbreaking quartet with Grammy-winning drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and Haitian DJ, sound sculptor, percussionist Val Jeanty, and bassist Trevor Dunn. The evening opens with a synergetic piano duet by Davis and Minnesota’s own Craig Taborn.
Program support provided by Therese Sexe and David Hage.
Music/Visual Arts
Ensemble Signal Plays Steve Reich: Reich Richter Runner
Thursday, March 23, 7 and 9:30 pm
$38 ($30.50 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“Ensemble Signal have given many of the best performances of my music I have ever heard.” —Steve Reich
Celebrate two masters of contemporary art in an inspired evening of sound and vision. The 18-piece Ensemble Signal, conducted by Brad Lubman, performs an enveloping evening of music by iconic American composer Steve Reich. First presented in 2019 at the Shed in New York City, Reich Richter explores the connections between Reich’s music and Gerhard Richter’s sumptuous visual art in a film by Corinna Belz. The program also includes Steve Reich’s Runner (2016) for large ensemble.
Copresented with the Schubert Club Mix Series.
Program support provided by Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David & Leni Moore Family Foundation.
Dance
Lemi Ponifasio: Love to Death (Amor a la muerte)
Friday–Sunday, March 31–April 2, 8 pm
$31.50 ($25 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“There is a keen theatrical intelligence at work here, with moving intimations of the solitude of human existence and moments of dream-like intensity.” —The Guardian (on Ponifasio’s Requiem)
Love to Death (Amor a la muerte) is a traditional yet radical work conceived and directed by internationally renowned Samoan artist Lemi Ponifasio, a champion of both the avant-garde and Indigenous people. This new work brings together Chilean artists Mapuche singer and composer Elisa Avaendano Curaqueo and contemporary flamenco dancer Natalia Garcia-Huidobro. The work was sparked by events detonated after the murder of Camilo Catrillanca, a Mapuche former student activist and farmer. Voices and bodies weave together in a ceremony revealing their own stories: two lives that reflect both Chile’s history and the search for its future. Touching on questions of identity, destiny, and nature, the work transcends conventional ideas of theater, dance, and activism.
Copresented with Northrop.
Program support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Nor Hall and Roger Hale, and Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David & Leni Moore Family Foundation.
Dance
Nacera Belaza: L’Onde
Thursday–Saturday, April 27–29, 8 pm
$31.50 ($25 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“[Nacera Belaza] explores the boundaries between embodied presence and the ecstatic emptiness toward which dance, and movement, can lead us.” —New Yorker
Internationally revered for her powerfully abstract work, Nacera Belaza draws a path between shadow and light, seeking to glimpse the infinite. In L’Onde, the French Algerian choreographer immerses herself in the spellbinding notions of Algerian ritualistic dances. With a hypnotic sound narrative and mesmerizing movement that blends tradition and modernity, the piece features five dancers who explore the body’s capacity for transformation through rigorous and elegantly minimalist choreography.
Program support provided by FACE Foundation
Dance
Leslie Parker Dance Project’s Divination Tools: imagine home
Thursday–Saturday, May 11–13, 8 pm
$31.50 ($25 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“Leslie Parker’s work-in-progress at Pillsbury House Theatre was electric.” —Star Tribune, Best Dance of 2021
St. Paul–based choreographer Leslie Parker continues her multiyear project and leads a powerful collective of Black visual artists, musicians and femme dance artists in a liberating world premiere performance. Through collaborative improvisation and dance experimentation, the artists explore Black pedagogy, conjuring, and activism while emphasizing remembrance to cultivate community. Reflecting on divinity and lineage, Divination Tools: imagine home draws from Blackness in music, dance, and storytelling in real time and is the latest iteration of Parker’s epic work Call to Remember.
Walker Commission/World Premiere
Co-commissioned and copresented by the Walker, Pillsbury House Theatre, Pangea World Theater, Danspace Project (NYC), and Counterpulse (SF).
Program support provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Music/Performance
Ambrose Akinmusire: Honey from a winter’s stone
Program A: Friday, May 19, 8 pm
Program B: Saturday, May 20, 8 pm
$33.50 ($26.50 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“[Ambrose Akinmusire] may be the most distinctive, elusive and ultimately satisfying trumpeter of his generation.” —New York Times
Lauded jazz trumpeter/composer and revered collaborator Ambrose Akinmusire curates and hosts two distinct evenings that mix leading artists from a diverse range of disciplines for exclusive Walker performances. Interested in creating artistic conversations between unlikely peers, Akinmusire moves beyond a typical jazz concert and presents unusual cross-disciplinary collaborations and unique performances by a mix of accomplished artists, including the acclaimed Mivos Quartet, DC-based rapper/producer/singer Kokayi, and others to be announced at a later date.
World Premiere
Program support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. In honor of Dale Schatzlein (1948–2006) and his important work in dance and jazz in the Twin Cities, support is also provided by Emily Maltz.
Tickets
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Accessibility
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