41 posts tagged “minneapolis”
I am a wreck right now. Physically tired, emotionally wrung out, over-caffeinated, under-rested. YOU KNOW. Making performance work is SO DUMB. You shun all your friends for six months straight so you can make a show for them to enjoy, you work yourself into a frenzy to make sure it doesn't suck, and then you stand around drinking wine and pretend like you were just Making Art For Yourself. God. Seriously. WTF. WHO DOES THIS.
In any case, make my year by showing up at MAYBE tonight:
MAYBE
Dances by HIJACK & Mad King Thomas
Thursday, June 18 (TONIGHT!), 8 pm, pay-what-you-can
Friday, June 19, 8 pm, $15
Saturday, June 20, 8 pm, $15
Sunday, June 21, 7 pm, $12
RedEye, 15 W. 14th St., Minneapolis
Mad
King Thomas has been working with HIJACK for over a year now, and it
has changed my brain, changed my relationship to dance, changed a lot
of things. Now we've got an evening of work to show you: Two halves
that go best together. I've been busting my butt to make this show as
awesome as possible and I hope you can spare an hour to check it out. Seriously--it's only an hour AND there is a reception after every single show. Free wine, beer & food! What's not to love!?
Here's a video on the show: Obviously the video below is too ginormous, so here's a link.
I fell off the 8 Days of Happiness wagon, and I'm three shows behind. Quickly, then! To the reviews!
Show #11: The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success), Cynthia Hopkins, Walker Art Center.
I left the theater in a pretty weird mood and then wrote some trippy space-time, life-death, faith-knowledge stuff that I am too shy to post (plus, I don't have to! This isn't some kind of writing workshop! Ha!) The second half of the show is raw. She is honest and there's rebellion in her. Watching someone enumerate their failings for you in clear, judgmental, but accepting tones is going to make you feel a little crazy and dangerous afterward. I'm not sure I liked it. I'm not sure I didn't.
Show #12: My Never Being Loneliness. Two works by Melissa Birch & Molly Van Avery, Open Eye Figure Theater
I hate to compare shows to one another, but these three all bear the comparison, since they are meta-autobiography-fiction (you know it when you see it?). It was great to see that genre done in three different ways--the extreme fiction/truth spectrum of Cynthia Hopkins, the poetic work of Melissa Birch, and the funny, surreal writing of Molly Van Avery. I am proud to live in a community that supports these two (and their collaborators, Maren Ward and Arwen Wilder).
Show #13: The Infinite Multiverse, by Chris Yon, Bryant Lake Bowl
Man, Chris does not shy away from precision. Daring to hit sound cues so perfectly. It sounds ridiculous but it's true--there didn't seem to be room for error, but it didn't matter because everything in the Ballad of Angry Dad seemed to click together perfectly. In I've Got the Heebie Jeebies, there was a long sequence of unison movement and I couldn't figure out if I was more astounded by the perfect unison of the performers or the shadings of difference that flared up because they were all doing the same thing. It was a trip, and uh, need I mention that his dancers (Justin Jones, Kristin Van Loon, Taryn Griggs) are crazy good at what they do?
(Pardon me for stealing my title from Trent Reznor's first tweet of today: "trent_reznor: HAPPY!" which I just find so hilarious and adorable.)
First, it started off with great news! Mad King Thomas was chosen for the best dance performance in the Twin Cities! By voters! People who vote! I don't know who they are, as I didn't know the awards were to be given, but whoever you are: what an excellent start to the day! Thank you!
Best Dance Performance in the Past 12 Months
Mad King ThomasIt's good to worry a bit when you go to a Mad King Thomas show—not about whether the artists might get hurt or what the critics will say, but how close you should get to the action onstage. During a Mad King Thomas program, the fourth wall is broken down with a sledgehammer, and everybody in the audience bears witness, at close range, to the glorious mayhem unleashed by the Sage Award-winning trio of Tara King, Theresa Madaus, and Monica Thomas. In January's Love Me, Love My Questionable Art at the Bryant-Lake Bowl, MKT shared the stage with dancers Sally Rousse, Hijack, and Galen Treuer. The evening's high jinks ran the gamut from high art to low, from twisted family stories to a doughnut auction—plus a post-feminist fashion show for good measure. King, Madaus, and Thomas owe their aesthetic to performance art icons like Karen Finley and Dancenoise, but they certainly have their own voices, and right now these women are using them to roar.
YES AWESOME HOORAY DELIGHT
Then...THEN I was in contact improv class and I got to start off with a warm up with KVL and EDL and we all giggled and it turns out I like giggling in the morning. And then some other fantastic dancing and flying and rolling around and sweating (augh, I love the pure, clean sweat of an early morning, post-shower work-out). We did handstands and cartwheels and I accidentally did a backbend but I feel GREAT! And then I meant to take the bus to work, but I accidentally just biked the whole way because the weather is unbelievably perfect!
Also, for yesterday's day of happiness, I saw my first daffodil AND it was Mad King Thomas' anniversary of being official! Even though I didn't see my other two, it was a good day to celebrate and be happy about.
Continuing the log of shows, I saw:
a) 9x22 at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 1/28/09. The featured artists were Cathy Wright, Tim Cameron, and Brinsley Davis.
b) Petrouchka at the Southern Theater on 1/29/09. Choreographed by Sally Rousse, with additional work by Morgan Thorson, Penny Freeh and Nicolas Lincoln.
Reducing the number of shows I see seems to give me a more generous eye. Some people have a much greater appetite for performance than me; I suppose I should see more, given that I want people to see my work and that I have friends in many of the shows I don't see. I'll be seeing three shows by the end of this week, and I know I'm missing at least one performance (that, of course, some friends are in). Every weekend is like this, and I just don't have that kind of stamina.
Beautiful moments I've seen this week:
-A hand stretching out from behind white cloth
-A lanky boy struggling to jump, with his ankles held to the ground, and a button on his pajama top flying off in the attempt
-A woman doing the best damn dancing-bear imitation I've ever seen
-The most charming/hilarious/overt seduction scene I've seen in a ballet
-Great costumes for Petrouchka, the Charlatan especially
-Hearing the ding of an elevator and feeling slightly afraid...maybe this is the last time you'll be getting on an elevator, and maybe you don't know where exactly the elevator is headed.
-Seeing Morgan's fleet of angels and thinking about Puritans and Isaac Newton
-The drummer blowing Sally across the floor
Okay, it's not a review, but I told myself I'd keep a record of every show I attend this year. Last night was Chris Schlichting's benefit for the tour of his show love things.
Performers:
The Goodmorning Gentlemen
HIJACK w/ Pablo
Laurie Van Wieren
Justin Jones w/ Elliott Durko Lynch
Kenna Sarge
The Nosdrachir Sisters
Pablo
Sally Rousse
Supergroup
(and us, Mad King Thomas)
I wish I got a chance to see that much good performance that casually more often.
I bid on a painting of a pug by Jennifer Davis but totally did not win it. Which made me sadder than expected.
Today's post was going to be different.
It was going to be about how you wake up and get dressed. You check the weather and discover that it is -16 F. You put on heavy wool socks, wool legwarmers, expedition-weight long underwear, pants, an undershirt, a turtleneck, another, heavier turtleneck, a down vest, a winter coat, a face mask, a hat, a scarf, two pairs of gloves, and a pair of wristwarmers and some insulated boots, and you go out to face the cold bus stop with your bus fare in your pocket.
You close the door behind you and several pounds of snow fall on your head. You shake it off with a smile, because your clothes weigh more than you do and you are Prepared For Anything (tm).
You tramp to the bus stop. You arrive in plenty of time. The buses are on a reduced schedule, but it's okay because your bus is still coming. You hear a snap as you try to pull your glasses off of your face to defog them.
Yes, your glasses just broke. Irreparably. The frame snapped. Undoubtedly because it is Butt Ass Cold out and they are mere plastic. You feel lonely and pathetic and have flashbacks to A Christmas Story. You cannot possibly go to work without your glasses. You are blind. You growl and stomp back home, holding your glasses to your face so that you don't get hit by one of those invisible cars, unable to call Paul because your hands don't fit in your pocket because you're wearing three pairs of gloves.
You get home and your keyring inexplicably explodes and drops all your keys loose in the snow. You manage to find them all, despite still having to hold your glasses to your face. You get inside look for your other pair of glasses, only to realize they were in your bag the whole time. You have missed the bus. Beg Paul for his car and feel bad. Your adventure is over.
Minneapolis regularly comes in 2nd in the nation for percentage of bike commuters (only Portland is ahead of us). And let's not forget that Portland bikers aren't riding in the dark through inches of snow, slush, and ice for six months out of the year.
This year the number of people in Minneapolis who are bike commuting DOUBLED. We are nipping at your heels, Portland! Hear our tires and feel our frost-bitten wrath!
Srsly. In real life. We actually did! Mad
King Thomas is now the proudest recipient of a 2008 Outstanding Performance
SAGE Award for Premium White Morsels.
It went like this:
Monica, Theresa and I buzzed around my apartment, frantically dressing, squeezing into vintage clothes, sweating, drinking tequila, swearing, looking for jewelry, picking out shoes, late late late. Paul calmly dressed.
Fast walk to the Walker Art Center, because we’re running late, of course. I wore tennis shoes and carried my shiny faux-snakeskin shoes, and my sequins were uncomfortably flashy in the sunset. We got there, changed shoes and put our practical items in a locker (we even thought ahead to bring a quarter!) We hustled into the theater, snuck into our seats and wham bam the ceremony was moving ahead.
Caroline Palmer opened the ceremony. She introduced the panelists, some of whom I know and love, but many of whom were happy surprises. We had the privilege to see 35 high schoolers dancing to Phillip Glass. And I LOVED it. I loved seeing SO MANY young dancers. I loved seeing them dance a style that I have abandoned but still deeply enjoy in some post-ironic fashion. I loved that, at an evening designated for professionals and grown-ups, this flood of new faces reminded me where I came from and where we are heading.
All of a sudden Jennifer Ilse of Off-Leash Area was on stage announcing some category. I was admiring her green and white dress because it matched ours. She said something about "guerrilla-dancing" and a group. I think I recall her saying that the first winner of this year's Outstanding Performance award was for a show about whiteness and femininity in a racist society. After that it is blurry. I think I heard "anarcho-" attached to something. I don't really know, because I was trying hard not to yelp or otherwise embarrass myself. We got to the stage, I unwisely brought my spangled fashion cane, and now I've got the award...and my cane, and a lot of lights in my eyes.
People cheered! A lot of people. We passed the mic and tried to make jokes and not forget anybody. We returned to our seat and palpitated and fibrillated and smiled in the dark as they announced the rest of the category.
All in all, I'm fine with acting like big, awkward
dorks, since that's what we do, but I wish we had taken the moment to thank
everyone who saw and supported the show, because we worked so hard.
I wanted to run back down to the stage and shout: Thank you! We
really appreciate you! Thank you thank you thank you for what you do! Not even
for this award, but thank you for being so good at art that I can live in a sea
of geniuses. Anyway, I just said it to the internet.
It's almost good enough.
There is a tiny heartbreak that all the work in this state can’t be celebrated the same way. There were many incredible performances over the last year that deserve to have people stand up and clap one more time.
Then it was over and we were in the Skyline Room, receiving congratulations and drinks and hugs from many of the people who re-introduced me to dance after a long, slow burn-out in high school, and who constantly remind me why I make dances here.
As Charles Campbell wrote:
… the very human depth and variety demonstrated at the Sage awards, the obvious fact that the art/work is the motivation and justification and reward, the self-supportive and forward-looking investigations in both pedagogy and in practice, the perfect blend of self-respect, humility, humor, with a healthy disregard for the conventions established by the powers that be, give me hope for something worthwhile surviving the plunge to the lowest common denominator of the bottom line that is all the rage.
I'll try once again: Thanks to everyone in the dance
community, for dancing, choreographing, going to shows, giving artist
discounts, being friendly, working hard on your dances and in all other aspects
of your life, asking hard questions, supporting MKT, and generally fighting the
good fight. Thanks to everyone who isn't in the dance community, for
supporting dancers, seeing shows, taking risks with your time, attention and
money, asking questions, giving hugs, forgiving me when I don’t show up to
social events for six weeks in a row (hi, game night),and being curious,
intelligent, funny people.
So foggy
See Marc Bamuthi Joseph's the break(s).
Tonight, April 11 at 8 pm
Tomorrow, April 12 at 8 pm
Walker Art Center, McGuire Theatre
I saw it last night and this show:
- Cracked me up
- Made me think (still making me think today) about personal identity, race, music, culture, globalization, dance, politics, art, generational differences, hope, the future, relationships, demographics, how much I still have to learn...
- Made me uncomfortable
- Made me happy and relaxed
- Reminded me that there are bigger questions than the petty day-to-day bullshit that eats up my mind
- Gave me hope
- Impressed the hell out of me on an artistic/structural level
- Impressed the hell out of me on a performative level (Bamuthi shifts in a heartbeat between poetry and casually shooting the shit, hip-hop and contemporary dancing...you don't even notice the transitions..and also the MC and the DJ were amazing.)
- Offered up some new reading material (Can't Stop Won't Stop by Jeff Chang is first on the list)
- Reminded me that seeing art and having fun and listening to music are important things to do
- And, last but not least, changed the way I relate to hip-hop.
This picture makes the show look way more boring than it is:
