For sailors, the sparrow used to be a bittersweet sign: It meant that land was near but also that their adventure was about to come to an end.
Live Action Set’s devised show, “The...
Alto saxophonist and composer Steve Lehman uses the word “jazz” not as a confining genre label, but as a jumping-off point into a realm of intense musical experimentation. His eight-piece group, the...
khjTake a complex idea, and make it look simple. Students spend three years perfecting that craft through the University of Minnesota’s Graphic Design MFA program, but for many, it’s a work...
Watch out, hearing aids — Moll is a girl who invents a machine that lets people hear sounds that can’t be heard.
Swandive Theatre’s production of “Kid Simple: a radio...
The performance starts in pitch darkness. The only sensory information is an electronic soundscape.
Slowly, the lights come up to reveal a dancer, who for the next hour explores the...
Obviously, Minnesota’s wildlife is vastly different from the wildlife of the African plains.
But that hasn’t stopped Craig Packer from making the University of Minnesota...
Pouring molten iron and jamming out to disco music aren’t two activities that usually go together.
This Friday from noon to 4 p.m., the Regis Center’s foundry...
For most of the year, creativity at the University of Minnesota is spread across all parts of campus. But on Friday, artists at the school and in the community will convene at Northrop.
This...
Four Humors Theater’s “We Gotta Cheer Up Gary” centers on a strange bureaucratic social service in charge of cheering people up in one-on-one appointments.
In the...
What do The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Stevie Wonder all have in common?
At one point, they all counted David Sanborn as their saxophone player.
This Sunday and Monday,...
Eric Kamau Gravatt’s gravelly bass voice could not be more different than his style of drumming.
He prefers lighter, more intricate rhythms played on the upper part of the drum kit...
Art rarely mashes up genres as disparate as modern dance, baroque opera and Roman epics.Yet the Mark Morris Dance Group has been pulling off the combo since 1989. For their modern dance version of Purcell’s...
Missy Whiteman believes film is powerful medium, as it’s able either to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about her fellow Native community or help dismantle them.
The documentary “Reel...
Butoh, a contemporary Japanese performance art that features dancers completely covered in white body makeup, reaches for ideas below the surface.
Local butoh dance collective Nenkin Butoh...
Seeing Louis Armstrong play live at the Northrop in 1956 hooked Butch Thompson onto jazz for the rest of his life.
“It really killed me,” Thompson said. “I think from then...
From college football to the health care system, Jennifer Willoughby’s poetry doesn’t dwell too long on one subject before shifting to something completely different.
As...
Sometimes artists become so involved in their work that the world of their imagination becomes more real than reality itself.
This is the fate of Harold, the main character of “Aging...
With epically staged musical performances and five-hour-long services, going to church in the 1700s was a much more dramatic excursion than it is today.
Vestiges of these grand services...
It’s unexpected to hear a jazz band play a movement from Stravinsky’s “Firebird” suite in the middle of a concert.
But that’s the plan when the University Jazz...
Critics in the theater world have a reputation for being ruthless. So it’s no surprise that for hundreds of years, artists have written plays making fun of them.
Michael Kahn, director...
The curators of a new exhibition have attempted to create a complete experience about American art as it exists today.
“State of the Art,” an upcoming exhibition at the Minneapolis...
Gavin Pretor-Pinney is a British writer and cloud enthusiast. His passion for cloud watching led him to create the Cloud Appreciation Society, an international network of cloud lovers who post pictures...
The 16th century wasn’t a great time to be a woman in general, let alone in the theater.
All productions at that time were cast entirely with men, and theater remained an exclusively...
Prisons and rural elementary schools are not exactly standard venues for performing classical music.
By playing these venues in addition to free public concerts, the Mill City String...
In the 1960s, when record producer Berry Gordy Jr. founded the Motown record label, he envisioned it as a source of music that would be “the fountain of youth, the fountain of young America.”
More...
On Oct. 2, 2006, a gunman entered a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Penn., and shot 11 children, killing five girls, before turning the gun on himself.
Creating a piece of theatre...
In “Germinal,” four actors become “organisms” that are born onstage: They live there, discover language and music, and “die” when the show ends. The production treats...
Artist Nicole Simpkins grew up near a salt marsh in New England.
There — in the undefined boundary between freshwater and saltwater — land and sea became a poignant metaphor...
The moment the funky bass line “takes a little trip,” everyone in the room knows the tune of “Low Rider.”
Whether it’s recognized as the theme song from the...
The worst Cy Amundson ever bombed doing stand-up comedy was at a gig for a University of Minnesota fraternity formal.
“I had to do it at Santorini restaurant. They showed up an hour...
Which would you choose: love or success?
The 7th House Theater’s new musical, “The Great Work,” explores this question through the story of a famous composer at the end of his...
Vocalist Jennifer Grimm and guitarist Joe Cruz mix and match musical genres to create a collage of music during their performances.
Both their careers span eclectic musical styles, but jazz is the...
Open Eye Figure Theatre captures Satan in an uncommon mood — he’s bored.
The theater’s upcoming revival of “The Holiday Pageant” is an all-ages comic retelling of the...
Johnny and Molly Solomon are best known for their work in the indie folk/rock band Communist Daughter. On the side, however, they have been touring extensively as an acoustic duo for the last few years,...
On-campus art and literary magazine Ivory Tower is a yearlong academic course, a Campus Life Program within the English department and a nonprofit organization that receives all its funding through donations.
Belonging...
Donna the Buffalo got its whimsical name more than 20 years ago when the group’s members misheard a friend’s suggestion to name their band “Dawn of the Buffalo.”
From then...
