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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...