DanceMN News

Take flight in an extraordinary adventure full of magic and whimsy.

Mary Poppins will sweep you into a world where anything can happen—blending unforgettable characters, dazzling choreography, and a dash of theatrical magic. Join us for a spoonful of sugar sure to stir your soul and set your imagination free.

Choreographed by Ana Claire and performed May 15-17 by The Professional Company Dancers of Ballet Co.Laboratory and Students of The School of Ballet Co.Laboratory, with music by Victoria Ebel-Sabo.

Join us for TU Dance’s annual Spring Showcase featuring students from The School at TU Dance Center and dancers from CULTIVATE, A Trainee Program. The program will include students from the Children and Teen and Pre-Professional Programs sharing technique demonstrations in modern, ballet, hip hop, and African dance, as well as performing in works by TU Dance Center teaching artists. Please join us in celebrating these inspiring dancers and their dedication!

Friday, May 15 at 7:00pm  
Saturday, May 16 at 1:00pm and 6:00pm
Sunday, May 17 at 1:00pm 

Tickets: $25 for adults; $12 for children 3 and older
General admission and in-person only.
Location: Barbara Barker Center for Dance, Studio 100

Matinee Performances will include students from the Children and Teen Program (except Creative Movement), Pre-Professional Program, and CULTIVATE, A Trainee Program. Evening Performances will include Teen Program, Pre-Professional Program, and CULTIVATE, A Trainee Program.

A Bake Sale will take place at the Saturday performances. All proceeds help support the Spring Showcase production.

Join us for Sadhana, our annual school showcase, as we celebrate a year’s worth of hard work by our dedicated students! All are welcome.

Sunday, May 17 at 12:30pm and 3:45pm
Location: Hopkins Center for the Arts

Tickets: $15 for Adults, $10 for Student/Senior (65+) — 1 ticket will get you into both shows!
Note: Tickets bought online include a processing fee.

Buy your tickets here, or at the box office the day of the performance. The box office will open 1 hour prior to each showtime.

Rhythmically Speaking is already hard at work with Karla Grotting, our first choreographer for Groovers & Makers 2026 (our 18th annual Summer show), and we’d love to share with you what we’ve created! We invite you to come get a sneak peek of Karla’s new work for the company.

Wednesday, May 20 from 4:30-5:00pm
Location: Hothouse

We hope you can join us!

Red Eye presents the 2026 edition of the Red Eye Festival, formerly known as the New Works 4 Weeks Festival: an annual gathering for live performance works that respond to the current moment and imagine collective transformation. Each year, artist cohorts engage in peer exchange, mutual support, and dialogue around creative process that culminates in this public sharing. Over nearly four decades, this incubator of new work has become a cornerstone of the Twin Cities performance landscape.

Edna Hand: Dear Mom My Gut is Your Gut
Edna Hand is an undisciplined artist who practices allowing for doing nothing, allowing their outside to match their inside, allowing words for the things that are true, allowing movement for the things that have no words, and allowing sound for things that cannot move. They are a commitment to sensing the wholesome threads of pleasure in being with pain and learning to use the power of mirror neurons for good. Their art is an experiment in expanding that learning into community and in service for the liberation of all beings.

Gaya Sani: ~ planet of disruption
Gaya dances to spite the binary of known vs. unknown, and to practice slowness and humility. Currently, their practice is shaped by studying the poems of Akka Mahadevi and Basavanna, Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s experimental triptych, and Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez’s Let’s Become Fungal!

Jarek Pastor: A Waiting Room 
An exploration of time-based processes; a frail rhapsody for single voice. A Waiting Room features She (raggedly youthful, buoyantly feeble) in a meditative limbo between hope and fulfillment.
Jarek Pastor is a theatermaker with a focus on composition, dramaturgy, and directing. Their work moves with a tonal dynamism to enact absurdist portraits of social systems. Team/Collaborators: Marcela Michelle (Performance); Jarek Pastor (Writing and Direction); MK Tuomanen (Research and Outside Eyes).

Río Saúl: trans soils, borderless bodies
Trans soils, Borderless bodies is a multimedia performance that explores the relationship between land and gender. Through embodied memories of my grandfather, plants, and a small gay bar, we traverse a world full of grief and a desire to be witnessed in aliveness.
I’m a rural trans artist from Salinas, California now living in Minneapolis, Mni Sota Makoce. At its core, my work is about belonging, ritual, transitions, and inhabiting multiplicities. I have continued to explore these themes through movement because if I don’t dance, I will be in a bad mood!

Thursday, May 21 at 7:00pm — requires masks and offers a discount to our Elders 70+
Friday, May 22 at 7:00pm — post-performance engagement, ASL interpretation
Saturday, May 23 at 7:00pm 

Pay as you wish, suggested $18-80. If cost is a barrier, please email communications@redeyetheater.org for discount ticket options. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Additional Accessibility Information: Red Eye’s space is fully wheelchair-accessible. Masks are highly encouraged. Some events require masking and masks will be available at the venue if you don’t bring your own. Please only attend if you are feeling well, and if not, we are happy to change your tickets to a different day at no charge.

Here are the notes from our MN Dance Task Force virtual gathering on Friday morning, April 17.

Summary: The meeting introduced the Minnesota Dance Task Force transition team, outlining its role in advancing recommendations from the Wilder report. Attendees shared brief introductions representing Minneapolis, greater Minnesota, and rural communities. The four-member transition team highlighted expertise across Indigenous arts, arts administration, nonprofit leadership, and higher-education dance, and confirmed their first meeting for the following week. Volunteers Mathew and Ananya committed to ongoing involvement to assist in consistency.

It was established that the transition team will focus on strategic planning, while the broader community supports implementation and feedback. The group emphasized transparency through regular public updates, accessible meeting notes, and shared documents. Plans include a press release and partnerships with DanceMN, Springboard for the Arts, and McKnight to expand visibility.

Next Meeting: Friday, May 22
8:45am: Welcome new attendees
9:00-10:00am: Meeting

Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 731 8569 8990
Passcode: q0x4xw

Visiting artists, Beth Graczyk and Leah Wilks from New York, bring their multi-textural new collaboration to Minneapolis with local luminary collaborators including Thomasina Petrus and Aaron Gabriel.

A Body (Un)Becoming is a dance duet with live musicians that explores the tension between decay and transformation. In this performance, the body meets disintegrating materials through acts of touch, labor, and experimentation. The piece investigates what new forms can emerge through pressure, heat, and attention which is also reflected in the kinetic sculptures made from eggshells. By animating overlooked materials—including an aging female-identified body—the work challenges fixed ideas of being and utility: fragile, reforming, and ongoing.

Friday, May 22 and Saturday, May 23 at 7:30pm
Center for Performing Arts

Directed by Beth Graczyk
Performed by Leah Wilks and Beth Graczyk, Laura Sewell and Thomasina Petrus (Minnesota)
Music by Aaron Gabriel (Minnesota)
Lighting Design by Jeff Forbes (Portland), ILVS STRAUSS (Seattle), and Mike Grogan (Minneapolis)
Costumes by Asa Thornton
Biomaterial Sculptures by Beth Graczyk

Leanna Browne presents Kuumba: A Gathering of Black Dance and Theatre. Kuumba is a Kiswahili word, which means “creativity” or “to create” and is the sixth principle of Kwanzaa. The evening includes work by guest artist Atlese Robinson who will share Chores, an experimental theatrical work exploring the mundanity of life’s chores as a vehicle for introspection and social commentary. The evening also includes a new dance work by Leanna Browne, which explores Pan-Africanism, particularly the contributions of Black women in Pan-Africanism. Leanna is joined by Melissa Clark, Aneka McMullen, Deneane Richburg, and Taylor West.

Friday, May 22 at 7:30pm — Post-Show Reflection Discussion
Saturday, May 23 at 2:00pm — Pay what you can
Saturday, May 23 at 7:30pm
Location: The Southern Theater

Tickets
General Admission: $25
Student/Senior General Admission: $22
Pay-what-you-can (May 23 at 2:00pm): starting at $10

In addition, participate in Kuumba: The Workshops, which are open to community and happening on Tuesday, May 19 from 5:30-9:00pm at The Southern Theater.

Tuesday, May 19 workshops include:
Sound Bath Healing with Tamiko French from 5:30-6:30pm
Umfundalai with Leanna Browne from 6:45-7:45pm
Storyteller’s Soirée with Atlese Robinson from 8:00-9:00pm

Here is the link for tickets and registration for the workshops as well as more information. Thank you and we hope to see you there!

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Quick Study is a performance series that examines how the audience and performer make sense of dance, or whether sense-making is necessary at all. Drawing from infant cognition research, early experiences, and a lifelong obsession with dance, Maggie Zepp loosely measures audience engagement and invites viewers to consider their own methods of interpretation.

Each performance includes dancing, direct address, and a couple informal experiments. Audience participation is voluntary. Shows are approximately 30 minutes long—just a quick study.

Wednesdays of May 27, June 24, and July 29 at 7:00pm
All shows are free. Attend one night or all three—each show is different! Seating is first-come, first-served.

Red Eye presents the 2026 edition of the Red Eye Festival, formerly known as the New Works 4 Weeks Festival: an annual gathering for live performance works that respond to the current moment and imagine collective transformation. Each year, artist cohorts engage in peer exchange, mutual support, and dialogue around creative process that culminates in this public sharing. Over nearly four decades, this incubator of new work has become a cornerstone of the Twin Cities performance landscape.

The 2026 artists bring varied approaches to performance processes—calling on dance, installation, sound, storytelling, textile, devising, satire, meditation, personal narratives and more—with a shared commitment to questioning artistic form and challenging dominant culture. Their works traverse themes including community distress and bodily peace, global conflict, grounding, absurdity, grief, desire, threads and uprising. They explore these themes through dance, sound, assemblage, multimedia installation, celebration and satire.

DejaJoelle: Spiritual Interlude
DejaJoelle is a Black Centered Healing Artist, Choreographer, Director, and Cultural Healing Curator. She believes Dance serves as our connection to ourselves, our communities, and our overall Divinity. DejaJoelle creates Sacred Black Space to discover ancestral/intuitive Rituals and Practices that move toward Healing using Dance, Body Reclamation, and Revolutionary Love Practices.

Kat Purcell: un//be//done
In collaboration with The People’s Closet and an ensemble of six players, not a fashion show, a bricolage of discards and further distressed, the deconstruction of categories for new assemblies, the questioning of garbage, and being okay with ends (of threads).
Kat Purcell is a nonbinary transexual performer, lighting designer, experimental producer, installation artist and anarchist pursuing the work of cultivating new/old formations of community inter-dependence alongside many incredible caregivers and culture bearers.

Thursday, May 28 at 7:00pm — requires masks and offers a discount to our Elders 70+
Friday, May 29 at 7:00pm — post-performance engagement, ASL interpretation
Saturday, May 30 at 7:00pm

Pay as you wish, suggested $18-80. If cost is a barrier, please email communications@redeyetheater.org for discount ticket options. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Additional Accessibility Information: Red Eye’s space is fully wheelchair-accessible. Masks are highly encouraged. Some events require masking and masks will be available at the venue if you don’t bring your own. Please only attend if you are feeling well, and if not, we are happy to change your tickets to a different day at no charge.

Zenon Dance Zone and Block Z Spring Showcase!

Come see the vibrant new works of Zone choreographers Stephanie Giuliani, Jillian Kramschuster, Taryn Meyer, and Meg Singh, and Block Z choreographers Annika Johansson, Erin Landers, Shannon Hartle Dolan, and Mary Willmeng, brought to life by the Zenon Zone and Block Z dancers.

Friday, May 29 at 7:30pm
Saturday, May 30 at 7:30pm
Sunday, May 31 at 2:00pm
Location: Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts
Tickets: $25, fees included

Join us in celebrating the magic of local dance! Together, we play a vital role in the vibrant dance scene of the Twin Cities, and this showcase highlights our community. As we explore new material and share the voices of our choreographers, Zenon Dance School is proud to contribute to 43 years of dance performance, education, outreach, and community engagement. Zone welcomes dancers and choreographers of all levels and fosters a unique, supportive environment for their journey.

Red Eye presents the 2026 edition of the Red Eye Festival, formerly known as the New Works 4 Weeks Festival: an annual gathering for live performance works that respond to the current moment and imagine collective transformation. Each year, artist cohorts engage in peer exchange, mutual support, and dialogue around creative process that culminates in this public sharing. Over nearly four decades, this incubator of new work has become a cornerstone of the Twin Cities performance landscape.

Dance Hang is a free Minnesota dance community coming together and sharing space, conversation, resources, works in progress, etc. Let’s just hang and see where conversation takes us, or come with your specific questions, concerns, or ideas.

Saturday, June 6, 12:00-2:00pm
RSVP by Friday, June 5.

In-person: Tapestry Folkdance Center
3748 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55406

Virtual: Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 885 8722 1732
Passcode: 752686

Line of Scrimmage is a dance, theater, comedy, football game that fumbles its way through a classic (and yet maybe not so classic) sports movie narrative. The show follows a team from practice up until the big game. We ask the questions: who gets to tackle who? And who gets to create separation and division on and off the field? In general, the show attempts a Hail Mary pass at critiquing the good and the not so good of sports and sports culture. Expect balls flying, kickers punting, and false starts at an all time high. Oh yeah, and I heard the marching band is good this year.

Thursday, June 11—Monday, June 15 at 7:30pm
Location: The Mixed Blood Theater
Get tickets here! Monday and Thursday shows are pay-as-able.
1 hour show, no halftime.

To the sports fans (artists do not read) love of art is not required, we have so much sport ball here for you!
To the artists (sports fans do not read) love of sport ball is not required! We had to do so much research to just write this punny show description.

Creator: Lily Conforti/Corpus Dance Works
Collaborators/Dancers: Addie Smith, Erin Evans, Lilly King, Javan Mngrezzo, Nieya Amezquita, Rachel Holmes, Taylor West, Vy Nguyen
Lighting: Alice Endo
Photography: Gregory Addison

Red Eye presents the 2026 edition of the Red Eye Festival, formerly known as the New Works 4 Weeks Festival: an annual gathering for live performance works that respond to the current moment and imagine collective transformation. Each year, artist cohorts engage in peer exchange, mutual support, and dialogue around creative process that culminates in this public sharing. Over nearly four decades, this incubator of new work has become a cornerstone of the Twin Cities performance landscape.

Leila Awadallah: INTIFADA INCANTATION — an experiment in wielding ripples of vibration
A group of performers are joined by a self-playing instrument that drones and shifts based on the vibrations in the floor and air. A work activated by specific bodies, tethered ancestrally to Palestine, and tethered viscerally to the ruptures ongoing. Asking; how do we enact a series of experiments and incantations; attuning to the ripples and attempting to wield them towards the shapes of intifada near and far (words inspired by June Jordan: Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.). Each evening’s offering this weekend will be unrepeatable and accumulate in gesture, tremor: a compositional argument within the infrastructures of uprising. Created and performed by Leila Awadallah, Noelle Awadallah, Mette Loulou von Kohl, and Zaquia Mahler Salinas.

انتفاضة – to shake off, tremor, uprising

Leila Awadallah is a dancer, choreographer, and community collaborator based in Minneapolis and sometimes Beirut. She is the Artistic Director of Body Watani Dance with her sister Noelle Awadallah; a project that centers Palestine, a body-as-homeland practice, a site for improvisational inquiry and folk-rooted experimentations of SWANA dance forms. Leila is wielding her energy towards cultural intifada on multiple fronts, and asks you to join her in the long middle of the revolution to liberate Palestine and demand landback/the right to return.

Performance Schedule:

• Thursday, June 11 at 7:00pm — requires masks and offers a discount to our Elders 70+
  Work-in-progress sharing 1: First Tremor – Opening Invitation/Open Questions
• Friday, June 12 at 7:00pm – ASL interpretation included, post-performance engagement
  Work-in-progress sharing 2: Accumulation Tremor – Continuum and New Questions
• Saturday, June 13 from 5:00-9:00pm
  Durational Tremor – a work-in-progress durational performance experiment (a durational study/continuums in the making an offering that builds as it unfolds). Audiences are invited to enter at 5:00pm and build the continuum, or arrive at 7:00pm into what has already begun.

Pay as you wish, suggested $18-80. If cost is a barrier, please email communications@redeyetheater.org for discount ticket options. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. A pass to every event this weekend is $30.

Additional Accessibility Information: Red Eye’s space is fully wheelchair-accessible. Masks are highly encouraged. Some events require masking and masks will be available at the venue if you don’t bring your own. Please only attend if you are feeling well, and if not, we are happy to change your tickets to a different day at no charge.

Photo credit: Houssam Mchaimech

Concerto Dance presents Red, White & Rhythm: An Evening of American Music & Dance.

Join Concerto Dance as we close out the 25/26 performance season with an energetic celebration of American music and dance! From jazz to folk to Broadway-inspired rhythms, this family-friendly evening brings bold movement and joyful storytelling to the stage. The program features the premiere of Rhapsody in Rhythm, a new work set to iconic American composers at the intersection of classical and jazz, alongside the return of the high-energy, joy-filled Jamboree, Joe Chvala’s percussive, folk-inspired Footfall, and signature work and audience favorite Ode to Opus Jazz, tribute to the legendary Jerome Robbins.

Don’t miss this celebration of American artistry uplifting the human spirit through rhythm, movement, and vibrant concert dance!

Friday, June 12 and Saturday, June 13 at 7:00pm
Open Dress Rehearsal on Thursday, June 11 at 7:00pm — Pay-As-Able
Location: Bloomington Center for the Arts, Schneider Theater

Tickets on sale now!
Adults: $30 + fees
Students and Seniors: $25 + fees
12 and under: $15 + fees

A vibrant West African drum and dance performance that traces the journey of life through rhythm, movement, and community. Featuring three generations of performers – including family members sharing the stage – the program weaves together traditional pieces such as Yankadi, Macru, Komodenu, Soko, and Dundunba.

From the grace of youth to the power of maturity, each rhythm reflects a stage of life, honoring the connections that bind generations together. Through the pulse of the drum and the energy of dance, this performance celebrates heritage, transition, and the living traditions that continue to bring people together across time.

Saturday, June 13
Doors: 7:00pm
Show: 7:30pm

Tickets
Adults: $20 in advance, $25 at the door
Children (15 and under): $10 in advance, $15 at the door
Children (5 and under): Free

This Cultural Districts Art Fund program activity is funded by the Arts & Cultural Affairs Department in the City of Minneapolis.​​

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Young Dance is excited to host a Regional Gathering on Dance Education and Disability: A Practice of Belonging, July 25-26 in St. Paul, Minnesota. This convening is sponsored by Art Spark Texas with financial support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Off-Leash Area’s new mainstage production, Swallowed By Sea, is a dance and theater production that tells an emotional, redemptive story as an epic myth that invites the audience to navigate the eternal currents through ocean, land, and sky. Weaving together a lush choral score, live-animated projection design, and the graceful and forceful physical performances by an all-abilities cast who move with and without wheels, Swallowed By Sea is a rich tapestry of a production about beginnings and endings, destruction and renewal.

Friday, June 26 at 7:30pm — followed by a post-show reception
Saturday, June 27 at 7:30pm
Sunday, June 28 at 7:30pm
Admission is by sliding scale with a $10-$30 suggested donation.
At the fully accessible Barker Center.

All-Abilities, Multi-Generational Cast: Brian Evans, Christine Maginnis, Erin Landers, Gabriel Rodreick, Lexine Samara, Lilly Rossow Jennifer Ilse
Direction and Choreography: Co-Artistic Director Jennifer Ilse
Animation, Video, and Projection Design: Co-Artistic Director Paul Herwig
Choral Work Composition: Linda Kachelmeier
Sound Design and Engineering: Reid Kruger
Costuming: Caroline A. Zaltron and Nat Koch

Accessibility Services Provided
ASL Interpretation (Maria Dively): All performances
Audio Description (Connie Fullmer): All performances
Live Captioning: Captioning will be integrated into the projection design of the program.

Moving Roots / Ancestry Wings explores the theme ancestry from seven unique perspectives. Following the generational heritage as it is passed by the ancestors through vessels and tradition carriers on to their descendents. Generations find themselves on a spiral of repetitive behavioral patterns, absorbing it from an early human stage of innocence,  eventually connecting with their ancestry with more consciousness,  finding independence and nuance around conflictive relationships with the past. Descendants embrace those patterns with compassion finding their own, empowerment, and identity transformation.

Featured Artists
Directors: Carmen Lucia Lincoln and Erika Martin
Movers: Lu Chen, Mayhough Fox, Sophia Islam, Jennifer Mack, and Alessandra Silva
Original Music: Jorge Mendoza
Lighting Design: KD Deutsch Frost

Performance Dates
Friday, June 26 at 7:30pm
Saturday, June 27 at 1:30pm (pay as able)
Saturday, June 27 at 7:30pm

Tickets
$25 General Admission
Saturday Matinee pay as able