MN Dance Task Force: Notes and Next Meeting

Here are the notes from our MN Dance Task Force virtual gathering on Friday morning, December 12, 2025.

Summary of gathering: Participants reviewed the structure of the Wilder Foundation’s draft of Community Gatherings. The group overall advocates for a more concise format with bullet points. Elsie suggested using quotes and side bubbles to emphasize key comments, while Daniel proposed incorporating hyperlinks for easy access to detailed information. The group acknowledged the importance of clarity in presenting feedback from various affinity groups and the need for innovative approaches to dance education and community involvement. The meeting concluded with a commitment to transparency and effective communication, with plans for a follow-up meeting on Friday, January 16, from 9:00-10:00am.

Next Meeting: Friday, January 16
8:45am: Welcome new attendees
9:00-10:00am: Meeting

Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 830 0053 7503
Passcode: 165698

Prairie Fire

Off-Leash Area co-artistic director Paul Herwig has created a haunting and beautiful production about a young boy growing up in a small midwestern prairie town, who, when confronted by the chaos and division of the world, is faced with making a choice: become an agent for destruction, or a warrior against the darkness.

“It’s been hard to imagine doing anything normal with everyday life. Yesterday, I shouted myself hoarse marching from Powderhorn Park, but it felt good to release my anger and sorrow for at least a couple of hours. I do believe that art has some power in this moment, and I would love to share this experience with you. It’s an hour long, and like nothing I’ve ever created before.

It’s a show about many things, looking back on lost innocence and the wonder of childhood, the bumpy journey through life, and encountering and fighting against “the darkness”. So, ultimately a show about resilience, and acceptance, and not backing down.” – Paul Herwig

Prairie Fire is a solo performance, where the audience is surrounded by four, 40 foot walls of projection, animation, and video, with a show-length sound score, and performed with no text, all set within a visual environment made up of dreamy, haunting, and emotional imagery.

In preparation for the show Paul had an important opportunity to be tutored for a time with an amazing international projection artist, and has brought that experience in creating the work. Jennifer Ilse and local director Kym Longhi are helping direct the show.

There are only 3 performances and seating is limited to around 25 seats, so if you’d like to come please make a reservation. 

January 23 and 24 at 8:00pm

January 25 at 7:00pm
St. Paul Ballet Studios in Fairview Business Center — enter through Door 2 on the south side
Tickets on sale now! Cost: $10-$30

Winter Sound Garden at Crosby Farm Regional Park

The site-specific outdoor Winter Sound Garden returns to the wooded banks of the Mississippi River at Crosby Farm Regional Park for the St. Paul Winter Carnival’s free and family-friendly “Winter Play Day” event. This performance will feature a roving site-specific movement score by dancers Sarah Baumert, Eva Mohn, Erika Hansen, and Suzette Gilreath, in collaboration with Krista Langberg and JG Everest.

The immersive, self-guided Winter Sound Garden is a sound + performance installation featuring over 50 small speakers, each playing a different part of composer/director JG Everest’s spatial symphony, spread out across a couple of acres. Additionally, there will be bonfires, s’mores, live storytelling with Lisa Yankton, embedded poetry, a special winter song by Blue Lady and the Free Range Choir, and other fun activities in the park.

Winter Play Day at Crosby Farm Regional Park, St. Paul
Saturday, January 24
11:00am-2:00pm
Free! Dress warm for outdoor winter conditions!
Registration recommended (but not required).

Hear audience reflections or see a short video from last year’s Winter Sound Garden at Winter Play Day!

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo at Northrop

Clamor no more, the “Trocks” are back!

“The World’s Foremost Gender-Skewering Comic Ballet Company”—famed for performing polished parodies of classical ballet en pointe and en travesti—continues its quest for global adoration after more than 50 fantastic years of artistic hilarity. Dance aficionados, drag lovers, and novices to both art forms alike will revel in the technical skill and uproarious antics of the Trocks, as they are affectionately known.

Thursday, January 29 at 7:30pm
Buy tickets here!

A Northrop audience favorite returning for the first time since 2000, the Trocks promise “the funniest night you’ll ever have at the ballet” (The Guardian), amazing viewers worldwide with their virtuosity and utter cleverness.

Rejects Cohort 2026

This show brings together 24 Minnesota dance artists/choreographers presenting short works that have all been rejected in some way or another!

Friday, January 30 at 7:30pm
Saturday, January 31 at 7:30pm
All tickets are pay-as-able with a $12 suggested donation.
Show is 65 minutes with no intermission.

Friday Presenters: Remi Blakesley and Claudia d’Auria, Romero Cannady, Erin Evans, Lillian Kline, Michelle Lowden, Sophia McLaughlin, Sudarsna Mukund, Arcelia Y. Rivera, Addie Smith and Kendall Edstrom, Holly Trenbath/O.V. A., and Taja Will.

Saturday Presenters: Sandra Carlo, Kaitlin Craven, Allison Durham, Philip Hommes, Nritya Kalakshetra Academy of Performing Arts, Lilly King, Jillian Kramschuster, Taryn Meyer, Javan Mngrezzo, Rachel Rettmann, and Olivia Woebke.

We have ignited this annual show to cultivate community among non-recipients and also to find a creative way to give voice to the heightened discussions surrounding dance funding in the Twin Cities. We intend to activate a space not designed for dance, pushing dance into new theaters, expanding our audiences, and the reach of our work!

Come be part of the second iteration of this annual event; where the unexpected happens, and new possibilities for art, community, and creative expression unfold!

Winter Carnival Family Day Performance

Winter Carnival Family Day
Saturday, January 31 from 11:00am-5:00pm
Landmark Center, St. Paul

Featuring:

  • Katha Dance
  • Twin Cities Trapeze Center
  • Tina, Lady of Line Dance
  • Rince na Chroi
  • Taikollaborative
  • Keane Sense of Rhythm Youth Tap Ensemble and Adults

Tristan Koepke’s Big Boy Dance at the Red Eye

Tristan Koepke’s Big Boy Dance tours two shows to Minneapolis’ Red Eye Theater.

Tristan Koepke’s Big Boy Dance brings two distinct performances to Minneapolis February 4-7. See one or both shows across the week and experience the breadth of our newest creations. Get your tickets here!

Transcendent Water Feature (2026)  Wednesday, February 4 and Thursday, February 5
Performances at 7:30pm (doors open at 7:15pm)

Transcendent Water Feature premieres as the newest choreographic work by Tristan Koepke (Portland, Maine) with collaborators from Big Boy Dance. The work extends Koepke’s ongoing research into speculative masculinities via Post Malone’s improvised dance breaks, and features Minneapolis’ own rock star performers: Leslie O’Neill, Maggie Zepp, and Laura Selle Virtucio alongside Big Boy Dance’s Emilia Bruno, James Barrett, and Tristan Koepke.

Bunk Beds (2025) — Friday, February 6 and Saturday, February 7
Friday performance at 7:30pm (doors open at 7:15pm)
Saturday performance at 2:00pm

Bunk Beds is the latest iteration in a series of performances devised by Tristan Koepke (Portland, Maine) and Benny Olk (Minneapolis, Minnesota). Inspired by the creative and amorous partnership of Merce Cunningham and John Cage, Instagram thirst traps, and romance novel tropes, Bunk Beds reimagines devotion, desire, and process when you make room for more than two.

Student Matinee: Martha Graham Dance Company at Northrop

Marking the 100th anniversary of the Martha Graham Dance Company, the legendary modern dance company presents a program curated especially for middle and high school students. During this hour-long matinee, students will learn about the art of modern dance, the work of Martha Graham, and consider American history from many perspectives, including their own.

Friday, February 6 at 10:30am
Recommended for Grades 5-12.
Buy tickets here!

The matinee will include excerpts from the Graham Americana classic Appalachian Spring, with music by Aaron Copland, as well as the “protest set to banjo” piece (The New York TimesWe the People by Jamar Roberts with music by Rhiannon Giddens. Additionally, students from Minneapolis’ South High School, led by dance teacher Nancy Nair and using the company’s educational curriculum, will create and perform an original version of Our Own American Document. The 15-minute work, inspired by Graham’s American Document (1938), will be the students’ response to the question, “What is America?”

Northrop is grateful to have recently received funding support for the Martha Graham Dance Company Student Matinee to cover the ticket cost for all attendees.

Martha Graham Dance Company at Northrop

Marking the 100th anniversary of Martha Graham Dance Company in 2026, the legendary modern dance company continues its three-year Graham100 tour with a celebratory mixed repertory stop at Northrop. Exemplifying its founder’s timeless and uniquely American style of dance, this once-in-a-lifetime performance honors the theme American Legacies.

Saturday, February 7 at 7:30pm
Buy tickets here!

Works include the stunning “protest set to banjo” piece (The New York Times) We the People (2024) by Jamar Roberts with music by Rhiannon Giddens; a new work by two-time Bessie Award winner Hope Boykin; the inimitable Martha Graham classic Appalachian Spring, with music by Aaron Copland; and “Steps in the Street” from Graham’s Chronicle, performed by dancers in the University of Minnesota dance program, to round out the repertoire.

Known as one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th century, Martha Graham’s groundbreaking legacy has inspired generations of artists and continues to captivate audiences worldwide.

Dance Hang: A Community Hang Out

Dance Hang (formerly Floorwork) is a 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, February 7
12:00-2:00pm

RSVP by Thursday, February 5.
Free on-street parking: Aldrich, Bryant, Colfax, and 31st Street.
Access to multiple bus lines: 21, 4, 23, 612, and 18.
ADA accessibility: Will need assistance with the main entry door; elevator access; accessible restroom on the second floor with a restroom key.