Archive: Performances and Events

Join us at The O’Shaughnessy at Saint Catherine University for a heartfelt celebration honoring TU Dance Founder and Artistic Director Toni Pierce-Sands. These two vibrant performances – rooted in movement, memory, and community – will feature live works by Loyce Houlton, Alvin Ailey, and Ronald K. Brown, artists whose work inspired and held deep personal meaning for Toni. Interwoven throughout the evening will be storytelling and archival photos and videos that illuminate her illustrious life, career, and legacy.

Together, we will honor the energy, grace, and passion that define Toni’s enduring spirit—and celebrate the boundless ripples she has created in the dance world, inspiring generations to come.

Friday, April 24 at 7:30pm
Saturday, April 25 at 7:30pm

See Ticket Office information here.
For accessibility information, please click here.

Join us for an informal gathering to connect and spend time with Dance/USA’s new Executive Director, Michele Kumi Baer. This meet-up is open to both members and the broader dance community. This gathering will take place in a happy hour-style setting. Attendees are responsible for purchasing their own food and beverages.

Friday, April 24 at 5:00pm
RSVP is required so we can share the event location with you. Location details will be provided upon RSVP.

If you have any questions, please contact the Interim Director of Member Services, Mark Travis Rivera, at MRivera@DanceUSA.org or call/text 404-933-0595.

Join DejaJoelle’s company, BLAQ, and DJ MxKenna in a Sacred Black Dance space. Come dance, commune and enjoy snacks as you build community! This is a Sacred Black Space and is built to be in faith and joy as we navigate our lived experiences as a Community. Pull up and bring a friend!! Let’s vibe.

Saturday, April 25
12:00-3:00pm
Sliding scale pricing: $0-$30

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 intentional spaces for Black community to discover their own practices toward Healing using Dance, Body Reclamation, and other Healing practices. As the world experiences collective hurt and grief, DejaJoelle trusts that our greatest act of revolution and rebellion against hatred and corruption is Self-Love and Healing. Using the realms of reclaim, surrender and conjure, she focuses her art and energy on holding Healing spaces that re-introduces Black people to their Breath, Body, and Spirit.

American Ballet Theatre’s (ABT) principal Skylar Brandt and soloist Jake Roxander to perform leads in Romeo & Juliet at the historic Fitzgerald Theater. The ballet is the most recognized romantic tragedy and celebrated love story of all time and will be beautifully staged as the original story unfolding in the Renaissance period of Verona, Italy.

Saturday, April 25 at 7:30pm
Sunday, April 26 at 2:00pm
Location: Fitzgerald Theater
Tickets: $49-$129 (10% discount for students and seniors)

The partnership of Brandt and Roxander has already drawn comparisons to legendary ballet collaborations such as Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn—artists whose performances reshaped public engagement with ballet across generations. From leading roles in classical ballets to creating new characters, Brandt’s versatility and grace captivate audiences worldwide. Jake Roxander, a breathtakingly powerful rising star, is pushing the art form to new heights.

Skylar Brandt performed the role of Giselle last season at Northrop in a stunning performance with the Metropolitan Ballet. The Company is honored to have Skylar Brandt return as Juliet in this delightful and romantic production. From lead roles in classical ballets to creating new characters, Brandt’s versatility and grace captivate audiences worldwide. Jake Roxander, a breathtakingly powerful rising star, will perform as Romeo.

“ABT’s Jake Roxander is unstoppable”- Pointe Magazine, 2024
Brandt named to the renowned “Forbes 30 Under 30” list of most influential leaders and entrepreneurs (2022).

Catch their debut! Available for just two performances.
Romeo & Juliet is presented by the Metropolitan Ballet of the Twin Cities under the direction of Erik Sanborn.

Sacred Earth is a powerful, hour-long journey of movement and music that celebrates the beauty and vitality of the natural world. Performed as a continuous arc of high-energy dance and evocative poetry, the work unfolds like a living ritual.

Inspired by the ephemerality of the Indian art forms of kolam rice flour drawings, Warli wall paintings, and ancient Tamil Sangam poems, Sacred Earth reflects Artistic Co-Directors Aparna Ramaswamy and Ranee Ramaswamy’s singular vision of the delicate, interdependent relationship between humanity and nature. The performance becomes an invocation—reminding us that we are not separate from the earth, but deeply woven into its breath, rhythms, and fragile continuance.

Thursday, April 30 at 7:30pm
Location: Luminary Arts Center
Get tickets today!

Learn more about Sacred Earth.

In celebration of the program’s 10th anniversary, Threads Dance Project presents Tapestries 10.0 – Anniversary Edition.

The Tapestries program has become an annual tradition—amplifying new choreographic voices, with a special emphasis on female-identifying and BIPOC creators. To honor this milestone, Tapestries 10.0 not only elevates two new emerging choreographers but also welcomes back two previous creators from the program’s 10-year run.

This year’s finalists, Lily Conforti and Brianna Johnson, have each been selected to create new works for the company. Returning choreographer Gabby Abrams remounts her work from Tapestries 6.0 – which was interrupted by the pandemic – while Rae Fox-Charles, a multi-year Tapestries alum, will share a new work.

Friday, May 1 at 7:30pm
Saturday, May 2 at 2:00pm and 7:30pm
Tickets: $22 students or groups of 10 or more, $25 seniors, and $30 general admission

How does one find the wonder in wandering their own city? Is it found in the most subtle of gestures or in the largest of strides? Where The City Moves To(o) travels through the Mill District in Downtown Minneapolis. A seven-person cast will guide and lead audiences from the Mill City Museum all the way to the Stone Arch Bridge. Viewers will be pulled through grass-covered parkways, crumbling ruins of old Minneapolis, and bustling areas of pedestrian traffic. Along the way, the dancers will be interacting with the architecture, with each other, and with those who watch them.

Saturday, May 2 at 4:00pm
Sunday, May 3 at 4:00pm
Price: Pay-as-able, $0-$20

This is a 50-minute-long work brought to you by Meghan Morgan, a senior Dance BFA student at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

Note: This performance requires audience members to walk about 1/3 of a mile. Audiences will also descend one flight of stairs and descend a mildly steep ramp.

The 10th Annual CANDY BOX Dance Festival is a one-of-a-kind event that brings together a dynamic sampling of dance artists from across Minnesota and beyond. This year’s festival will be held from May 4-9 at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Featuring performances, master classes, and public showings, CANDY BOX offers an exciting opportunity to experience a wide range of movement styles and innovative choreography.

The festival will showcase the works of local Twin Cities artists, including Dance Rec PickUp League, Rachel Lieberman, and Contempo Physical Dance, as well as an exciting line-up of emerging and established choreographers.

Featured Artist Performances
7:30pm: Thursday, May 7-Saturday, May 9
2:00pm: Saturday, May 9 — Pay-as-able pricing available at the door only
Ticket Lines: General Admission $27, Student/Senior $20

Happy Hour Artists (Work-in-Progress Showings) from 5:30-6:30pm
Monday, May  4 — Jake Nehrbass
Tuesday, May 5 — Mathew Janczewski
Wednesday, May 6 — Meridian Movement Co.
Thursday, May 7 — Gabriel Anderson
Friday, May 8 — Juliet Irving
$25 Five-Show Package, or $12 per show (suggested donation)
All donated funds go directly to the artist.

Master Classes (Workshops Taught by CANDY BOX Artists) from 4:00-5:15pm
Monday, May 4 — Eva Mohn/ Dance Rec PickUp League
Tuesday, May 5 — Rachel Lieberman
Wednesday, May 6 — Marciano Silva dos Santos (Contempo Physical Dance)
Thursday, May 7 — Colin Edwards (Meridian Movement Co.)
Friday, May 8 — Juliet Irving
$25 Five-Class Package, or $10 per class

Staged in their current residence and home space, Ophelia explores the amorphous memories forged in the past and unfolding in the present, alongside the ever-changing and multifaceted self. At a point of transition, What if… I could be… marks a reckoning, an unraveling, and a gentle holding of what has been and what will be: Sometimes grandiose, other times bare bones, and always honest. Clothing and objects act as duet partners and portals for realizing the self. A durational format allows for the realization of self and memory through the act of performing.

Wednesday, May 6 from 12:00-8:00pm
Audience members are invited to stay for as long or as little as they would like. The 45-minute score will be performed in a new iteration at the beginning of each hour. Ushers will greet audience members at the front of the building and guide them to the correct apartment.

Performance is free! Register for attendance here!
Option for virtual attendance through Ophelia’s Instagram: @opheliamaeb

Thursday, May 7–Saturday, May 9 at 7:00pm
Sunday, May 10 at 5:30pm
Luminary Arts Center
Pay-what-you-can: $15-$75

Analog Dance Works presents Biomes, a contemporary dance production that journeys through tundras, greenhouses, fresh waters, and the vast lands of suburbia to viscerally question our relationships to our natural world.

This show is a practice of curiosity, questioning boundaries, listening, and forgiving. It comes from a place of deep emotional currents running below the surface that grapple with how and why we utilize our natural resources recreationally, economically, and spiritually. We are searching for pastures where we don’t just coexist with nature, but merge with our beautifully complex environmental surroundings in unconditionally profound mutualism.

Biomes brings forth the perspectives of four of its artists: Brenna Mosser, Sophia Pimsler, Addie Smith, and Ruby Josephine Smith of RJDT. Each choreographer is working with very different concepts that are entwined together around a central question: what is our relationship to the natural environments that we dwell amongst?