TU Dance Center: Contemporary Experiment Classes with Leslie Parker

Please join us at TU Dance Center for two open classes with Leslie Parker! The classes are focused towards intermediate to advanced experiences, although all bodies and dance experiences are welcomed.

Contemporary Experiment is a class session in improvisation. The focus of the class is primarily the individual body as a site/map for exploration. It is an embodied practice that expands capacity for a more nuanced, rigorous, and sensory approach to space, time, and energy to integrate the thinking-body with real-time presence; and to play with physical range while increasing flexibility of the spine for a deepening in awareness of strength and endurance. In this class, empathetic exchanges using collaboration in movement studies are significant to amplify grounded power, intuitive connection to the body and place, navigating dissent, and honing clarity in timing and rhythm.

Wednesday, March 13
Monday, March 18

9:30-11:00am
$16/class or $140/10-class card.
Online registration required.
More details and registration.

Leslie Parker is a dance artist, director, choreographer, improviser, and performer born in the traditional homeland of Indigenous people, mostly the Dakhóta and Ojibwe people, also known as the Twin Cities, Minnesota. She has home art bases in both Brooklyn, NY (traditional homeland of Lenapehoking people) and in St. Paul, MN. Her deep roots in the territory also known as the St. Paul, Rondo community led her to a dance practice that emphasizes an organic aesthetic in experimental movement derived from the Black and African diaspora. Growing up in the Rondo community inspired her towards socially engaged art. Read more.

Artemis Danza – Violated Bodies

The Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis/St. Paul invites you to a free contemporary dance performance directed by Monica Casadei. Artemis Danza will showcase their modern theatrical and dance performance,

Corpi Violati (Violated Bodies)
Thursday, March 14
Park Square Theatre – Proscenium Stage
7:00pm: Social hour with complimentary beverages
8:00pm: Performance
Free

In Violated Bodies, a teeming community of female and male bodies is tightly held in the memory of a wound. Still open or healed, this wound reverberates on the scene in an incessant dance nourished by impulses, instincts, anger and pain, in which overwhelming group dances are interspersed with duets and solos, and defenseless bodies are joined by the violent and ruthless bodies of attackers.

Starting from the search for testimonies of victims of rape and abuse as well as improvisation, Casadei builds a show oscillating between raw realism and poetry dictated by a possible redemption. Musically, Fiandrini’s remix of electronic samples ebbs and flows throughout the story in melodrama and symphonic music. View the trailer.

Debut: Municipal Theater of Ferrara-Contemporary Dance Festival 2022 Choreography.
Direction, Scenery, Lights and Costumes: Monica Casadei
Live Electronics: Fabio Fiandrini
Production: Artemis Danza/Monica Casadei
Co-production: Municipal Theater of Ferrara-Contemporary Dance Festival, in collaboration with the Municipality of Rimini and Teatro Galli with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture, Emilia Romagna Region, Municipality of Parma.

Twin Cities Ballet’s The Wall

Back by popular demand, Twin Cities Ballet’s groundbreaking hit show returns to the historic Fitzgerald Theater with live music by popular local band Momentary Lapse of Floyd. Based on Pink Floyd’s iconic 1979 rock opera, TCB’s The Wall: A Rock Ballet is an ingenious fusion of genres that will captivate ballet patrons, music fans, and the artistically curious alike.

TCB’s ballet interprets the original Pink Floyd rock opera’s music, themes, story arc, and lyrics on a personal, rather than political, level. It explores the life and various relationships with the main character, Pink, and follows his transformative journey of loss, isolation, insanity, and redemption. Through its insightful original interpretation of the emotion and power of Pink Floyd’s story and music, TCB brings this classic rock masterpiece to life like never before!

March 15 at 7:30pm
March 16 at 7:30pm
March 17 at 2:00pm

Tickets from $38.50-$53.50, available at twincitiesballet.org/tickets.

These activities are made possible by the voters of Minnesota through an operating support grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Somethin’ Outa Nothin’

Meridian Movement Co presents Somethin’ Outa Nothin’ at the Red Eye Theater.

Witness this production exploring manhood and community through dynamic hip-hop narratives, introspection, and transformative brotherhood.

March 15 and 16
7:00pm

For tickets and more information, visit meridianmovment.co/son.

TU Dance Center: Dancing Together Workshop

A child and parent/caregiver Creative Movement class, this 8-week workshop is designed for children ages 2-4 and their parent/caregiver who are interested in a shared movement experience that engages the senses of curiosity and play.

Both child and caregiver will participate in developmentally appropriate movement exercises that incorporate elements such as effort, shape, and tempo. Music will play an essential role in the class as students will be asked to respond to sounds as well as make sounds themselves. Participants will be encouraged to join at their own comfort level with the understanding that observation is often the best form of learning with younger children. This class will give children and caregivers the opportunity to learn more about themselves and one another through the art form of dance.

March 16-May 4
Saturdays, 9:00-9:45am
No class on April 6 and April 13.
At TU Dance Center.
Register here.

Seeking Proposals: 2024 Dances at the Lake Festival

Ray Terrill Dance Group is currently mobilizing for presenting the upcoming Twenty-Second Annual Dances at the Lake Festival – occurring at the Lake Harriet Rose Garden in Minneapolis. The two free, open-to-the-public concerts will be presented on July 19 and 20, 2024 at 7:00pm.

Professional individual artists, and adult and youth companies are encouraged to submit a proposal for consideration. All forms of dance welcome. Work must be inclusive and family-friendly. These outdoor performances are performed on grass. Dances should be seven minutes or less. Each performing group receives a $350 honorarium.

Submit your proposal via email to raymond.d.terrill@msn.com by Sunday, March 17.

Please include:
Link to dance company website or individual artist bio
Description of planned dance, including length
Number of artists involved
Link to sample video of work – preferably of the dance to be performed

Tapestries 8.0 Master Classes

Threads Dance Project presents Tapestries 8.0 Master Classes.

As part Tapestries, Threads Dance Project commissions 3 emerging choreographers selected by an expert panel of dance/community leaders to create new works for the company under the guidance of Artistic/Executive Director Karen L. Charles. Tapestries provides a much-needed avenue for underrepresented women and artists of color to take center stage in the world of professional choreography.

What are the Tapestries 8.0 Master Classes?
The Tapestries 8.0 Master Classes are intimate and engaging opportunities for you to learn from the masters themselves. Each of our choreographers will guide you through learning the fundamentals and will hone your skills from their wealth of knowledge. They will show you why they were chosen to be a part of Tapestries!

Da’Rius Malone: Contemporary and Ballet
March 18-26
Mondays, 9:00-10:30am – Contemporary
Tuesdays, 9:00-10:30am – Ballet

Pay as you come. No prior registration needed.
Price: $12

The Move: Experiments from Inside the Groove with Nia-Amina Minor

Minnesota Dance Theatre is thrilled to present Nia-Amina Minor on Tuesdays, March 19 and 26, 9:30-11:00am.

Dive into contemporary approaches to movement through groove and musicality, technical exploration, and choreography. Class is informed by historic and current movement practices including Black social dance, improvisation, floor work, and modern technique. Bring all of yourself, that means any foundational movement practices or dance styles/genres of movement, party dances, and social dances; bring all the ways your body moves.

Nia-Amina Minor is a movement artist, choreographer, curator, and educator originally from Los Angeles. As a performer Nia-Amina has worked with Spectrum Dance Theater, Zoe Juniper, Will Rawls, Alice Gosti, dani tirrell and Amy O’Neal. In 2021 she was recognized as Dance Magazine’s 25 Artists to Watch. Nia-Amina has her MFA in Dance from UC Irvine and a BA from Stanford University and is based in Seattle.

Cowles Center Studio 6A. No prior registration required. Price: $16

McKnight Fellowships in Dance and Choreography Application is Open

The full applications for McKnight Fellowships in Dance and Choreography are now open. This program intends to recognize and support dance artists living and working in Minnesota who are beyond early practice and demonstrate sustained accomplishment, commitment, and artistic excellence.

The final deadline for applications is Wednesday, March 20, 2024, at 3:00pm CST.
Please plan to prepare and submit your application early.

Fellowship Program guidelines and more information:
McKnight Fellowships for Dancers
McKnight Fellowship for Choreographers

Walker Art Center and Northrop Present Shamel Pitts – TRIBE

BLACK HOLE researches and shares an odyssey where three Black performers create a trinity of vigor, Afrofuturism, and embrace. Engulfed in an evocative soundscape of original music, sound samples, and spoken word, the dancers embark on a demanding hour-long journey in which their tenacity and grace are emphasized by cinematic video projections and stark, monochromatic lights.

Mesmerizing and hauntingly magical, BLACK HOLE constitutes the final installment of Shamel Pitt’s Black Trilogy—marking the initial meeting between this choreographer and the artists of TRIBE.

March 21-23
8:00pm