ART & WOMEN
In Our Own Right
What better way to celebrate the achievements of women in the arts than to spend an evening enjoying the “expressions, perspectives, and self-revelations” of local women artists. Tonight’s In OUR Own Right performance and closing reception features performances by singer/songwriter JoAnna James (winner of two consecutive Minnesota Music Awards for “Female Vocalist of the Year”), storyteller and performer Amy Salloway, contemporary dance ensemble the SHE Collective, Perpich Center for Arts Education poets Ali Scott and Heather Campbell-Bezat, and spoken word artist Madame Mimi.
Friday at 8 p.m., The Minnesota Museum of American Art, 50 W. Kellogg Blvd. (at Market St.), St. Paul; 651-266-1030; free.
ART & MEDITATION
Clear Your Mind for Artistic Expression
While our creativity is certainly fueled by experience, by all the clutter around us, our environment. The truth is, it’s also squelched by all the noise. Like all energy, creative energy must be allowed to flow, to move, to express itself. But getting there, freeing your mind from the chaos around you and appreciating the simplicity and brilliance of things as they are, can be quite a challenge for some of us. Need some help with this endeavor? The Minneapolis Shambhala Center invites you to participate in parts one and two of a five-part Shambhala Art Program based on the teachings of Chogyam Trungpa, meditation master, poet, and artist. The program uses contemplative exercises and meditation instruction to explore and celebrate artistic expression that springs from the meditative mind. Enjoy a free public talk this evening, and participate in the workshop Saturday and Sunday. No previous experience required.
Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Shambhala Meditation Center, 2931 Grand St. NE, Minneapolis; 612-331-7737; free public talk on Friday, $150 workshop on Saturday and Sunday; no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
ART
Frida Kahlo
On the centenary of Frida Kahlo’s birth, a comprehensive retrospective can go a long way to rescue this tough, rich artist from her Art Heroine Poster Grrrl status. She deserves more. Kahlo was full of contradictions and had moments of heroism and weakness; she had blindness, insight, and a gift for telling a story with pictures. She also had talent — maybe not quite enough for her desire, but that’s true of many deservedly beloved artists: Edward Hopper and Paul Cézanne, for instance, were given deeper insight into the nature of the world by their own clumsiness at levering it into paint. Kahlo shares this divine thumbiness; it helps her create the new and make it accessible to her fellow mortals. –Ann Klefstad
Preview Party on Friday from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m., opens Saturday (11 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600.
SHOPPING
Discover Friends, Discover Treasures
Granted, collecting antiques — or at least the romantic ideal of it — is about long drives to the boondocks, sifting through dust and rejected “knick knacks,” and discovering a treasure no one knew they had. In the end, it’s usually about exploiting the seller’s ignorance of the object at hand’s value. True, somehow, I doubt that The Minneapolis Institute of Art is terribly ignorant of the value of any antique. But if you want to avoid the long drive and the dust — if you’re looking for a perfectly curated antique show, bringing together some of the finest antique dealers from across the country — then you won’t want to miss MIA’s 24th annual Antiques Show & Sale this weekend.
Friday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday & Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p,m., Sunday 11 a.m. – 9 p.m., Zuhrah Shrine Center, Harrington Mansion, 2540 Park Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-871-3555; 612-870-3039; $10 (museum members $8).
FOOD & WINE – BENEFIT
Celebrate Bacchus and Do Some Good
Join Napa Valley Grille Executive Chef Matthew Fogarty this evening for a walk-around food and wine tasting with over 50 wines and 15 food sampling. For the first time ever, the Napa Valley Grille will close (open to you, of course) its doors this evening to host a benefit for the Second Harvest Heartland foodshelves. That’s right: feeding yourself will feed others — unfortunately for them, not with the same food. Tonight’s menu will include cider-roasted stuffed suckling pig, seafood paella, roasted leg of lamb, imported cheeses and breads, plus a wall of dessert tiers in the wine cellar. Sample the food, indulge in the wine, and participate in a silent auction of 25 mystery wine grab bags. Earmarked at $25, these lovely bags will contain wine bottles priced up to $100. Sounds like a win win situation to me. And, of course, all proceeds will benefit Second Harvest Heartland.
Friday from 6:30 – 9 p.m., Napa Valley Grille, Mall of America, 2nd level West side, Bloomington; 952-858-9934; $65.
DANCE
James Sewell Ballet
The James Sewell Ballet presents its fall program this weekend, featuring the premiere of Kinetic Head, a piece commissioned by Richard and Sandra Jacobson on the occasion of their 40th wedding anniversary. Kinetic Head’s choreography continues Sewell’s exploration of multiple coordination in ballet, taking the movement patterns and layers to a new level of structural complexity. The music is designed to serve the choreography, and is compiled and engineered by Sewell from diverse music loops, plus music by John Scherf and J. S. Bach. Also on this weekend’s agenda are Schoenberg Serenade, choreographed by Sewell for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2006, and excerpts from Raymonda, with choreography re-staged after the 1898 classic by Marius Petipa.
Friday & Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., The O’Shaughnessy at the College of St. Catherine, 2004 Randolph Avenue, St. Paul; 651-690-6700; $32 (students $16); there will be a $10 First Chance Dance performance on Saturday at 11 a.m.
Playin’ at the Pantages
When I first moved to Minnesota with my family so many years ago, my sister sat crying by my side as we left her East coast world of ABT (dance afficionados will no doubt recognize that as the American Ballet Theater). As a rising and promising — though still young — ballet dancer, she wasn’t exactly excited about being land-logged here in the midwest. That is, until she learned that Loyce Houlton was teaching at the Minnesota Dance Theater. Houlton is a legend in the dance world, having studied with both Balanchine and Martha Graham (it doesn’t get much better than that) — and having choreographed so many wonderfully energetic and inspired pieces. And while she is no longer with us, she leaves her legacy at the heart of the Minnesota Dance Theater. This weekend, enjoy a touch of that legacy, that energy, that inspiration and beauty, as MDT opens its 2007-2008 season with two pieces by Houlton: 293.6, inspired by the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon, and her more classical Boccherini Dances. Also on the slate for the evening is Eliot Feld’s A Stair Dance, created in memory of Gregory Hines; Sir Frederick Ashton’s Façade, a witty ’20s piece; and Portrait Project, a collaboration of three former MDT dancers.
Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., Pantages Theatre, 710 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; $31.50.
MUSIC
Bill Frisell Trio
Bill Frisell’s loping, laconic guitar phrases are as implacably beautiful and subtly shape-shifting as a prairie landscape, a perfect soundtrack for compelling visuals. Indeed, two of the cooler items in his quilted discography were created to accompany the photographs of Walker Evans (This Land) and the films of Buster Keaton (Go West). Now the Walker has co-commissioned Frisell to provide the atmosphere on the photos of Mike Disfarmer, who made Evans-like images of the Arkansas poor in the ’40s. But unlike the horn-oriented ensemble for This Land, Frisell will be joined by violinist Jenny Scheinman and lap-steel guitarist Greg Leisz. –Britt Robson, photo by Mike Disfarmer
Saturday at 7:30 & 9 p.m., Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600.
THEATER & PERFORMANCE
The 14th Annual BareBones Halloween Show
Yes, sirree. Halloween is right around the corner, and that means another big-time puppet extravaganza by the light of the moon. If you’ve been to the BareBones Halloween Show since its 1993 inception, you’ll certainly want to repeat the experience. This is an all-out production, a real celebration of All Hallow’s Eve (and then some). With over 150 artists involved, the show features larger-than-life puppets, shadow puppets, handpuppets, costumes, masks, choral singing, fire artistry, stilting, and a live musical score composed and performed by a 10 piece orchestra. Bring a blanket, dress warm, don your own costume — at least a mask — and experience the narrative unraveling before you. “This year’s show begins on the Mississipi River Bank with the arrival of a macabre steamboat bearing a hilarious and satircal travelling carnival. River spirits arrive to guide audiences through a sublime river landscape (recreated in the forest) to a puppet river town. The arrival of Huck and Jim (from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) causes a town controversy from which the two have to flee. From there we follow their adventures down the river encountering wildlife, spirits, and the river’s dark history. All culminates in the swamp of reckoning with a call for justice and flood of light.” See what I’m saying? Big-time extravaganza! As always, you’ll even have an opportunity to honor the dead. (Come on; it’s Halloween.) And the audience is invited to stick around after the show for food, live music, and dancing.
Saturday through Wednesday at 7 p.m., Hidden Falls, base of the North Gate entrance, 1309 Mississippi River Blvd. S., St. Paul; 612-341-1038; free with donations encouraged.
And Now, We Sing for You
As a companion piece to their scaled-down production of La Bohème, Theater Latté Da presents three evenings of minimalist cabarets, somewhat appropriately titled Bohemian Rhapsodies, in which a bunch of local, aging bohemians gather around a piano and, from what we hear, sing for you. The first installment (this Sunday) features singer Ann Michels, storyteller and performer Josette Antomarchi, jazz vocalist Dennis Spears, poet and memoirist Patricia Hampl, and opera tenor Vern Sutton. Truth be told, we’re more looking forward to the November 4 show because we’ve got an awfully soft spot for at least one of the following: It stars soprano Maria Jette, husband-and-wife duo Fred and Anna Mae Vagle (they’re well known for their musicianship about St. Joan of Arc Church), folk singer Ann Reed, Russian singer Sima Shumilovsky, and co-host of The Current’s semi-popular The Morning Show, Dale Connelly. –Christy DeSmith
Sunday at 7 p.m., The Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-340-1725; $18.
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