Category: Article

Six or seven years after being completely knocked for a loop on first hearing the traditional music of the tiny Russian republic of Tuva, we’ve still heard nothing quite like it. Throatsingers, as they’re called, can produce up to four notes at the same time, layered one on top of the other, rumbling like an earthquake or whistling like a mutant cricket. It’s unearthly stuff, seemingly more likely to come from Mars than the open steppes north of Mongolia. Huun-Huur-Tu is only one of several Tuvan groups who’ve successfully conquered Western world-music stages, and they’re probably the ones least influenced by outside genres and electric guitars. For our money, the best individual throatsinger is Kongar-Ool Ondar—who, if you’re new to world music, you might know from the Mervyn’s ad he did awhile back. But the four fellows in Huun-Huur-Tu are all masters of the genre and have the advantage of numbers—to hear the full quartet boom out together into a reverberating, rich kargyraa will send a tingle up and down your spine.
Cedar, 416 Cedar Ave S., Minneapolis, (612) 338-2674, www.thecedar.org

Still wondering what to get your beloved for Valentine’s Day? Here are a few hints: white linen shirt, a trip to a tropical rainforest, perhaps a new Jaguar. Still no idea? How about this: rhymes with “bling.” Sting brings the North American leg of his Sacred Love tour to Minneapolis before heading home for a European tour this spring. Sure, he’s gotten a little predictable in his old age after ten consistently chart-topping solo albums. But maturity and reliability must be some of your sweetie’s turn-ons, right? Why else would she still be with old, reliable you? Expect a set list peppered with more than enough legendary Police hits like “King of Pain” and “Roxanne” to satisfy you if you haven’t much bothered with his recent soporifics. If you’re lucky enough to score tickets to this already sold-out intimate engagement with the Stinginator (remember that classic SNL skit? He doesn’t always take himself so seriously), your precious will be sure to thank you with every breath she takes.
Northrop, 84 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis, (612) 624-2345, www.northrop.umn.edu

You might know them best as Paul Simon’s backing band on Graceland, the smash 1986 album that was many Americans’ first serious dip into the wide ocean of world music. But South Africa’s top choral group has too much musical grace to need to stand behind anybody. They’ve been championing the complex, lilting harmonies of Zulu singing for more than 40 albums, including the new Wenyukela: Raise Your Spirit Higher, which came out in January. Founder Joseph Shabalala formed the group after literally dreaming of children singing perfect harmony that he felt compelled to re-create in the waking world, blending Christian gospel with an African a cappella style called isicathamiya. The post-Graceland years have only cemented their status as South Africa’s ambassadors to the world, a rep untaintable even by less divine team-ups like their cover of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” with Dolly Parton.
Ted Mann, 2128 Fourth St. S., Minneapolis; (612) 624-2345

Despite a few lackluster albums during the nineties, we’re quite fond of Thompson’s studio releases—last year’s The Old Kit Bag stuck in our heads deeply enough that we wound up happily exploring further all the way back to his sixties work with Fairport Convention. But the deep-voiced king of British folk is really at his best live onstage, where his warmly sardonic sense of humor and improvisational gifts can come to the fore. He’s still one of the more innovative and nimble-fingered guitarists around, and has a fine feel for the surprising cover song—he might launch into a mock-serious version of Britney Spears’s “Oops I Did It Again,” or change the triumphal tone of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Woodstock” into a haunting, near-medieval lament.
Fitzgerald, 10 E. Exchange St., St. Paul, (651) 290-1221, www.fitzgeraldtheater.org

It has been the better part of a decade since the nation’s premier African-American dance company pirouetted its way onto the local stage, so you’re duly warned not to miss this performance. DTH leader Arthur Mitchell is a living legend of the dance world, having broken through the color barrier some fifty years ago to become a star protégé of the great George Balanchine. He and his company have shared three decades of unparalleled success, renowned not just for groundbreaking choregraphy but for such historic milestones as being the first American dance company to tour both apartheid-era South Africa and Soviet-era Russia. These two days of performance will be a greatest hits of sorts, selected by Mitchell from among DTH’s catalog of ten dozen works.

It’s a good bet that for most of us, our first exposure to surrealism was through the loopy imagination of Ted Geisel, better known to five generations of kids as the good Dr. Seuss. This touring exhibit features thirty-three panels of lithographs, serigraphs, and sculpture covering Seuss’s wide-ranging career, which included not just familiar favorites like Horton Hears a Who but innovative advertising and graphic design, and a wartime job as an army lieutenant colonel drawing anti-Hitler cartoons. The gallery complements that with seventy more Seuss works that will stay on display for another two months. Parents looking to introduce junior to the world of art-crawling will want to show up on one of the three Saturdays between January 31 and Valentine’s Day, when the Cat in the Hat himself will meet and greet.
Jean Stephen Galleries, 917 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, (612) 338-4333, www.jeanstephengalleries.com

Kline-Misol’s puppet-populated still lifes use rich reds and blues to create an inviting air of mystery. There are elements reminiscent of Salvador Dali, of Hopi kachina dolls and New Orleans voodoo, of Pinocchio and gypsy fortunetellers. It is like wandering through the maze of twisty passages in some especially atmospheric antique shop, where beyond every turn of the corner is a jumble of images—say, a Buddha-head statue, a vase of dead flowers, and a cast-off marionette, as in Kline-Misol’s “The Alchemist”—that seem a little bit sinister and suggest tantalizing hints of stories whose beginnings you can only guess at.
Holzemer Gallery, 4810 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis, (612) 824-0640, www.holzemergallery.com

The Jungle kicks off their new season with a trip north of the border and quite literally down memory lane. Michael Healey’s acclaimed play takes inspiration from the real-life 1970s people’s-theater project The Farm Show to tell the story of two isolated Ontario farmers whose quietude is disrupted by a nosy city-boy actor who wants to create a theater piece based on their lives. Imagine The Simple Life with a naïve, well-meaning hippie instead of the spoiled rich girls. The farmers, Angus and Morgan, aren’t so sure they want their pasts put onstage—Morgan’s standoffishness masks deeper issues, while Angus barely recognizes the past anymore since the wartime head injury that robbed him of his short-term memory. (In case you’re tempted to groan “not another Memento ripoff,” know that Healey’s play debuted the year before the movie did.) Casey Stangl, late of the much-missed Eye of the Storm, directs.
Jungle, 2951 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis, (612) 822-7063, www.jungletheater.com

May we have this dance? Our favorite Franco-American experimental theater revives their 1992 production exploring American life in the 20th century through a series of vignettes set in a Midwestern dancehall. Given that this is a play that uses a physical space as its central metaphor, it ought to be interesting to see how the Jeune Lune company will stage it—the nineties version was one of the last productions they did before moving into their own ballroom-sized space in the Warehouse District. Jeune Lune, 105 N. First St., Minneapolis, (612) 332-3968, www.jeunelune.org

Hairspray
Orpheum Theatre, February 17-March 7
With the third season of American Idol under way, two things have never been more apparent: Big is in, and just about anyone these days can get fifteen minutes of fame. This is no new concept to 16-year-old Tracy Turnblad, heroine of the Tony-winning musical Hairspray, which chicken-dances its way into Minneapolis this month. Tracy makes big beautiful, with a big heart, big hair, and big dreams of a spot on the local TV dance program The Corny Collins Show. If this sounds like the all-too-familiar big-girl-makes-good story, rest assured: This ain’t no ordinary Big Fat Greek Wedding. (For starters, it’s based on a freakin’ John Waters movie, albeit his most sweet-natured one.) Things were more complicated in 1962 Baltimore. Tracy will have to outdress and outdo the reigning dancing queen, and win the heart of heartthrob Link Larkin in the process. Can she do it? More important, will her ’do hold up? Of course. Any musical with dance numbers that include the Handjive and the Pony must end happily.
Orpheum, 910 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis, (612) 339-7007, www.hennepintheatredistrict.com

Few things are worse than a British pub passing off grilled pita as naan. Uptown now offers yet another great refuge from this kind of fraud, and it’s a cheap date, too. Taj’s naan is exactly what it should be—barely leavened, slightly charred on top and a little glossy with a brush of ghee. At the lunch buffet we found nothing as scorching to the palate as the output from the old Sri Lanka, which inhabited the same space in a previous incarnation. But the milder spice temp lets you actually taste the wonderful mosaic of flavors in their chicken masala, beef curry, and a good selection of vegetarian curries and dals. A new treat (to us, anyway) was French-cut potatoes deep-fried with spinach clinging to them. Another nice surprise: ras malai for dessert. This is a disc of soft, white cheese served in a pool of sweetened, creamy milk. Scout’s honor, you’ll like it. They promise beer and wine are coming soon.