These Are No Typical Performances

THEATER & PERFORMANCE
Not Just Another Drag Show

We’ve all seen a typical drag show, right? It’s basically just a bunch of guys lip-syncing in evening gowns, with well-tucked packages. And while this can certainly be quite entertaining, it just can’t match Dykes Do Drag. Now in its eighth year, this gender-blending, queer variety show features kings, queens, trannies, and bio performers. With the Gentleman King as host, many of the Twin Cities’ most talented performers will participate this evening (and the next two) in this pop-music performance-art cabaret.

10:00 p.m. (9:30 doors), Bryant Lake Bowl; 810 West Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-825-3737 ; $14 (students 2-for-1).

Bend your Mind, 10 Minutes at a Time

Summer is for shorts. And drag shows aren’t all the Bryant Lake Bowl has to offer this evening. Get there a few hours earlier for the Summer Shorts 2007: Bent show — Theatre Limina’s staged-reading series. Each Thursday (for two more weeks), five original 10-minute plays will be staged. See what some of the top playwrights across the country are up to, and help choose the plays that will go on for an encore performance. Readings will be staged by up-and-coming directors, and will feature local talent. Tonight’s pieces include Thomas H. Diggs’s “Five Wishes,” Ellen Lewis’s “If We Kissed,” Lia Romeo’s “Hot Line,” Krist Knight’s “Rime of the Four Albatross,” and Michael Schaefer’s “The Ten Minute Miracle.”

7:00 p.m., Bryant Lake Bowl; 810 West Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-825-3737 ; $12.

Desire for the Undesired

Using theater and dance as the primary voices, Live Action Set explores the act of wanting those things we do not have and wishing we didn’t want the things we wished we had. Confused? Well, that’s usually the case with this artistic collaborative. The work of Live Action Set is never easy to explain; that’s part of its charm — and what makes it so utterly interesting. Tonight through Sunday, Robert Rosen (co-founder of Theatre de la Jeune Lune) will be directing the members of Live Action Set in a physically challenging new work about desire, taboo, and what happens in the layers between realization, repression, and expression. Desiderare: Desire for the Undesired is presented by The Red Eye Theater as part of the New Works 4 Weeks festival. The performers promise that the show will be “provocative, funny, and very, very human.”

8 p.m., The Red Eye Theater, Minneapolis; 612-870-0309; $12 (Friday and Saturday $15; seniors/student $8).

VISUAL ART
Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop

Hip-hop has had an undeniable impact on the arts. I’m not just talking about spoken-word poetry, street literature, post-black art, urban art, outsider art, and other labels given to hip-hop-related work. The parameters are no longer so clearly defined (as if they ever were). Just as hip-hop has permeated every type of music at this stage, it has done so with all the arts, be it theater, poetry, performance art, dance, visual art, film, or video. Tonight, Cey Adams, Jeff Chang, Roger Cummings, and Rachel Raimist will discuss how hip-hop is expanding in more obscure and impactful ways. Cey Adams has done graphics for countless album covers (Jay-Z, Method Man, DMX), clothing lines (Sean John), movies, and TV shows (Belly, Next Friday, The Chapelle Show). Jeff Chang, author of the books Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, has written extensively on race, culture, politics, and the arts for numerous publications. Roger Cummings is the cofounder and artistic director of Juxtaposition Arts, a North Minneapolis urban art center whose mission is to empower youth and community to use the arts to actualize their full potential. Rachel Raimist is a Twin Cities-based filmmaker and director of Nobody Knows My Name, which chronicles the stories of five women in hip-hop.

7 p.m., Walker Art Center, Cinema, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600; free.

Mezzolago

Celebrate the opening of a brand new gallery on Chicago Avenue. We can never have enough galleries. Hell, if we get enough of them, maybe we can finally stop going to see art in coffee shops. Swing by tonight and check out the new artists and the latest addition to the Minneapolis art scene.

6:30 p.m., Mezzolago, 5255 Chicago Ave. S., Minneapolis.

MUSIC
A Long Time Coming

After a long absense, folk musician Bill Morrisey is finally returning to the Twin Cities this evening. With two Grammy nominations, several 4-star reviews from Rolling Stone Magazine, and many other stellar reviews in national publications, Morrisey doesn’t need much of an leg-up in the hype department. Not just a singer/songwriter, but a novelist, and even a producer, Morrisey serves up some great New England folk blues with poetic and witty lyrics.

7:30 p.m., Gingko Coffeehouse, 721 N. Snelling Ave., St. Paul; 651-645-2647; $15.

STYLE
Party in Your Beachwear

Just a quick mention of the Splash Bash Summer Fashion Show at Trocaderos this evening. Party like a rock star in your swimwear or underwear. I’ve never been into these things, but who am I to say? The evening begins with a fashion show with Lady Bunny and ends with an underwear party. Woohoo!

8:30 p.m. (doors 6:30), Trocaderos, 107 Third Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612-465-0440; $10 ($30 VIP pass includes hors d’oeuvres, reserved seating, gift bag, and a consultations with Belladerm Medspa).