Arts

REVIEW | Rob Delaney, Neko Case and Kelly Hogan combine forces for a very musical Wits at the Fitzgerald Theater

Photo courtesy Neko Case

The Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul held yet another sold out Wits production on Friday, May 10. Although this season of Wits (and every season, for that matter) boasts some fantastic lineups, it was hard to say which of its three guest the audience was more excited for this time: internet comedian Rob Delaney or noted solo artist Neko Case (also a big slice of the New Pornographers pie). While Delaney and Case were definitely considered the “big ticket items,” the addition of singer Kelly Hogan was a welcome one.

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May Day feeds our souls

As we walked to our car after spending our Sunday at the May Day Festival, a fellow pedestrian wished us a happy May Day. He added, “It’s Minnesota Christmas!” We laughed, but it wasn’t far off.

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"I’m Not Your Indian Any More": Over 40 years of American Indian Movement history featured in exhibit

The American Indian Movement will open its first exhibit telling the story of its history on May 10th at the All My Relations Gallery. Planning for the exhibit has been underway for months, as Executive Director Clyde Bellecourt and AIM’s board of directors worked to narrow down thousands of choices to a fraction of the holdings that depict the history of the Movement. They chose a photographic exhibit, featuring the work of Dick Bancroft, long known informally as the “AIM photographer,” and Roger Woo, a photographer who worked in black and white in AIM’s earliest years.

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Hava Nagila (The Movie) will be screened May 23 at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis

Hava nagila, hava nagila (Let us rejoice, let us rejoice) / Hava nagila ve-nismecha (Let us rejoice and be glad)

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Photographer Dick Bancroft chronicles American Indian Movement in new book, exhibits

John Fire Lame Deer, a Mineconju-Lakota spiritual leader who was born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. (Photo: Dick Bancroft, from We Are Still Here)

Dick Bancroft began photographing American Indians in 1971, and became one of the key visual documentarians of the American Indian Movement (AIM), which began as a street patrol against police brutality in Minneapolis and gained global press attention and popularity in the 1970s.

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Neal Gendler reviews Being Esther by Miriam Karmel

A bittersweet joy, the first novel by Miriam Karmel is a perfect-pitch account of living on after a very full life — youth, marriage, child-rearing and social activities — has become the past.

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The Museum of Russian Art to exhibit photographs from Jewish life in the Russian Empire

The vast majority of you reading this article today, like me, had grandparents or great-grandparents who came to America during the Great Migration from Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1920. The vast majority of them came from what was designated “the Pale of Settlement,” a swath of the western part of Catherine the Great’s Russian Empire, established in the late 18th century.

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MUSIC REVIEW | Jesse Cook makes it a double at the Pantages Theatre

Photos by Patrick Dunn

Although most of us don’t get the opportunity to dine in the café’s of Seville or dance in the clubs of Havana, it is possible to experience a sense of that cultural vibe in our own city through live music performance. That’s just what took place Thursday, May 9 within the doors of the fabulous Pantages Theatre where Canadian guitarist Jesse Cook and his band transported fans with their style of Rumba Flamenco. Cook is touring in support of his current release “The Blue Guitar Sessions,” a definite shift from the fiery upbeat tunes he’s best known for. Although the mood of the album is "blue," the melodies are beautiful and built around the idea of leaving space to appreciate how Cook crafts each note to deliver the intended message.

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"The Great Gatsby" and the Great Pumpkin: Writers who wrestled with their Minnesota pasts

Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann's new film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

It was my friend Eric Bennett who drew my attention to a reference made by Bob Dylan to his fellow Minnesota escapee, F. Scott Fitzgerald. In Dylan’s song “Summer Days,” from 2001’s Love and Theft, a woman looking into the narrator’s eyes and holding his hand tells him he can’t repeat the past. “You can’t?” he replies. “What do you mean, you can’t? Of course you can.”

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