What’s happening this week
On the radar
It’s been a long time coming, but the new Cowles Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Minneapolis is finally ready to officially open its doors—which it’s doing with a groundbreaker dance battle on Saturday. Can’t we all just get along?
After being absent last summer, the Walker Art Center’s Music & Movies series returns to Loring Park with Haley Bonar opening for Alfred Hitchcock. You’ll have to go inside to hear Cloud Cult, though—they’re playing in front of the cube wall at Orchestra Hall on Friday night, with Caroline Smith opening. Afterwards, had east to the Varsity Theater, where the Recess dance party upgrades to the weekend from its former Thursday slot.
Meanwhile, deep down in the wilds of St. Paul, Circus Juventas opens its annual show under the big top; and up in the urban jungle of Marcy-Holmes, the Soap Factory hosts a LARP event that’s part game, part performance art. Yeah, I don’t quite get it either.
Under the radar
Two big community art events are going down this weekend: the FLOW Northside Arts Crawl, and Stevens Square’s Red Hot Art Festival. Sound rather than vision is the order of the day at the first annual Lowertown Roots Music Festival.
Literally (I use that word carefully) under the radar on Thursday night is Spoutstock, the annual battle of the bands at Mario’s Keller Bar to benefit the erstwhile local imprint Spout Press. Finally, just in case there might happen to be any dog people out there, on Friday night Northeast Minneapolis is hosting its annual…[bracing for stampede]…puppy parade.
Daily Planet arts roundup
• A dance to Jewish life (feature by Mordecai Specktor)
• Book Art Biennial opens in Minneapolis July 30 (neighborhood note by Mary Treacy)
• Captain America: The First Avenger could have been worse (review by Tony Libera)
• What U2’s songs would be titled if U2 were from Minnesota (blog post by Christopher Vondracek)
• What I would have tweeted from the U2 concert at TCF Bank Stadium if there hadn’t been an absence of service and an abundance of rain (review by Jay Gabler)
• 2011 MN Black Music Awards honor artists past and present (feature by Paris Porter)
• Fringe-for-All #1 (blog post by Phillip Andrew Bennett Low)
• Yellow Tree Theatre’s Love Letters: Simple and moving (review by Bev Wolfe)
• Ex-Gays by Savage Umbrella: “The back of our minds. The center of our hearts.” (review by Matthew A. Everett)
• Oh, the Humanity by the Peanut Butter Factory: “The secret sideways dreams of people like us” (review by Matthew A. Everett)
• Actor Rainn Wilson delights Guthrie audience (feature by Barb Teed)
• Welcome to Our Neighborhood at the Cedar Cultural Center: On the street where they live (feature by Christopher Kehoe)
• Fringe 2011—Fringe Blog Interruptus (blog post by Matthew A. Everett)
• Fringe 2011—Uncle Tom’s Condo: “That might be the first sing-along I’ve ever seen at a Fringe preview” (blog post by Matthew A. Everett)
• Fringe 2011—Scotus: Go, playwright! (blog post by Matthew A. Everett)
• Fringe 2011—A Good-Natured Gut: Dancing from the neck up as well as down (blog post by Matthew A. Everett)
• Fringe 2011—A Little Bit of Vegas: Wow, I’m really gay, Part 1 (blog post by Matthew A. Everett)
• Fringe 2011—Nightmare Man: Wow, I’m really gay, Part 2 (blog post by Matthew A. Everett)
• Shakespeare Xposed: The History Monologues (blog post by Phillip Andrew Bennett Low)
• Super Spectacular: To Opera With Love (blog post by Phillip Andrew Bennett Low)
• How Helicopters Figure in My Dreams (blog post by Phillip Andrew Bennett Low)
• Growing lots (blog post by Jennifer Larson)
• Grace Center for Community Life at one year old (feature by Margo Ashmore)
• Eat Local Farm Tour on July 30 (feature by Jeanette Fordyce)
• Weakening factory farm rules in the midnight hour (blog post by Brian DeVore)
• Fruits of the City freshens food shelf fare in Twin Cities (feature by Drew Kerr)
• Show Minneapolis’s Familia skateboard crew some love, and help them get to Barcelona (blog post by Jay Gabler)
• A lazy, hazy, back of my neck getting dirt and gritty kind of week (blog post by Steve Date)
• Garden of Hope (St. Paul note by Mary Turck)
• Who needs Sturgis? (blog post by Steve Date)
• Choobideh and lefse: Cross-cultural heritages make an interesting blend for Minnesota teen Jaleh Shambayati (feature by Delma J. Francis)
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