Minnesota Orchestra on the rocks: What—if anything—should be done?
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Admittedly, I was trying to be provocative when I titled a recent blog post “Does It Matter That No One Gives a Shit About Classical Music Any More?” Even so, I was surprised at the intensity of the response from Tangential readers, many of who were furious with me for dismissing the many people who do care about classical music—and for suggesting that the Minnesota Orchestra, now poised to enter year two of its hiatus due to a labor dispute—is not much missed.Point taken: there are a lot of people in Minnesota and beyond who are passionate about classical music, and who fervently hope the Minnesota Orchestra gets quickly back in action. The difficult question remains, though: what, if anything, should be done about what New York Times writer James Oestreich calls an “agonizing and seemingly inexplicable” impasse between musicians and management? This is a question of concern not only to classical music fans but to the entire community, insofar as the Minnesota Orchestra’s budget shortfall will have to be made up somehow if the ensemble is to return to glory.The detailed story of how the orchestra reached this point is complicated, and both management and musicians have been pointing fingers. The basic problem is money: there’s not enough of it. Continue Reading
Happy birthday to us! A party celebrating seven years of citizen journalism
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On May 1, the Twin Cities Daily Planet marked seven years since its official launch in 2006. On May 21, we celebrated with a big party at Cause Spirits & Soundbar. Lolla Mohammed Nur emceed a presentation that spotlighted citizen journalists Elizabeth Thao and Kristoffer Tigue, and after some sound-system snafus were sorted out, DJ Stacy Schwartz—a Daily Planet contributor herself—got the house rocking. Thanks to the hundreds of citizen journalists who have made the Twin Cities Daily Planet a national model of participatory journalism! Continue Reading
MN VIDEOS | Art-a-Whirl 1996: What the first year looked like
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Art-a-Whirl, now the largest art crawl in the country, had its start in 1996. John Akre was then a volunteer at MTN, and created a 40-minute documentary about the new Northeast Minneapolis event. He’s now edited the documentary down to a more concise five minutes to provide this peek into the past. Continue Reading
Theatre in the Round’s “Treasure Island” and the power of imagination
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I try not to let commenters bug me, but one who did succeed in getting my dander up was an anonymous (of course) commenter on my negative review of the Jungle Theater’s Noises Off. In the review I said that people would be better off watching the 1992 film adaptation, and this commenter condescendingly sneered that comparing a theatrical production to a movie was patent evidence of my incompentence as a critic. “No critic worth anything would compare stage to screen. They’re completely different mediums and completely different techniques are used to accomplish them. I’m amazed that someone with two masters degrees doesn’t know that.”Obviously I do understand the difference between a play and a movie (though this commenter was never convinced of that), but the more reviews I write, the more I see the similarities among successful shows—whether they’re Hollywood blockbusters or shoestring community theater productions. Continue Reading
Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition Blog
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A blog by members of the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, a nonprofit organization advocating for a safe cycling city.
“The Great Gatsby” and the Great Pumpkin: Writers who wrestled with their Minnesota pasts
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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.”It’s a sentiment expressed late in Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby (1925). Continue Reading
It’s going to be an “African Summer” at the Cedar Cultural Center
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The Cedar Cultural Center has just announced the lineup for its “African Summer” series: six concerts featuring performers representing the power and diversity of African music today.The series begins on June 11 with Bombino, a Tuareg guitarist whose new album Nomad was produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys.On June 15, the Cedar will host M.anifest, the Ghanaian rapper who has been a part of the Twin Cities community since coming to attend Macalester college in 2001.Femi Kuti, the oldest son of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, will take the Cedar stage on June 26.The series continues on June 28 with the remarkable Amadou & Mariam, a couple who met as members of the orchestra at Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind. They married in 1980 and have been making beautiful music together ever since—though they never made it to Minnesota until 2012, when a sold-out crowd welcomed them to the Cedar.Another guitar wizard plays the Cedar on July 9. Vieux Farka Touré, of Mali, is often called “the Hendrix of the Sahara.”The series concludes on July 10 with Fendika, a troupe of musicians and dancers representing Ethiopia’s azmari tradition of poetic song.Coverage of issues and events affecting Central Corridor communities is funded in part by a grant from the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative. Continue Reading
MOVIE REVIEW | “Iron Man 3” punches the clock
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You can see what they were thinking with Iron Man 3. After the escalating robotic carnage of the first two films in the franchise, followed by the grand fracas of The Avengers—in which Iron Man went through a wormhole to another part of the universe, then plopped back down to the pavement just in time for happy hour at Guy Fieri’s—it must have seemed like it was time for a relatively low-key outing, getting Robert Downey Jr. out of the suit and going back to basics. Maybe a subplot involving a cute kid.This Iron Man, though, is all too earthbound—both literally and in the sense of the action-movie clichés that it wearily rehashes. The villain is a zero, the romance is a snooze, the cute kid is a paper doll. To paraphrase a much more entertaining action-movie kid, there’s no time for love, Mr. Stark.Except that there is, because the forces of evil here are so meandering that not only are they vulnerable to some personal-security gadgets Tony Stark buys at Home Depot, the bad guys wait around for Stark to buy the gadgets and rig ‘em up. Continue Reading
Remembering John Munger: The best of his writing for the Twin Cities Daily Planet
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Along with the rest of the Twin Cities arts community, I was saddened this week to learn of the death of John Munger, a great talent, enthusiastic supporter, and vibrant presence on the Minnesota dance scene for decades.Throughout his life—including up until very recently—John was active as a dancer, choreographer, impresario, and scholar. I had the good fortune to see John perform twice: at the Walker Art Center’s Choreographers’ Evening in 2010, and, the previous year, at the Bryant-Lake Bowl when he presented his shocking, darkly funny solo show Nutbuster!!—a reimagination of The Nutcracker that presented the classic story as a bizarre fantasy in the head of a lonely man in a small room.John also wrote extensively about dance and theater—including as a blogger for the Twin Cities Daily Planet. With Matthew Everett, Wendy Gennaula, Kate Hoff, and Phillip Andrew Bennett Low, John was one of the “Fringe bloggers” who came to us en masse in 2008. The five had formerly blogged on the Fringe site, and coming to the Daily Planet—at the Fringe’s encouragement—was a way for them all to continue blogging together while keeping a safer editorial distance from the Fringe itself. Those five were later joined by Rachel Reiva, Morgan Halaska, and me.Over the five years he wrote for us, John had a lot to say—Fringewise and otherwise. Continue Reading