Dance as deep listening: “Weave” by Rosy Simas Danse comes to the Ordway

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Rosy Simas of Rosy Simas Danse is Haudenosaunee, Seneca, Heron Clan. She brings a Native feminist lens to the contemporary dance world with her body of work, the latest of which is “Weave,” a collaborative dance project. “Weave” will make its debut on Jan. 12 at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts, a co-commissioner in collaboration with The O’Shaughnessy. Simas describes the upcoming performance as a glimpse into a much larger experience that extends before and after for those involved. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | Sally Rousse and Noah Bremer pay tribute to August Strindberg with “Kom Hit!” at the American Swedish Institute

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Johan August Strindberg is known mostly as a prolific author of plays, novels, poetry and essays; he also painted, married around four times and was mentally unstable. His most produced play is likely Miss Julie (1888), a naturalistic and class-criticizing piece. He dabbled in philosophy and the occult and wrote novels considered to be Sweden’s first modern literature. He was also fond of photographing himself (see ASI’s exhibit ” The Image of Strindberg”). The American Swedish Institute is presenting an array of events to acquaint us with the work of this enigmatic figure. You are given a mustache to wear upon arriving to see Sally Rousse and Noah Bremer’s Kom Hit! (which translates to Come Here!). Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | Ghostbridge Theatre’s surreal “Drowning” floats

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The Twin Cities is full of little theater companies run by people committed to their concept and the chance to produce their work. Despite general interest and my diligence following theater here, I am still amazed at the new companies I continue to discover. This week I found a sweetly experimental “dedicated to the performance-of-original-work” theater company Ghostbridge Theatre performing Jeff Nichols Drowning at the Cedar Riverside People’s Center Theater. The show was originally developed at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and later performed at the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival before coming here. Nichols and Ghostbridge Theatre offer up about  a show a year, restaging and reworking pieces that he had in his back pocket. Based on the images from their website, each new reworking looks and feels different, as the actors and designers alter and develop the concepts in each production. Continue Reading

REVIEW | Morgan Thorson’s “YOU” officially opens the Bedlam Lowertown space

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As Sheila Regan reported at the beginning of this month, Bedlam has had access to the space in Lowertown Saint Paul directly across from the Union Depot for almost two years. The slow renovation process she describes is ostensibly almost finished (to wit, the paint and floor were off-gassing this evening, as part of the festive atmosphere). With Morgan Thorsonn’s dance production YOU, the space is officially open for business and there will be more soft openings as they add a bar and full kitchen to complement the performance space.Bedlam’s offerings always embody the independent spirit of their mission. The theater space is extremely flexible with all variations of seating available to fill the wide-open space – seating plan on demand. For this show, the seating was layered with the front row of low slatted, just-off-the floor seating supplied the beach-chair feeling. Continue Reading