Paul SchmelzerThe Green Room: From on stage, back stage and the theater seats, the Performing Arts blog illuminates the intersecting worlds of dance, theater, and music.
Magnetic Force: Remembering Tim Carr
Record label exec and music curator Tim Carr’s successes on the national level are well known: as an A&R rep for Capitol, Warner Bros., and Dreamworks he worked with bands from David Byrne to Megadeth to Cibo Matto, and, most famously, he’s credited with signing the Beastie Boys to Capitol. But news of Carr’s death in [...]
Tim Carr, circa 1979, wearing his M-80 t-shirt. Photo: Greg Helgeson
Record label exec and music curator Tim Carr’s successes on the national level are well known: as an A&R rep for Capitol, Warner Bros., and Dreamworks he worked with bands from David Byrne to Megadeth to Cibo Matto, and, most famously, he’s credited with signing the Beastie Boys to Capitol. But news of Carr’s death in Thailand last week at age 57 hit us closer to home: Carr got his start in the Twin Cities, including a stint at the Walker Art Center from 1978 to 1981, during which he produced the M-80 festival, widely noted as a key moment in Minneapolis’ rise as a music mecca.
Raised in Hopkins, Carr started out as a music critic for the Minneapolis Tribune in the late ’70s, before coming to the Walker as associate director of Performing Arts. He worked on programs still talked about today, including projects with Brian Eno, David Byrne, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. But he’s perhaps best remembered for his role as organizer of M-80 (Marathon ’80: A New-No-Now Festival). Music writer Jim Walsh recently reflected on the Walker-sponsored festival, which was held at the University of Minnesota Fieldhouse on September 22 and 23, 1979:
With the scent of sawdust permeating the airplane hangar-size barn, the weekend served to simultaneously bid adieu to the ’70s and light the fuse on the ’80s with performances from new music pioneers the Contortions, DEVO (performing as DOVE), the Fleshtones, the Suburbs, NNB, the Girls, the Commandos, the dB’s, Fingerprints, Monochrome Set, and many more, all joined under the same flag of raw, no frills, forward-pushing rock-as-art.
The festival was hugely influential for a generation of musicians, notes Walsh, including Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould, who said it felt like “something historic was happening.” Mould wrote: “In my mind, it was equal to Woodstock or Altamont or the Beatles at Shea Stadium. There was a great scene building in the Twin Cities.”
A focus on that scene and the artists at the center of it are what Chuck Helm remembers of his time working at the Walker with Carr. Now director of Performing Arts at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Helm is the former technical director for Walker Performing Arts (and, later, music consultant). “As an A&R rep, Tim could hustle with the best of them anywhere, anytime but also champion the artists he cared so deeply about with a passion few could match,” he recalled. “He was a fun-loving force, always with his finger firmly on the pulse of what was happening and with an incredible entrepreneurial flair for spreading his enthusiasm to others.
“He stirred up action at the Walker as well as all around the Twin Cities where his presence at the Longhorn or First Avenue meant that the party was truly on. As fantastic as his knack was for what was breaking in the world of music, Tim was equally at home with artists in all fields like Cindy Sherman and Bill T. Jones, among many others, who all greatly respected his spirit and skills.”
Carr in his office at the Walker. Photo: Margy Ligon, via the Tim Carr Memorial Page, Facebook
After moving to New York in the early ’80s, Carr stayed connected to the Minnesota music scene, including through his work with Minneapolis-based alt-rock band Babes In Toyland. Drummer Lori Barbero recalls that Carr, who signed the band to Reprise, was friends with many contemporary artists, eventually introducing the band to Cindy Sherman, who appeared in a Babes video and whose photographs appear on the covers of two albums.
Philip Bither, the Walker’s Senior Curator of Performing Arts, didn’t overlap with Carr at the Walker, but he’s long admired him, both in Bither’s pre-Walker years as associate director/music curator at Brooklyn Academy of Music and after Carr moved to New York. “He had a real impact both as a music curator in the not-for-profit world and in the commercial recording business, not easy worlds to straddle,” he said. “He kind of defined the free-wheeling, deal-making, fiercely independent A&R guy, but one who retained a very strong artistic sensibility and a deep love for vanguard music and art makers.”
Carr’s career saw diverse music projects, from a few music programs he curated at BAM before Bither’s stint there to, most recently, Ramakien, a “rak opera” directed by Rirkrit Tiravanija that Carr ultimately produced at the Lincoln Center Festival (with Festival Director Nigel Redden, for whom he had curated a number of music events when Nigel was the Walker’s director of Performing Arts).
“Tim was a force and an intriguing, magnetic presence,” Bither said. “He made a lot of great things happen for musicians and artists, especially from the ’70s through the ’9os. He will be missed.”
Where (Sō Percussion) Lives
In its newest performance, Where (We) Live, Brooklyn-based Sō Percussion gets personal, looking at the physcial, emotional, and symbolic manifestations of “home.” As the chamber quartet (Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting) writes on its website, “Using our studio in Brooklyn as a laboratory, we often create music that is about ‘place:’ [...]
In its newest performance, Where (We) Live, Brooklyn-based Sō Percussion gets personal, looking at the physcial, emotional, and symbolic manifestations of “home.” As the chamber quartet (Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting) writes on its website, “Using our studio in Brooklyn as a laboratory, we often create music that is about ‘place:’ a city, our immediate sonic environment, even how the past resonates where we are today.” In advance of Friday and Saturday’s world-premiere performances of the Walker-commissioned piece (and Thursday night’s artist’s talk with the group), Sō’s Adam Sliwinski invites us into the intimacy of the Sō Percussion studio and shares snapshots of the objects there and the stories they tell.
I bought these shelves a few years ago. Every once in a while, we become completely overloaded with gear. The place is a gigantic mess most of the time, no matter how much we organize it. So like all New Yorkers, vertical storage is the name of the game. Top shelf is a lovely assortment of tin cans; next down are old planks from Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood and [David] Lang’s The So-Called Laws of Nature. They really come in handy. After that are almglocken and glass bottles, and finally a cymbal rack.
Eric’s table setup. When So creates music together from scratch, each of us fills our tables with stuff that interests us. Then, as the occasion arises, we fit it in to the music that’s congealing. Inevitably, each of us needs to have a little spread of toys handy. The keyboard here is from an insane piece that Dan Trueman wrote for us. He started the laptop orchestra at Princeton. Eric has been delving into Ableton Live within our pieces.
Toy piano from my setup. I have a little woodblock there for one of the songs in particular. I found myself coming back to the sound of the toy piano over and over again during this project. There’s something naïve about the instrument, but it also creates this perfectly percussive color.
Josh’s table setup. I wouldn’t say that Josh is a “hoarder,” but let’s just say that he has a certain obsession with collecting and placing bits of gear in his setup. As I understand it, these pedals chain to each other in a gnarly flow of causality. On the left is a little notebook that he’s been keeping since the beginning of the project: every sketch, every little experiment is in there. I, on the other hand, am lucky to have the same music in my hand from last week.
Jason’s table setup. Jason is the Paganini of the deskbells. Some days, equal parts Brooklyn coffee and Sweet Action beer 
are required to get through.
A door. Jason makes really beautiful Rauschenberg-esque collages and objects. We’ve been using this door as a projection surface for the videos in Where (we) Live. Jason once made a collage for Merce Cunningham as a gift that Merce placed in John Cage’s rock garden in their apartment. Also, we visited Robert Rauschenberg’s younger sister in Louisiana. Her husband is a big game hunter, so their walls are decorated equally with priceless works of art and giant bear heads.
A view out of our window in the studio. That’s the Empire State Building. When we first moved into this space, I set my desk up with this view and stared out the window, especially at nighttime. I grew up in the South and the Midwest, and the idea that the Empire State Building might be outside the window of my own percussion studio where I made this amazing music was beyond my capacity to imagine. It still strains it.
Introducing The Green Room
It’s been seven years since we launched the Walker Blogs, and with the release of our new homepage back in December we thought it was finally time for a refresh. You’ll notice that the design has changed to align with our new website, and we’ve used the opportunity to rebrand each of our core blogs, [...]
It’s been seven years since we launched the Walker Blogs, and with the release of our new homepage back in December we thought it was finally time for a refresh. You’ll notice that the design has changed to align with our new website, and we’ve used the opportunity to rebrand each of our core blogs, focus our offerings, and give readers a better sense of what they’ll find inside. Don’t worry though, the name might have changed, but this is still the blog of the Performing Arts department. And as such, we remain committed to bringing you views of Walker performance and performers, both onstage and backstage, plus the space for community discussion through our ongoing series of overnight reviews penned by Twin Cities artists and critics. We hope you like the new look and come back to see what we’re up to!
Lisps with the Lights on
After opening night of a three-performance run of the Lisp’s musical FUTURITY, we got on stage to take a look at the set design, specifically the “Steam Brain,” the artificial intelligence device Civil War soldier Julian Munro tries to create in the performance. The Brain, a percussion sculpture/assemblage art piece, was built by Lisps drummer [...]
After opening night of a three-performance run of the Lisp’s musical FUTURITY, we got on stage to take a look at the set design, specifically the “Steam Brain,” the artificial intelligence device Civil War soldier Julian Munro tries to create in the performance. The Brain, a percussion sculpture/assemblage art piece, was built by Lisps drummer Eric Farber out of objects from dumpster-diving missions, alley walks, and sessions of flea market haggling. Elements of the contraption with moving parts were made by Farber with help from Peter Doucette, Stephen Setterlun, and the staff of the American Repertory Theater scene shop. The show’s iconic backdrop, a rusted, painted sheet of metal, as well as other visual elements — including books and letters from the era — are the work of production designer Emily Orling. Here’s an up-close look at what you’ll see on stage during Friday and Saturday night’s performances of FUTURITY.
The Rock the Garden 2012 Lineup
The Rock the Garden 2012 lineup was announced at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul Wednesday. Here’s who’s playing this year’s show: 5. Howler, Minneapolis, Minn. 4. tUne-yArDs, Oakland, Calif. 3. Doomtree, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn. 2. Trampled by Turtles, Duluth, Minn. 1. The Hold Steady, Brooklyn, New York Don’t miss our interview with the Hold [...]
The Rock the Garden 2012 lineup was announced at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul Wednesday. Here’s who’s playing this year’s show:
5. Howler, Minneapolis, Minn.
4. tUne-yArDs, Oakland, Calif.
3. Doomtree, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn.
2. Trampled by Turtles, Duluth, Minn.
1. The Hold Steady, Brooklyn, New York
Don’t miss our interview with the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, who discusses the Twin Cities music scene, his new brew, and the secret to his songwriting.
BUY TICKETS:
Update: Rock the Garden is now sold out. Tickets go on sale to Walker and MPR members Wednesday, April 18, at 4 pm online through Etix.com.
Walker/MPR membership ID numbers will be required for all pre-sale purchases.
Remaining tickets will go on sale to the general public on Friday, April 20, at 12 noon.
Walker Membership: 612.375.7655 or membership.walkerart.org. MPR Membership: 1.800.228.7123
Bunny-Hopping on Ice with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
The Art Shanty Projects — the Minnesota ritual that for eight winters has had artists reimagining ice-fishing shacks as tiny community art centers — is, for me, one of the most amazing features of the creative landscape here. Instead of merely enduring Minnesota’s inarguably harsh winters, participating ASP artists embrace it through wildly creative interventions [...]
The Art Shanty Projects — the Minnesota ritual that for eight winters has had artists reimagining ice-fishing shacks as tiny community art centers — is, for me, one of the most amazing features of the creative landscape here. Instead of merely enduring Minnesota’s inarguably harsh winters, participating ASP artists embrace it through wildly creative interventions on ice. Given its uniqueness — which attracted the attention of NPR yesterday — it’s no surprise that we bring artists out to Medicine Lake whenever we can. Here’s one example: When Belgian dancer/choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker was in town for the Walker’s 2008 performance of FASE: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich, she found herself out on the ice with assistant Performing Arts curator Michèle Steinwald and the dance company’s director, Kees Eijrond. Why they were there, in Steinwald’s words: “so we could participate in trying to break the world record for the longest bunny hop on a frozen lake (formerly held by Minnesota before Wisconsin took it away). That is why Anne is making bunny ears with her hands. We were so cold!”
The 2012 edition of the Art Shanty Projects closes February 5.
Today is Merce Cunningham Day in Chicago
Today is Merce Cunningham Day in Chicago, thanks to a proclamation from the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel — himself a former dancer. Coinciding with this weekend’s performances at Columbia College, the decree celebrates the late “Cunningham’s extraordinary love of dance” and honors “the last dancers he chose and trained for the company.” In addition to [...]
Today is Merce Cunningham Day in Chicago, thanks to a proclamation from the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel — himself a former dancer. Coinciding with this weekend’s performances at Columbia College, the decree celebrates the late “Cunningham’s extraordinary love of dance” and honors “the last dancers he chose and trained for the company.”
In addition to being President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, Emanuel is a dance enthusiast who turned down a scholarship from the city’s prestigious ballet and instead studied dance at Sarah Lawrence. He reportedly took ballet classes up until the birth of his second child. The New Yorker sums up his experience:
Emanuel received dance training in high school, and danced for a year at Sarah Lawrence after turning down a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet School; as a freshman, he appeared in a modern-dance piece called “Desire.”
As mayor, Emanuel has promoted dance heavily, most notably through this August’s Chicago Dancing Festival. He was named an honorary board member of the Joffrey this June for being “a vocal proponent of elevating Chicago’s performing and visual arts community to even higher international recognition.”
In his proclamation, Emanuel noted that the Cunningham company — which brought its final Legacy Tour to the Walker early this month — has performed numerous times in Chicago, “a city that Merce himself stated has ‘wonderful audience for dance.”
“[I]t’s impossible not to be moved by this news,” writes New York Times dance critic Alastair Macaulay. “It’s thrilling to find a leading political figure showing this degree of appreciation for a historic moment in dance.”
Here’s the full text of the proclamation (pdf):
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR, CITY OF CHICAGO
RAHM EMANUEL, MayorPROCLAMATION
WHEREAS, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company is making its final appearance in Chicago November 18-19 near the completion of an historic two-year, world-wide Legacy Tour; and
WHEREAS, the Tour will celebrate the creativity of American choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) and feature the final generation of dancers chosen and trained by Cunningham himself; and
WHEREAS, Cunningham’s lifelong passion for dance and his innovative choreography continues to inspire generations of audiences and dance artists, putting forth new concepts for the choreography, dance technique and artistic collaboration in concert dance; and
WHEREAS, over the past 60 years the Cunningham Dance Company has appeared many times in Chicago, a city that Merce himself stated “has wonderful audience for dance”; and
WHEREAS, it is fitting to honor Cunningham’s extraordinary love of dance, as well as honor the last dancers he chose and trained for his company:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, RAHM EMANUEL, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO, do hereby proclaim November 18, 2011, to be MERCE CUNNINGHAM DAY IN CHICAGO, and urge all Chicagoans to recognize many contributions made by Merce Cunningham Dance Company and its final generation of dancers trained by Merce Cunningham.
Dated this 3rd Day of November, 2011.
Drawing Dance: The Cunningham Company at the Walker
For his latest installment of the New York Times‘ “Drawing Dance” series, Brooklyn artist Kenneth Parris sketched members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company when their farewell Legacy Tour came to Minneapolis. Parris – interviewed for the Performing Arts blog two weeks ago — drew company members Marcie Munnerlyn, Silas Riener, Melissa Toogood, Daniel Madoff, [...]
For his latest installment of the New York Times‘ “Drawing Dance” series, Brooklyn artist Kenneth Parris sketched members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company when their farewell Legacy Tour came to Minneapolis. Parris – interviewed for the Performing Arts blog two weeks ago — drew company members Marcie Munnerlyn, Silas Riener, Melissa Toogood, Daniel Madoff, and John Hinrichs outside the Walker’s McGuire Theater.
“As we exit the elevator of the Walker Art Center after another post-show reception, the search for a restaurant that is still open begins again,” Parris wrote for the Times. “Dylan Crossman describes the typical line of questions: ‘Did anyone get recommendations? How far is it? Let’s call to see how late the kitchen is open.’ After a whole day in the theater, it’s important to unwind, have a drink and some good food before going back to the hotel.”
So where’d the company tend to end up? The downtown Minneapolis Irish pub, The Local, Parris reports: “It was open late, a short walk to and from the hotel and was able to accommodate large crowds.”
Post-script: Merce Cunningham Dance Company signs Walker wall
The McGuire Theater’s backstage wall added another set of signatures last week, and these were pretty historic: Following their Walker performances, members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company added their names. The Walker is among the final venues of the company’s two-year Legacy Tour, which performs at only seven more sites before the company shuts [...]
The McGuire Theater’s backstage wall added another set of signatures last week, and these were pretty historic: Following their Walker performances, members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company added their names. The Walker is among the final venues of the company’s two-year Legacy Tour, which performs at only seven more sites before the company shuts down permanently on December 31. These dancers are the last Cunningham, who died in 2009, personally trained.
Working-Class Grace: Kenneth Parris on sketching the Merce Cunningham Dance Company
“I’m fascinated by what drives people to get out of bed and to push the Sisyphean boulder up the hill again and again,” says Kenneth Parris on his New York Times sketches of dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. “Under the patina of grace and glamour, there lies a working-class ethic.”
Company members Marcie Munnerlyn, Dylan Crossman and Robert Swinston
Drawn to the raw physicality of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s dancers, Brooklyn artist Kenneth E. Parris III set out 20 months ago to document the company’s Legacy Tour. Yet despite the appeal of the performers’ athleticism, he chose not to focus on the company’s historic final performances: Instead, he’s been chronicling the dancers’ off-stage time through a series of graphite sketches – 16 and counting – for the New York Times.
Parris, who describes his own upbringing as blue collar, acknowledges respect for the grueling work – often performed through injuries – of making movement seem effortless on stage, and that’s part of what he aims to capture in his drawings.
“I’m fascinated by what drives people to get out of bed and to push the Sisyphean boulder up the hill again and again,” he said in a recent interview. “Under the patina of grace and glamour, there lies a working-class ethic. I saw this tour as an opportunity to explore and tell the dancer’s story from a different perspective.”
Parris’ self-financed project, which has taken him from Monaco to Jerusalem to London to Mexico City, this week brings him to Minneapolis, where he’ll commemorate the company’s final performance – one of many over the five-decade relationship between the Walker and the late Merce Cunningham – through an artwork. He recently took time to discuss the project and his relationship with the company.
Melissa Toogood visits the doctor in Austin
Paul Schmelzer: Do you have experience with dance, or are you learning the culture of the dance world — “the dancer’s way of life,” as the series intro in the New York Times says — as you go along?
Kenneth Parris: My parents made it their duty to expose my sisters and me to art, music, dance, and sports. Even though we’re a working-class family, art has always been viewed and celebrated as an essential part of life.
When I met a Cunningham dancer through a friend I started attending performances. Several months later, I met Melissa Toogood, who was a RUG [a member of the Repertory Understudy Group] at the time. We started dating and through living together, I was able to see how demanding it is to perform at this level. I get the impression that few administrators within dance organizations — let alone the rest of the public — understand the number of hours dancers spend outside rehearsals maintaining their physicality and working through injuries and chronic pain. Merce’s work, and the final two-year Legacy Tour in particular, is physically and emotionally challenging. Through a bit of a leap of faith, the dancers were generous enough to let me into their private lives so I could gain the insight needed to do this work.
Schmelzer: There’s something fascinating about the analog nature of drawing in this age of digital photography: It seems more expressive and also more anachronistic. What are you finding to be the medium’s strengths in telling the stories of your experiences and the final tour of the company? Are there metaphors that come to mind for what you do (the courtroom sketch artist, the official army artist, the embedded war correspondent)?
Parris: I have approached this project like a documentary. When I first proposed this to the dancers, I had ideas of what I wanted but wasn’t really sure where it would take me. Photographing and drawing them has been a little bit like capturing wildlife. They’re unpredictable; you just never know what you are going to get. But mostly, I have trusted my instincts and paid attention to what’s going on around me, and then I’ll see something interesting.
Using a digital camera has given me the immediacy I need, but drawing has given me more versatility. I am not married to the photograph when it’s a reference, and with graphite I have more freedom to manipulate the image. I am able to steer the viewer’s attention not just with the use of composition and negative and positive space but with lighting and selective development; what I choose to render in more detail and what I allow to drop off. Similar to how Alexey Brodovitch was able to control aspects of his images in the dark room for his ballet book, I can put more focus on creating an atmosphere.
Krista Nelson and Robert Swinston biking in Berlin
It’s not about rendering a perfect likeness, it’s about capturing a moment or a spirit of the moment. I can draw the whole figure but put more emphasis on a dancers lips and sunglasses or highlight how expressive someone’s hair or hand may be to tell a particular aspect of a story. Through the end of the tour, my plan is to continue to focus on drawing and next year I will start a series of paintings. I am looking forward to re-working compositions, putting a combination of drawings together, and working with paint and color.
Schmelzer: Your artist statement says you draw inspiration from movement — a perfect match for a world-renowned dance company — yet you’re not drawing dance, but instead you focus on what goes on when company members aren’t on stage. Why?
Parris: Seeing Merce’s work inspired me to question possibilities within my own. I feel like I started to see more subtlety in movement, and dancers clearly have so much more knowledge and control over how their bodies move through space. We have seen art that focuses on performance and rehearsal, like the paintings of Degas, for example.
But I’m also fascinated in what drives people to get out of bed and to push the Sisyphean boulder up the hill again and again. These dancers are driven and dedicated to their craft and what they do onstage seems so unattainable. For most of us it is just that. But under the patina of grace and glamour, there lies a working-class ethic. I saw this tour as an opportunity to explore and tell the dancer’s story from a different perspective.
Schmelzer: A reviewer from The Observer reveled in Merce’s close observation of the natural world: “He records with absolute precision the way that currents of activity flicker through a group as it responds to an atmospheric change or unsettling event; the way that patterns form and dissolve, giving the momentary impression of order, of conformity to some unknown set of determinants.” That’s not unlike the part in your artist statement that says you “explore interpersonal relationships and the effect of an individual’s action on the surrounding human landscape.” Do you feel an affinity for the late, great Merce? Have you ever met him? And how is this sentiment from your artist statement manifest in your drawings?
Brandon Collwes, Silas Riener, Jamie Scott, Emma Desjardins in Marseille
Parris: I do feel an affinity for Merce. I continue to be very affected by his work and the dancers that do it. I have met him before and even did a quick pen and ink sketch of him once when I was in St. Cloud for the performance of Ocean at the Rainbow Quarry in 2008. One dancer was injured during rehearsal, and it was amazing to watch Merce work with the others to make adjustments and cover parts. They had very little time and everyone worked together very calm and professionally.
There is a heightened level of intimacy between this group of people. At times, I have seen dancers get frustrated with one another, and I’ve also seen a knowing nod or glance exchanged or a simple touch that seems to say, “I understand, and I am here.”
In a world that seems to glorify hyper-individualism and social dysfunction, this group of people works together everyday on and off stage. It is inspiring to see people contributing to something that is bigger than themselves. I hope that my work captures some of this ethos and stimulates a personal experience for viewers.
Parris’ sketch of Merce Cunningham at the 2008 performance Ocean near St. Cloud, Minn.
The Merce Cunningham Dance Company performs Nov. 4-6 at the Walker’s McGuire Theater. Parris will be here for the performance and promises to share his sketch from the visit.