Performing Arts

I interviewed John Munger, Karen Sherman, and Carl Flink for a story in the July-August issue of Walker magazine. Their insights about the state of dance both locally and nationally were so astute that we’re publishing them in full here on the blogs.

First up is John Munger; we’ll follow with Karen Sherman and Carl Flink.

Munger is a locally based dancer who has, as he says, “been observing the field for 20 years or more, depending on how you look at my job descriptions.” One of those jobs is to create statistical portraits of dance – performers, companies, venues, performances, genres, etc. – both locally and nationally, in his role as director of research and information for Dance USA, a Washington, D.C.-based service organization. Click here for a full bio.

“When my first wife and I were dancing in Colorado and decided to move to a bigger pond, we looked around the country and thought the Twin Cities had a lot of promise. We moved here in 1978. So I’ve been here 31 years and part of the reason I stayed, aside from quality of life and things like that, is because as I’ve been here, the arts and dance communities have fulfilled that promise we saw when we were kids-it’s fulfilled it richly.

My succinct take on the evolution of the dance community here is: During the 1970s, there was an era of a handful of major companies. From about 1980 to 1995 or 1996, there was an era of enormous growth that was based on the efforts of individual choreographers here at home. And for the last 12 yrs or so, that model has grown into larger companies and greater national presence.

There are clearly two major dance centers in America, New York and San Francisco. After those, depending on whom you talk with, about 6 or 8 other cities are named as being among the four most significant, after those centers-including Chicago, the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Seattle, Los Angeles, and greater Washington, D.C.

These cities are not necessarily in competition with each other; rather, they’re all different from each other — we’ve determined this through research. We can quantify ways in which best practices from one community will not translate to another, because these places are genuinely, uniquely different.

And while the Twin Cities are in that group, quite frankly, the hardest message I’ve had to communicate in my 30 years living here is to tell media and the general public that this is one of the key dance communities in the country. It is the most diverse among those secondary those cities, and compact as well-and that is a unique construction.

For example, Seattle has basically 3 categories of dance companies, including a ballet company of major size. We don’t have a $6-million budget flagship ballet company in the Cities, but we do have about 10 categories of dance among our more than 200 companies. There are about 14 companies with budgets over $100,000 (up to $1 million) — including James Sewell Ballet, Ragamala Dance Theater, Shapiro & Smith Dance, Ballet of the Dolls, Zenon Dance Company. There’s also percussive footwork companies, there’s Indian dance. There’s Ethnic Dance Theater. Eastern European/Western Russian dance, classical and contemporary ballet. All these companies have budgets over $100,000.

Not one other city in the country matches our per-capita distribution of companies that size. Chicago actually has about 17 such companies, but their total population is two-and-a-half times our size. We also have more solidly established mid-sized companies in this city, on a per-capita basis, than anywhere else in the U.S. except New York City, which has about 37 mid-sized companies.

That is part of what makes us compact yet varied. We also have variations in age, with highly visible choreographers in their 20s and 30s, 40s, 50s, and even a few in their 60s. We have companies that have been around for 30, 20, and 10 year, as well as those recently formed. We have major mid-level and small upstart organizations working in ballet, in modern, in culturally specific dance, in percussive forms, experimental forms-all of them. We have over 50 nationalities and cultures represented through dance in these cities, and all of this is compressed into a community of about 3.5 million people. If you know where everybody is, you can go see any of them. Whereas in, say, San Francisco, or Brooklyn, those numbers are overwhelming.

This whole picture in the Twin Cities — ages of choreographers, degrees of experience, sizes and duration of companies, dance genres — all of that is richly represented. And that is what brought me here. I’m still here, delighted to be here, it’s a terribly exciting place to be involved with dance.”

Hello Walker friends,

I’d like to introduce myself.  My name is Mark McCloughan and I’m working as an Intern in Performing Arts forthe Summer.  While the summer may seem like a rather quiet time here at the Walker, with only a few events on the calendar(Momentum and Music and Movies in the Park), we’re already busily anticipating next season. 

One of the events I’m looking forward to next season is Micachu and the Shapes.  Playing at the Cedar Cultural Center on September 23, this concert is guaranteed to be fascinating.  One of my jobs so far has been to research press for promotional purposes, so I’ve been reading a lot of stories about this band recently.  There seem to be a few major trends that music journalists and bloggers are picking up on.  The first:

Photo by jystewart

Some bloggers and critics (meaning there’s a mention in every single article you will read about this band) have picked up on the face that one of the tracks on Jewellery, the band’s debut album, prominently features the sound of a dying vacuum cleaner.  While my research neither confirms nor denies whether or not this rare and delicate instrument will make an appearance at this show, Micachu’s art-school pedigree means that this show probably won’t feature a traditional guitar-drums-voice setup.  This brings us to the second point about the band many critics have picked up on:

Photo by kmeron

Mica Levi (Micachu’s real name) has been called an art school prodigy by some (meaning all) critics.  While this isn’t uncommon for an up-and-coming experimental pop musician, Mica’s rather ridiculous list of accomplishments definitely earn her the prodigy label.  Born in 1987, at the ripe old age of 22 she has nonetheless managed to do the following:

• graduate
• release a pair of well-recieved singles
• release a critically acclaimed debut album produced by Matthew Herbert, the famous electronic musician whose current project is a record made entirely from sounds sampled during the lifetime of a single pig (more information at This is a Pig, where Herbert will be chronicling the project)
• compose an orchestral piece for the London Symphony Orchestra
• Tour widely

Levi is remarkably humble about her accomplishments, and in most interviews I’ve read with her she seems to be almost giddy at the fact that she is receiving worldwide acclaim for playing a vacuum cleaner (among other things).  Putting aside my extreme jealousy and violent sense of underachievment, I must say that I am happy for her.  Really, I am.  Aren’t you?

If you only see one avant-pop concert by a band of 22-year-old art school wunderkinds this season, see this one.  You can find more information about the show at the Walker’s Calendar.

If you want a taste of what you’ll hear at the show, you can listen to some of the band’s songs at their myspace - Golden Phone is my personal favorite.

Each summer the Walker teams up with the Southern Theater to showcase four fresh voices in Twin Cities dance with Momentum: New Dance Works. Photographing the selected choreographers, along with their performers, is a favorite project for the Walker’s performing arts program manager Michèle Steinwald and staff photographer Cameron Wittig. Last year, the pair collaborated with the performers and ultimately did photo shoots at four sites around town, from a raw loft space to a domestic bathroom.

This year they set themselves the challenge of finding one streamlined concept that would still show the divergent visions of Sally Rousse, Megan Mayer, Vanessa Voskuil, and Sachiko Nishiuchi (all of whose work was still very much in-progress at the time of the shoot). It involved calling on a sizable group of Walker performing arts fans/volunteers to come to the McGuire Theater for a four-hour shoot one evening; more than a dozen obliged, bringing along their own wardrobe items to boot. The assembled group walked through the each shot, creating a blur of human action as a backdrop to the dancers, who struck stock-still poses.

Volunteers await their cue at one end of the stage. For Sachiko Nishiuchi's image they were asked to dress in colorful garb; for other images they changed into gray.

Here are outtakes from Nishiuchi’s shoot, taken by by performing arts assistant Emily Taylor. You can see Wittig’s final shots with all four choreographers in the July/August issue of Walker magazine, which will land in members’ mailboxes in mid-June (otherwise, pick up a copy at the Walker or at sites all around the Cities).

Posing and draping Sachiko and her partner.

Cameron shoots the procession

Tony from Nami Yamamoto's cast autographing the wall of fame back stage of the McGuire. Photo by Ryutaro Mishima.

For another great season together!

Looking forward to this summer at Rock the Garden, Music + Movies, and Momentum: New Dance Works.

Have a great summer!

Your friends in Performing Arts

Hugh Hughes in Story of a Rabbit

Hoipolloi Theatre Feeling Connected

Raise a glass to celebrate the final event of the UK Performance Now! series and the Walker’s performing arts season. Arrive early for cheap drinks ($3 beer/$5 wine/$2 sodas) and stay late to celebrate with Hugh Hughes from Story of a Rabbit.

Be there: Walker’s McGuire Theater, 4th Floor, 7 pm (before the show)

Stay late: bar service after the show too

Let’s celebrate!

There’s little debate about Thelonious Monk’s place in the jazz pantheon, yet Jason Moran is not content for Monk to just be revered. In My Mind is Moran’s multimedia exploration of the continued presence—and present-ness—of Monk, in particular his landmark 1959 Town Hall big band concert.

What often makes Monk’s piano playing so incredible is his almost infinitely malleable sense of time, how he could stretch and pull apart the rhythm of a song to its very seams yet remain firmly in the pocket. Moran and the rest of the rhythm section—Tarus Mateen on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums—transferred this concept to the entire section and took it as the foundation for all of their interpretations, resulting in a skillful and subtle pushing and pulling of time that always kept each other—and the audience—on their toes.

For the most part, unfortunately, the work’s visual elements lacked the subtlety that marked so much of the evening’s music. For instance, at one point Moran cut back and forth between live video of the band and fractured collages of 1959 newspapers, which didn’t leave much to the imagination. An exception, however, was a digitally-weathered, almost stop-motion slideshow of Moran’s studio, as he described his musical history, one intertwined with Monk’s own. (He was introduced to Monk’s music when he learned about a plane crash that killed a family friend and it was this music that made him want to take the piano seriously.) The half photograph, half-sketch images not only blurred the lines between these two different life stories, but also the process of influence that In My Mind foregrounds both as representation and end result.

In the end, I found that the evening’s best moments actually had very little to do with the work’s visuals, one which was intentional and the other which most likely wasn’t.

The first was the work’s opening, with Moran walking on stage and donning headphones. Soon the opening notes of “Thelonious,” the first song on the original record (The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall), dimly fill the hall; it was like the audience was in Moran’s mind, overhearing the explorations and results of his working through the past as he vacillated between doubling and embellishing Monk’s piano lines.

The second was near the middle of the performance, after the performers had walked off stage following a particularly pointed comparison between Monk’s slave grandparents and his own beating at the hands of police. Recorded music accompanying the visuals made Nasheet Waits’ snare rattle with sympathetic vibrations. This normally annoying occurrence—a snare that the drummer forgot to switch off ruining a particularly intimate moment—actually crystallized In My Mind nicely, the music from the past serving as a catalyst, both literally and figuratively, for the creation of something new.

(Like my colleague Mark, I’d also like to thank Michelè and everyone involved at the Walker for giving me the opportunity to write about this year’s concerts. I’m excitedly anticipating another slate of impressive concerts next year.)

A long time ago I was given a cassette dub of Solo Monk. It’s the only Thelonious Monk record I’ve ever owned. Which is not to say I don’t value the unique contributions Monk made to 20th Century American music – his achievements are top-tier in that regard. And, though I’ve only owned those 13 different takes of Monk’s recorded output, rest assured that I am a true admirer and, when I hear his music, solo or with accompaniment, his singular genius is apparent and saying so seems a bit redundant. Proclaiming Monk’s genius is like proclaiming milk’s whiteness – it kind of goes without saying.

So, why the dearth of Monk in my record collection? Strangely, I think it’s because his genius was so singular, in fact, that it never really evolved. The specific qualities one could identify from a Monk performance or composition in the late 40’s stayed constant through the remaining years of his life and career with astounding consistency. Compare how far Mingus or Miles Davis or Coltrane moved in a similar period and Monk’s resilience against the demands of time is revealing. For example, a reduction of Miles’ career into five-year chunks shows us an artist who skipped from The Birth of the Cool to Walkin’ to Kind of Blue to E.S.P. to In a Silent Way. That’s a load of ground to cover and that kind of insatiable exploratory impulse is what makes Miles, Miles. What made Monk, Monk was a consistent eccentricity that remained regardless of the milieu into which it was thrust. So, his solo work is as pure as I need it to be and all other permutations are unnecessary.

(Plus…shhh…don’t tell anyone but I’m not that much of a bop fan.)

Jason Moran apparently doesn’t share my take on Monk. In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall 1959 was a multimedia reconsideration of the titular concert – a concert that featured Monk as part of a tentet. The players in The Big Bandwagon, assembled by Moran, were certainly capable (I especially enjoyed the jocular trombone of Isaac Smith) of interpreting Monk’s odd melodies while also paying tribute to some of Monk’s specific arrangements. Moran clued the audience into these tributes by playing recordings of Monk’s deliberative process during rehearsal. It was interesting to hear the man speak for himself and then have Moran’s band express his wishes across fifty years of history. (It’s important to note that the Big Bandwagon resisted the lures of re-creation. That is, their aim wasn’t to replicate the 1959 concert but to revisit it with contemporary perspective, most evidently in the playing of drummer Nasheet Watts who wasn’t afraid to pepper his breaks with Latin rhythms from the 1960’s or James Brown funk from the 1970’s.) It was precisely the kind of historic transformation that multimedia and performative theory can hardily promote.

But, these high-minded performance strategies also require subjects that can absorb, maintain and even thrive upon an excess of attention. For me, the question remains whether Monk, the musical genius, requires our re-visitations. He was/is complete whether we we pay attention or not.  

(I would like to thank Philip Bither, Michele Steinwald and everyone who made possible this past season of music at the Walker Art Center. Thanks also to those who maintain this space at Walker Blogs. I’ve truly enjoyed blogging these various performances and appreciate the opportunity. For those interested, in the next week or so I intend to post an entry that will consider music programming at institutions like the Walker…you may consider it a meta-post if you want but I hope it won’t be as dull as that sounds. Thanks again, everybody.)

Three choreographers from Japan, Uruguay, and Zimbabwe – by way of New York – are performing here April 30 through May 2. In the course of writing about Nami Yamamoto, Nora Chipaumire, and Luciana Achugar for the current issue of our magazine (here’s the article), I asked each of them a few basic questions via email. Their answers were really thoughtful and articulate — definitely worth sharing here:

= = = NAMI YAMAMOTO = = =

Does the piece you’re performing at the Walker show any influence from or reflection of your home country, and if so, how?

Every piece that I make, I am sure there is some influence from where I am from, but I don’t consciously think about it. It’s more about where I am at in my life, what is happening around me.

I thought about aging and time for this piece. My puppet, Tony, was created thinking of fat skinny old baby. I felt my niece’s growth and my father, getting old are quite similar. One life is blooming and the other is kind of ending, but when I look at a point of their lives they are at the very similar stage. I wanted the puppet to have both old and young quality and I knew the puppet can do that. He can carry past, present and future at the same time.

For this particular piece, I was influenced by Dan Hurlin a lot because he is the one who introduced me to puppetry. I just found that a puppet is a great performer and he will highlight every one of us on the stage as well as himself.

Why did you make the move to New York City?
I came to NY from Matsuyama, Japan because I went to NYU for my Masters’ degreee. My teacher in Japan also encouraged me to go NY. I never intended to move here, I always thought I was here temporarily, but somehow, ended up being here. I am in NY for the last 19 years.

What does New York offer you as a professional dancer/choreographer that you can’t get elsewhere? While some people think that New York’s preeminence as a dance capital is waning, do you find that it’s still a place for risk-taking and experimentation?
Really good collaborators, like my artistic team. I am risk-taking and experimental as an artist. I am sure seeing how other people are taking a risk (from seeing people’s works or talking with my friends) makes me encouraged to go on my way. Maybe that’s part of living NY. Living here and creating works often really pushes people to the edge emotionally, physically, financially, psychologically … I am in it, so usually I am not so aware of it, but when I come back to NY from other places, I can feel that energy.

How much (if any) touring have you done with the piece you’ll be performing at the Walker, and how was it received by audiences outside New York?
We went to Ukraine. It was quite interesting. The way they looked at the show is so different from here. They talked and made comments while they were watching. There were very interesting questions after the show and everyone was very into it. I think it was received really well.

= = = LUCIANA ACHUGAR = = =

Does the piece you’re performing at the Walker show any influence from or reflection of your home country, and if so, how?
It very much does so for me even though if you ask someone from my home country (Uruguay) they might not see it very clearly. It definitely does not use any kind of folkloric form or any specific cultural reference to the southern cone of South America. However, it does have a very specific kind of sensibility that could be perhaps compared to Latin-American literature and/or Spanish cinema (a la Almodóvar) because of its embracing of emotion and drama in an exaggerated and verging on the absurd way that is both a celebration and a mocking of itself.

Most importantly, though, this piece is influenced by the history of where I come from. It reflects the infatuation I’ve had with the political and social idealism of my parents’ generation in Latin America, when and where they were actively working and fighting to create change. Growing up in Latin America with the awareness of always being under the United States’ Government’s big boot made me extremely aware of the power structures present in every different aspect of our society and relationships in general.

In this work I am both celebrating those ideas and exposing their naiveté, and I am exploring the power play inherent within the theater, in terms of the gaze of the audience and how it is not unlike women’s role and the male gaze.

You’ve studied, lived, and performed in California (and elsewhere?) – why did you make the move to NYC?
I also studied, lived and performed in Montevideo, Uruguay. I moved to NYC because I was interested in continuing to study with certain teachers that had come through CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) as guest artists and who had influenced me greatly and made a really lasting impression. Also, because I was fascinated by the Judson era so it seemed like I had to go there to learn more about it from the people that had been there then and were still teaching and making work there.

What does NY offer you as a professional dancer/choreographer that you can’t get elsewhere? While some people think that NY’s preeminence as a dance capital is waning, do you find that it’s still a place for risk-taking and experimentation?
I have been in NY for my whole career after I graduated from College so I can’t say with total knowledge what you can or cannot get elsewhere. However, I believe that the amount of work that is made here and the diversity is so great that it is a great place to become more and more specific about what your own specific aesthetic is and to become more rigorous about your own ideas. The standard seems to be set very high because there are so many choreographers making work here and so many amazing dancers. It is practically impossible to become complacent and lazy about what you’re putting out there.

Also, because it is so expensive to live in NY and because of the level of competition, it takes a lot of commitment and passion to continue on making the work and that feels sometimes like it must give it a certain edge and rigor that seems particular to work from NY.

I do believe still believe that there is a lot of experimentation going on in NY even though a lot of it is happening in more unknown venues, more underground. However, I definitely do not think that NY is the dance capital. I think we have moved away from the model of centers of culture being the places where anything interesting is happening and the peripheries being nowhere lands. That is a really old model that does not apply to how the world is now.

I am still in NY because I have created very special bonds within the dance community here and I have become who I am as an artist through the work I have done collaborating with different artists here. In some ways I feel like I am a local artist that happens to be in NY. Also, being a foreigner in NY allows you to feel like you are as much a part of the making of the city as anyone else and you don’t feel so much like an alien.

How much (if any) touring have you done with the piece you’ll be performing at the Walker, and how was it received by audiences outside of NY?
Unfortunately, I did not do any touring with this piece until now. We were invited to perform it in a Dance Festival in Uruguay but the funding didn’t go through because it was coming from the US Embassy there and when they saw a sample of the work they denied their support since it seemed to them like it was a criticism of the War in Iraq and they were not willing to fund that.

= = = NORA CHIPAUMIRE = = =

You’ve studied, lived, and performed in California (and elsewhere?) – why did you make the move to New York City?
new york is the world cultural center. I am at home in nyc as i am in dakar.

What does New York offer you as a professional dancer/choreographer that you can’t get elsewhere?
While some people think that New York’s preeminence as a dance capital is waning, do you find that it’s still a place for risk-taking and experimentation?

I would get the cultural stimulation in other cities in the usa. In NYC, africa in is the streets, i hear it see it, This access to all people is what keeps NYC on the cutting edge compared to other American cities. A knowing/ theater going audience … another reason to show work in the city. There is an audience for it.

How much (if any) touring have you done with the piece you’ll be performing at the Walker, and how was it received by audiences outside New York?
A great many cities in the USA, Canada, Senegal, Tanzania and Kenya.

I received a touring support suport from the National Dance Project to tour the USA. This piece was also been awarded a BESSIE for its NYC showing. The work has been well received, but it has challenged audiences who have superficial knowledge of Zimbabwe, it has also challenged Africans in Africa, who too have “working knowledge” of Zimbabwe’s history, never mind a female contemporary dancer!!!

Today marks the beginning of Twin Cities Celebrates National Dance Week. Get ready to enjoy the diversity of all the dance events happening around town. Among the many events, the Walker will host three evocative, international, New York-based choreographers in a shared evening called New World Dance: New York, April 30-May 2 at 8pm. There is also a free dance sampler with the three choreographers (Nami Yamamoto/Japan, Nora Chipaumire/Zimbabwe, and luciana achugar/Uruguay) for families at 12:30pm on Saturday, May 2.

Be a part of our local dance history! Everyone in our dance community is invited to join in this commemorative photo and represent the local dance community next Thursday April 30th at 6pm in front of the Spoonbridge and Cherry at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. This photo will be included in future TC dance promotions. See you there!

After the photo is taken come inside for a reception and celebrate together. Free drinks and snacks are provided. Then stay for the opening night performance of New World Dance: New York. 

Take advantage of a $15 ticket special for Thursday night’s show at the box office (612.375.7600, use code: National Dance Week special).

For a listing of some great events happening locally during Dance Week, visit:  www.mnartists.org/DanceWeek

Be included! Submit your dance event to the MNartists.org/DanceWeek website by e-mailing your event info and a press photo to sarahlarose@hotmail.com

Everyone is welcome!

Before I forget, Choreographers’ Evening auditions come early this year: mark your calendar for auditions July 9-11. More info to come.