From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.
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West African Drum & Dance Conference
Joshua Gillespie, a Minneapolis drummer and storyteller who performs as Brotha Ase, wants everyone to know about the Fakoly Drum & Dance Conference this weekend, put on by Duniya Drum and Dance.
The conference includes classes in West African drumming and dance for beginners as well as experienced performers. Instructors are visiting from Guinea, Mali and Nigeria. Classes run Friday through Sunday at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance on the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Campus.
A culminating performance, “Bridges of Rhythm: A Path of Generations,” is open to all this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Duniya Drum & Dance also teaches weekly community classes.
Brotha Ase says: It's a great opportunity that you should take advantage of this weekend, if you're looking for something cool to do and getting some cultural healing in your spirit.
— Brotha Ase
Plein Air painters flock to Red Wing
Joshua Cunningham is a landscape painter in St. Paul who works primarily with Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis. He highly recommends the 20th annual Red Wing Arts Plein Air events taking place this month. Artists are painting within a 25-mile radius of Red Wing, including in the city itself, over the next week.
Opportunities to watch artists at work — and for kids to paint for free — include this Saturday from 9-11 at the Red Wing Arts. An exhibition of the work they create runs June 20 – Aug. 16 at the Depot.
Joshua says: They have had between 50 and 100 paintings done every year, so you can imagine the body of work that has been created over the last 20 years. Though some of those areas get painted more frequently than others, [each] day only comes once.
The light and the air of a given day is what defines all of the colors and the values — and often the mood of the place — so you're never really standing in the same place twice.
— Joshua Cunningham
Football meets dance performance
Scott Pakudaitis, board chair of Revolution Dance Works, has been a fan of Corpus Dance Works since he saw their fringe show inspired by plant biology in 2022. He’s looking forward to their new dance show inspired by sports team culture, “Line of Scrimmage,” at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis June 11-15.
He anticipates high energy and some comedy that will appeal to sports and dance fans alike:
Scott says: They create very innovative and frenetic dances that touch on a lot of things that everybody can relate to.
There will be things like mascots and a marching band and dancing referees, a look behind the locker room, tackles and lots of balls flying in the air from dancers who do not know how to catch footballs.
— Scott Pakudaitis
