WALKER ART CENTER ANNOUNCES 2016–2017 PERFORMING ARTS SEASON

FEATURING AN UNPRECEDENTED NINE NATIONAL COMMISSIONS BY PERFORMANCE-CHOREOGRAPHERS PAVEL ZUŠTIAK, OKWUI OKPOKWASILI, FAYE DRISCOLL, AND KAREN SHERMAN, NEW MUSIC FROM TUNDE ADEBIMPE (TV ON THE RADIO) AND NICK ZAMMUTO (THE BOOKS) AND NEW DANCE COMMISSIONS FROM MARIA HASSABI, BETH GILL, AND RASHAUN MITCHELL/SILAS RIENER AS PART OF THE MASSIVE MERCE CUNNINGHAM: COMMON TIME EXHIBITION JÉRÔME BEL BOOKEND

FESTIVAL INCLUDES TWO RARE BEL PERFORMANCES AND SPECIAL TALK SEASON FEATURES MAJOR WORKS BY MASTER ARTISTS ISRAELI CHOREOGRAPHER OHAD NAHARIN (BATSHEVA), PULITZER PRIZE–WINNING COMPOSER DAVID LANG, AND JAZZ VISIONARY STEVE COLEMAN AS WELL AS MIDWEST DEBUTS BY ITALY’S ALESSANDRO SCIARRONI, NEW YORK’S ANDREW SCHNEIDER, KINSHASA’S MBONGWANA STAR, AND IRAQI AMERICAN MUSICIAN AND COMPOSER AMIR ELSAFFAR

Minneapolis, July 14, 2016—The Walker Art Center announces its 2016– 2017 performing arts season today, featuring nine commissions, several Midwest debuts, and a festival dedicated to provocative Parisian choreographer-philosopher Jérôme Bel. The centerpiece of the year’s programming is Merce Cunningham: Common Time, an extensive interdisciplinary survey that features live dance and music in the theater and galleries, including stagings of Merce Cunningham’s choreography by dancers from the final company and new dance commissions in his spirit.

Philip Bither, McGuire Senior Curator, Performing Arts, comments: “Art can open up the world, deepen how we see and hear and feel what Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, with Charles Atlas Film still. Courtesy of Charles Atlas, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener. Pictured: Rashaun Mitchell, Cori Kresge, Melissa Toogood, Silas Riener, Kristin Foote, David Rafael Botana surrounds us. Few artists of the past century have revolutionized dance and music-making and changed how we perceive more than as choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919-2011) and his partner/collaborator John Cage (1912-1992). Honoring Cunningham’s / Cage’s forward-minding ethos, Common Time programming includes commissioned new work by Beth Gill, Maria Hassabi and Rashaun Mitchell/Silas Riener–all who, like Merce before them, make individualistic forms of rigorously abstract movement art, helping to propel dance forward today.

As in the past, the performing artists we present this season adhere to the principles that defined Cunningham works across his career–discipline, rigor, experimentation, freedom. Speaking of audiences, Cunningham once said “I like to think of the spectator as someone who comes to the theatre … to exercise his faculties.” I have come to greatly appreciate Twin Cities audiences, who regularly come to the Walker not just to exercise their faculties, but who take delight in expecting the unexpected, are open to the idiosyncratic, and who fully embrace the future visions global dance, music, and performance makers that we seek out and then offer in our season. I look forward to sharing this diverse range of live art experiences with you this coming season, exercising our facilities together.”

2016-17’s nine national commissions constitute the greatest number of any season in the Walker’s history. They represent a breadth expression and risk-taking that audiences have come to expect from the Walker, and include new works by Czech-American choreographer Pavel Zuštiak; performance-movement artists Nigerian-American Okwui Okpokwasili, New Yorker Faye Driscoll and Minnesota’s Karen Sherman; a theatricalized song cycle by Tunde Adebimpe (of TV On The Radio), and a new vocal-instrumental work by Nick Zammuto (The Books) for Roomful of Teeth. These works embody the Walker’s mission to support new creation and reflect the buoyancy of today’s live art landscape (against increasingly difficult odds faced by artists today).

In the fall, the Walker celebrates the work of France’s Jérôme Bel, the humanistic, deep-thinking performance maker for whom the Walker has served as a key base of North America support. The Bel festival “bookends” previous Walker presentations of his work, offering his newest large-scaled and joy-filled work GALA as well as a rare remount of his signature minimalist meditation on the body Jérôme Bel, linked by a Talking Dance evening of conversation that Philip Bither will host with Bel.

Other 2016-17 global masters include Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin (Batsheva), Pulizer-Prize winning composer David Lang and revered saxophonist/composer Steve Coleman. The season features essential new innovators including remarkable Italian performance creator Alessandro Sciarroni (who opens the season), tech-futuristic theater artist Andrew Schneider, Kinshasa’s otherworldly band Mbongwana Star, and Iraqi-American composer/trumpeter Amir Elsaffar, all making their first Midwest appearances.

WALKER ART CENTER’S 2016–2017 PERFORMING ARTS SEASON

Unless otherwise noted, all events take place in the William and Nadine McGuire Theater.

SEPTEMBER

Dance/Performance

Alessandro Sciarroni

Untitled_I will be there when you die

Midwest Debut Friday–Saturday, September 23–24, 8 pm $25 ($20)

“A stripped-down reflection on the art of juggling as a metaphor for the fragile nature of the human condition.” —Camden Review

A transformative new figure in contemporary dance, visual/performance artist Alessandro Sciarroni elevates the art of juggling to breathtakingly sculpted movement in this meditation on the passing of time. In a spellbinding human exercise, four master jugglers respond to increasingly complicated demands of gravity, effort, and endurance.

Thursday, September 22, 6:30 and 8:30 pm Free Don’t miss a US exclusive, free bonus performance as Sciarroni performs an in-gallery excerpt of his latest, Chroma_don’t be frightened of turning the page.

Support provided by Producers’ Council members Nor Hall and Roger Hale.

Colin Stetson

Sorrow (Górecki’s Symphony No. 3)

Friday, September 30, 8 pm $25 ($20)

Copresented with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series

“Both traditional and playful, timeless and of the moment.” —PopMatters

Virtuosic composer/saxophonist Colin Stetson reimagines Henryk Górecki’s iconic Symphony No. 3 (best known from the 1992 Nonesuch Symphony of Sorrowful Songs recording), a heartbreaking modern masterpiece with an unexpected and expansive sonic palate. Stetson draws on a uniquely constructed all-star ensemble that employs electric guitars, synthesizers, drums, and woodwinds to create transformative extensions to the emotional core of the piece.

Support provided by Producers’ Council members Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation.

OCTOBER

Music

Amir ElSaffar

Rivers of Sound

US Exclusive Engagement

Saturday, October 15, 8 pm $25 ($20)

“Among the most promising figures in jazz today.” —Chicago Tribune

Revered composer/trumpeter Amir ElSaffar fuses elements of traditional Middle Eastern modal music and American jazz to create a mesmerizing sonic hybrid that moves into a free state of uninhibited musical exploration. His diverse and virtuosic 17-piece pan-Arabic ensemble includes Middle Eastern masters as well as US jazz stars, including guitarist Miles Okazaki, drummer Nasheet Waits, and woodwind legend J. D. Parran.

Support provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Dance

Pavel Zuštiak

Custodians of Beauty

Walker Commission/Midwest Debut

Thursday–Saturday, October 20–22, 8 pm $22 ($17.60)

“Plunges headlong into questions about what is ‘beautiful’ by interrogating sources like Plato, Pope Benedict XVI, and of course, the dancing body.” —Time Out New York

Bessie Award–winning choreographer/director Pavel Zuštiak and his Palissimo Company examine beauty and its intrinsic relationship with art through minimalist movement, sensuous abstraction, and potent stage imagery. Drawn from a dark Eastern European dance-theater aesthetic, this richly postmodern dance/live-music event casts the human body as a sculptural form, an emotional trigger, or a political symbol.

Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Performance Network’s (NPN) Creation Fund project created in partnership with the Walker Art Center, Legion Arts, New York Live Arts, and NPN.

In honor of Dale Schatzlein (1948–2006) and his important work in dance and jazz in the Twin Cities, additional support is provided by Emily Maltz.

NOVEMBER

Dance/Performance

Jérôme Bel Bookend Festival

“One of the coolest conceptual dance-makers on the planet. His ironic, anti-theatrical productions have not only questioned the nature of dance, Amir ElSaffar Photo: Michael Crommett Pavel Zuštiak Photo: Maria Baranova courtesy of Palissimo but crossed the dividing line between audience and performer.” —The Guardian

Influential and provocative Parisian choreographer-philosopher Jérôme Bel returns for a festival that “bookends” past works shown at the Walker. His newest joy-filled spectacle and his controversial, rarely seen signature work from 1995 are linked by an evening of conversation and film. A deep humanist with an understanding of both conceptual art and the power to brilliantly mold stage time, Bel balances intellectual rigor with humor and irreverence.

GALA

Tuesday–Wednesday, November 1–2, 8 pm $22 ($17.60) See both GALA and Jérôme Bel performances for $40.

Celebrate Minnesota’s own diverse community as Bel gleefully and convincingly makes the case that all bodies and movement are meaningful and joyous when danced with conviction and viewed with an open spirit.

Talking Dance and Screening

Thursday, November 3, 8 pm Free

Get a sense of Bel’s humor, heart, and theory during his conversation with Walker senior performing arts curator Philip Bither. The evening includes Bel’s moving short film on classical corps de ballet dancer Véronique Doisneau.

Talking Dance is presented as part of the Gertrude Lippincott Talking Dance Series, made possible by generous support from Judith Brin Ingber.

Jérôme Bel

Friday, November 4, 8 pm $28 ($22.40) See both GALA and Jérôme Bel performances for $40.

The festival concludes with a rare showing of one of his earliest and most controversial works. Four performers deconstruct the theatrics of dance with minimal movement, nudity, and shadow. Contains adult content.

Support provided by Producers’ Council members Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation.

Dance

Choreographers’ Evening

Curated by Rosy Simas

Saturday, November 26, 7 and 9:30 pm $25 ($20)

“Maybe the most diverse, certainly the most democratic performance you’ll see this year … a tasty evening of the here-and-now in Minnesota dance.” —City Pages

From established dance-makers forging new ideas to the scene’s youngest and brightest, Choreographers’ Evening has, over the course of 40-plus years, become an honored rite of passage in Minnesota dance circles. Bring your friends and get the inside scoop on our thriving local scene through this snappy sampler of works lasting seven minutes or less. A mainstay in the Twin Cities dance community, curator Rosy Simas is a celebrated performer, multifaceted choreographer, and respected Native American activist and educator.

In memory of Sage and John Cowles, support for Choreographers’ Evening is provided by the Unity Avenue Foundation. Additional support provided by The McKnight Foundation.

DECEMBER

Music

David Lang

darker

With musicians of the SPCO and visuals by Suzanne Bocanegra

Midwest Premiere

Saturday, December 3, 8 pm $20 ($15)

Copresented with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series

Ordway Concert Hall, 345 Washington St., St. Paul

“Lang, once a post-minimalist enfant terrible, has solidified his standing as an American master.” —New Yorker

As much a hypnotic sonic/visual object as it is a piece of music, darker weaves its intricate solo lines into a delicate and subtly emotional fabric. Created by Pulitzer Prize–winner David Lang, one of America’s preeminent composers and cofounder of Bang on a Can All-Stars, the piece is performed by the accomplished musicians of the SPCO and Jérôme Bel Photo: Herman Sorgeloos David Lang Love Fail New Haven Photo: Courtesy of the artists accompanied by visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra’s stunning film projections.

Dance

Karen Sherman

Soft Goods

World Premiere/Walker Commission

Thursday–Saturday, December 8–10, 8 pm $22 ($17.60)

“Sherman is one of the most daring and insightful artists working in our community, and she creates work that is not only relevant to our time but memorable.” —City Pages

Minneapolis-based artist Karen Sherman lays bare the behind-the-scenes intricacies of a dance performance in this evocative and insightful examination of work, life, and loss. Soft Goods illuminates the choreographic elegance of manual labor, the loneliness of theaters, the spectral beauty of a lighting focus, and the human hand behind all stage art. Created with and performed by an ensemble of 10 theater technicians and dancers.

Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the McKnight Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Performance Network’s (NPN) Creation Fund project created in partnership with the Walker Art Center, P.S. 122, The Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, and NPN. Support also provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

JANUARY

Out There 2017

A Festival of Performance Alternatives

January 4–28 See all four shows for $79.50 ($74.20)

Intent on flipping expectations and blurring lines, this beloved annual blowout of some of the world’s most intriguing experimental theater and performance works offers an invitation to open your mind, brave the cold, and get Out There with us this January. And don’t miss the workshops, talks, and the chance to hang out with the artists postshow in the Walker Lounge.

Performance

Andrew Schneider

YOUARENOWHERE

Wednesday–Friday, January 4–7, 8 pm; Saturday, 2 and 8 pm $28 ($22.40)

“Inventive … astounding … continually finds new ways to challenge and engage its viewers, to surprise and mystify us.” —New York Times

A not-to-be missed smash hit from New York’s downtown theater world, this rapid-fire, high-tech existential meditation teleports from physics lecture to pop culture and personal revelation while dissecting quantum mechanics, parallel universes, missed connections, and AA recovery steps. Using an array of electrifying visual and aural effects to produce a shifting landscape of sensory overload, YOUARENOWHERE warps linear time and “wholly transform[s] the performance space into an unsettling, unidentifiable elsewhere” (Artforum).

Support provided by Producers’ Council members Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation.

Dance/Performance

Faye Driscoll

Thank You for Coming: Play

Walker Commission

Thursday–Saturday, January 12–14, 8 pm $25 ($20)

“Faye Driscoll is a postmillennium and postmodern wild woman. A wild woman with a scrupulous sense of form that she tweaks into eye-opening weirdness. Ferocious, hilarious, and disturbing.” —Village Voice

Following the wildly popular Attendance in February 2016, Bessie Award– winning choreographer/director Faye Driscoll returns with the second part of her Thank You for Coming trilogy. Playful, irreverent, and rigorous, Play focuses on the consumption and fabrication of personal stories that help make our lives coherent. The choreography examines the lingering gaps and glitches (both physically and vocally) between what we say and what we do.

Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Performance

Okwui Okpokwasili

Poor People’s TV Room

Walker Commission

Thursday–Saturday, January 19–21, 8 pm $25 ($20)

“Okpokwasili is quite simply a virtuoso, an exquisite singer, speaker, writer, mover, a siren who draws us to danger.” —Chicago Tribune

Known for her intensely powerful performances, Bessie Award–winning Okwui Okpokwasili (Ralph Lemon’s Scaffold Room) considers the collective amnesia around women’s resistance movements in Nigeria, from the Igbo Women’s War of 1929 to the recent Boko Haram kidnappings and #BringBackOurGirls campaign. With collaborator Peter Born, she and three female performers mix ritualistic and hallucinogenic movement, song, video, and text, creating a dystopian narrative in which characters slip through the fissures of time to wander in a bush of ghosts.

Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Theater/Performance

Philippe Quesne/Vivarium Studio

La Mélancolie des Dragons

Thursday–Saturday, January 26–28, 8 pm $28 ($22.40)

“A great, humorous, and deeply human, touching work.” —Der Standard (Vienna)

A hatchback has died in a beautiful snowy forest, stranding six metalheads on their quest to build a hard rock–themed amusement park in protest of cheap consumerism. This deeply surreal fairy tale uses a disarming wit and hints of magical realism—with the help of 1980s rock and medieval recorders—to celebrate the absurdity, joy, and wonder of human existence. La Mélancolie promises a memorable, much talkedabout theatrical experience. Conceived and directed by Philippe Quesne—one of Europe’s most distinctive performance-makers.

Support provided by Producers’ Council members Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation. Additional support provided by the FACE Fund for Contemporary Theater.

Dance

Batsheva Dance Company

Decadance 2017

Tuesday, January 24, 7:30 pm $55, $45, $35 ($44, $36, $28)

Copresented with Northrop Northrop, 84 Church St. SE, Minneapolis “Batsheva proves again and again that they are one of the greatest companies on the planet and one of the coolest as well.” —Limelight Magazine

In this high-octane retrospective, Ohad Naharin brilliantly remixes excerpts from his 25-year catalogue of work (including a number of new pieces not yet seen in the United States). The performance showcases the signature physicality, creativity, and precision for which his company is world-renowned. With dashes of comedy, scintillating storytelling, and musical scores that sample everything from rock to samba to classical masterworks, Decadance 2017 is fast, fun, and thrilling.

Support provided by Producers’ Council members Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation.

Merce Cunningham: Common Time

This extensive interdisciplinary survey features live dance and music in the theater and galleries, including stagings of Merce Cunningham’s choreography by dancers from the final company and new dance commissions in his spirit. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company scenic and costume archive forms the backbone of the Walker-organized exhibition exploring the lasting impact of one of America’s most important figures in contemporary art (on view February 8–September 10, 2017).

Merce Cunningham: Common Time is organized by the Walker Art Center. Lead support for the project is provided by the Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Generous support is also provided by Agnes Gund and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.

Major support for the Walker’s commissions and presentations is provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. MSAB & LEGACY LOGOS

Additional support is generously provided by Molly Davies, Pamela and C. Richard Kramlich, Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation, Barbara Pine, and the Unity Avenue Foundation in memory of Sage and John Cowles.

Merce Cunningham: Common Time performances

Dance/Music

Merce Cunningham

Walker Cunningham Events

Wednesday–Thursday, February 8–9, 5:30 and 8 pm Free with gallery admission

March 30–April 9

Thursday, 5:30 and 8 pm Friday–Sunday, 1:30 and 4 pm Free with gallery admission

The Perlman Gallery comes alive with movement and sound as Dylan Crossman, Silas Riener, Jamie Scott, Melissa Toogood—dancers from the final Merce Cunningham Dance Company—perform Cunningham’s unique choreographic form made for non-theater spaces, which he called “Events.” Staged by former Cunningham dancer Andrea Weber, these 30- minute collages of movement drawn from four decades of the artist’s work offer a rare chance to experience his signature explorations of space, time, and movement. Contemporary compositions will be performed live by a different set of accomplished, Minnesota-based vanguard musicmakers each day. Cunningham’s choreography is performed courtesy of the Merce Cunningham Trust.

Merce Cunningham: Common Time performances

Dance

Maria Hassabi

STAGING

World Premiere/Walker Commission

Wednesday–Sunday, February 8–12; Tuesday–Sunday, February 14–19 Free with gallery admission

“[Hassabi’s work] endlessly rewards attention, creating a sort of spectacle of intimacy both generous and radical.” —Artforum

Occupying a space between live performance and visual art, choreographer Maria Hassabi‘s work explores stillness and sustained motion. Her sculptural movement installations explore the tension between the human form and the artistic object. These magnetic performances of looped, long-form choreography will be performed by 8 highly accomplished dancers trained by the artist. Visitors encounter STAGING, which run 6 hours per day (10 hours on Thursdays), in the Walker’s Cargill Lounge and Common Time galleries throughout the day.

Merce Cunningham: Common Time performances

Dance

CCN–Ballet de Lorraine

Sounddance, Fabrications, Devoted

Midwest Debut

Thursday, February 16, 7:30 pm $55, $45, $35 ($44, $36, $28)

Copresented with Northrop Northrop, 84 Church St. SE, Minneapolis

“The whole experience, music and dancing was an exhilarating rush.” —Washington Post

The acclaimed CCN–Ballet de Lorraine celebrates Merce Cunningham’s legacy with a rare chance to see two of his groundbreaking works: the dramatic, Walker-commissioned Fabrications and the “organized chaos” of Sounddance, performed at a high velocity from start to finish to a thundering electronic score by David Tudor. The program also includes Devoted, a new ballet by irreverent choreographic duo Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud (from Trajal Harrell’s Mimosa at Out There 2013), with a score by Philip Glass. Copresented with Northrop.

Merce Cunningham: Common Time performances

Music

Music for Merce: A Two-Night Celebration

Program A: Thursday, February 23, 8 pm

Program B: Friday, February 24, 8 pm $28 ($22.40) $50 for both nights

“Cunningham made room for music, and the composers created music that made room for movement. An invitation always went out to listen.” —Los Angeles Times

Cunningham and longtime partner/composer John Cage were renowned for their legendary collaborations with the most significant experimental musicians of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Join us to celebrate this remarkable legacy over two historic evenings with a festival of music and sound performances curated by composer/guitarist John King. Featured with King are electronic music pioneers and fellow longtime Merce Cunningham Dance Company associates David Behrman and Gordon Mumma, contemporary classical composer Christian Wolff, and composer/performers Joan La Barbara, Ikue Mori, George Lewis, Zeena Parkins, and Radiohead’s Philip Selway with London multi-instrumentalist Quinta. Each evening consists of a separate set of solo, duo, ensemble, and landmark works, concluding with a collectively made real-time composition.

Merce Cunningham: Common Time performances

Dance

Rashaun Mitchell+Silas Riener with Charles Atlas

Tesseract

Walker Commission

Thursday–Saturday, March 16–18, 8 pm $28 ($22.40)

“A venture this artistically successful should be seen as a valediction to that part of their careers (with Cunningham) of these two supremely talented men.” —New York Times

Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener were two of the most stunning performers in the final iteration of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In a groundbreaking co-commission with Experimental and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), they are paired with longtime Cunningham collaborator and visual/media artist Charles Atlas. The thrilling result is a live dance/technology hybrid featuring seven dancers and 3-D video that weaves together dance, sci-fi narratives, and live film segments (edited in real time by Atlas). Toggling between the corporeal and the digital, this revolutionary work disorients one’s sense of space and time in playful and unpredictable ways.

Merce Cunningham: Common Time performances

Dance

Beth Gill

New Work

World Premiere/Walker Commission

Friday–Saturday, May 5–6, 8 pm $22 ($17.60)

“It’s difficult to convey in words how Gill’s work is both crystalline and earthy, spare, yet complex.” —ArtsJournal

Known for her rigor and precision, Beth Gill makes choreography that represents a uniquely focused exploration of aesthetics and perception, and her new work marks a return to an abstract, intensely constructed exploration of space and time. This evocative piece for five dancers, with original music by Jon Moniac, will illuminate the “structural pleasure” of the Merce Cunningham legacy while refracting it for our times through Gill’s unique lens.

This work is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund project created in partnership with the Walker Art Center, The Yard, American Dance Festival, and NPN.

Support provided by Producers’ Council members King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury and Henry Pillsbury.

MARCH

Music

Mbongwana Star

Friday, March 3, 8 pm $28 ($22.40)

Copresented with the Cedar

The Cedar, 416 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis

“Listening to it feels like arriving in a bustling, unfamiliar city, a very long way from home: a gripping mix of excitement, apprehension, and sensory overload.” —The Guardian

Hailing from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mbongwana Star features a new generation of Kinshasa musicians embodying the concept of change (mbongwana) and led by Coco Ngambali and Theo Nzonza, two founders of Congolese supergroup Staff Benda Bilili. Along with maverick Parisian producer Doctor L, the band creates a sound that embodies the “smashed-together” nature of the surroundings from which it was born. The group fuses traditional Congolese rhythms with European post-punk bass and busted electronics from recycled and reconstructed instruments amplified and distorted in unexpected ways. Their highly celebrated album From Kinshasa (World Circuit) has won numerous awards.

Support provided by Producers’ Council members Nor Hall and Roger Hale.

Music

Kneebody+Daedelus=Kneedelus

Friday, March 24, 8 pm $28 ($22.40)

Copresented with the Cedar

The Cedar, 416 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis

“A powerful fusion of abstract hip-hop and modern jazz, and at its highest points you can’t really even tell where Kneebody ends and Daedelus begins.” —Pitchfork

Kindred sonic explorers share a mind-melding evening of new sounds and inspired collaboration. Grammy-nominated quintet Kneebody delivers explosive rock energy paralleled with high-level chamber ensemble playing, and highly wrought compositions balanced with noholds-barred improvisation. LA’s deep electronic master Daedelus (Alfred Darlington) is an inventor, a creator of aural labyrinths combining sounds from an eclectic palette into an innovative genre all his own. Together they unearth the fissures of rock, jazz, electronic, and beyond.

APRIL

Music

Roomful of Teeth with Nick Zammuto (The Books)

World Premiere/Walker Commission

Wednesday, April 5, 7:30 pm $30 ($24)

Copresented and co-commissioned with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series and Schubert Club Mix.

Aria, 105 N. First St., Minneapolis

“Experimentation may be this group’s calling card, but its essence is pure joy.” —Boston Globe

Grammy Award–winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth and sonic experimentalist Nick Zammuto (The Books), known for his “dexterous musicianship and catchy pop writing” (Pitchfork), create a custom-built vocal/sonic new commissioned work. The ensemble will also perform a diverse range of repertory pieces, including the Minnesota premiere of Partita for 8 Voices, group member Caroline Shaw’s mesmerizing and thoroughly delightful 2013 Pulitzer Prize–winning composition inspired by the art of Sol LeWitt.

Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by Producers’ Council members Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation and the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund.

MAY

Steve Coleman’s Natal Eclipse

Midwest Debut

Friday, May 12, 8 pm $32 ($25.60)

“With strains of Parker and Coltrane, Bartók, and the musics of the Middle East and China ... [Natal Eclipse’s performance] was something beautiful, indeed essential.”—The Nation

Composer/bandleader/saxophonist Steve Coleman, “one of the most rigorously conceptual thinkers in improvised music” (New York Times), heads a new hybrid chamber-jazz ensemble that explores the very foundations of group improvisation and spontaneous composition. Coleman’s eight-member all-star ensemble includes Matt Mitchell (piano), Greg Chudzik (bass), Maria Grand (tenor saxophone), Rane Moore (clarinet), Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Kristin Lee (violin), and Jen Shyu (voice). Expect an uncompromising evening of borderless styles, supreme musical fluidity, and post-bop revolution.

Support provided by Producers’ Council members Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney.

Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio)

A Warm Weather Ghost

World Premiere/Walker Commission

Thursday–Saturday, May 18–20, pm $30 ($25)

Copresented and co-commissioned with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series and 89.3 The Current

“Adebimpe hasn’t lost his appreciation for the visual arts, or his drive to express himself in realms other than music.” —Stereogum

Frontman and artistic ace of the eclectic indie rock band TV on the Radio, Tunde Adebimpe creates a universe of song, story, and animation. Conceived of as a hero’s tale pushed through a psychedelic fever dream, the surreal A Warm Weather Ghost unravels and bewilders. Be captivated as a crew of guest musicians and vocalists, narration, and large-scale projected visual art and animation by Adebimpe coalesce into a magically disorienting, unforgettable happening.

Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund.

Walker Art Center Performing Arts Program History

A catalyst for the creative expression of artists and the active engagement of audiences, the Walker Art Center examines the questions that shape and inspire us as individuals, cultures, and communities. Established in 1927 as the Walker Art Gallery, in 1940 it adopted a new name and focused on modern and contemporary art exhibitions as well as screenings, performances and public programs. The Performing Arts program grew dramatically during the 1960s, presenting over 100 events a year and transitioning into a formal Walker programmatic department in 1970. Following a 1971 expansion and its 1988 opening of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, in 2005 the Walker opened a $100 million expansion which housed dedicated venues for all its disciplines including the 385-seat McGuire Theater.

Today the Walker is one of the top-five most visited modern and contemporary art centers in the U.S. Multidisciplinary in focus, it is equally committed to advancing artistic innovation and interdisciplinary scholarship as it is with increasing access to lifelong learning in the arts. Approximately 1,600 artistic presentations engage 600,000 people per year through up to eight exhibitions; 170 film screenings; 85 performance events; the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden; and hundreds of residency, education, and community program events. Its 16-acre campus includes the highly acclaimed Herzog & de Meuron designed 385-seat McGuire Theater – home to one of the nation’s largest contemporary performance programs. The Walker is respected nationally and internationally as a groundbreaking leader in contemporary performing art presentations, residencies, and commissions.

Led by Senior Curator Philip Bither since 1997, the Walker’s Performing Arts program under his tenure has been defined by its commitment to the increasingly blurred lines between artistic disciplines, including contemporary dance, new music-theatre, performance art, experimental theatre, avant-jazz, contemporary classical music, new global sounds and alternative rock and pop. In addition to animating its outstanding McGuire Theater, the Walker has also greatly expanded its placement of dance into gallery settings, in its sculpture garden, and beyond, to further encourage a conversation between forms. It has also continued it longstanding tradition of mounting work together with presenters, venues, community-based collaborators, and unique sites across the Twin Cities. Tunde Adebimpe Photo: Jonathan Weiner Through its endeavors, the Walker has earned an international reputation as “one of America’s foremost experimental art spaces” (The Guardian).

Commissioning History Highlights

The Walker actively commissions work from emerging and established artists and provides artists intensive residencies to develop their work and connect their art and ideas with its audiences and neighboring communities. During the past decade alone, the Walker has commissioned more than 100 works involving hundreds of performing artists whose Walker commissioned works have travelled to 270 venues in the U.S. and 30 countries. The Walker helped to establish now common national practices like commissioning work from leading artists (Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Twyla Tharp and many more) and our commitment continues to this day with 5-8 new commissions and production residencies per year. The Walker has hosted multiple residencies from hundreds of artists over the years, including longstanding relationships with artists such as Cunningham, Brown, Philip Glass, and Meredith Monk, and more recently, vanguard artists such as Elevator Repair Service, Erik Friedlander, Cynthia Hopkins, Sō Percussion, Ralph Lemon, and Sarah Michelson.

Philip Bither, McGuire Senior Curator, Performing Arts

Philip Bither has served as Walker Art Center’s Senior Curator of Performing Arts since April 1997, spearheading one of the country's leading contemporary performing arts programs. During his years at the Walker, he oversaw the building of the McGuire Theater, an acclaimed new theatrical space and production laboratory within the Walker expansion (opened in April 2005), the raising of the Walker’s first dedicated performing arts endowment, the commissioning of more than 130 new works in dance, music and performance, and the annual residency and presentation support of dozens of contemporary performing arts creators, established and emerging. Prior to this, he served for eight years as the Artistic Director for the Flynn Center and its Discover Jazz Festival in Burlington, VT; and before that he served seven years as Associate Director and Music Curator for BAM’s Next Wave Festival. He received the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award in 2009. In 2011, helped found the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance graduate program at Wesleyan University and continues to serve on its faculty. He serves as Co-Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Jerome Foundation and the Camargo Foundation, and sits on numerous other national foundation and governmental arts panels. He actively travels globally to research new performance and to speak about trends in the contemporary performing arts.

Key artists who Bither has commissioned during his tenure at the Walker have included Ralph Lemon, Elevator Repair Service, Bill T. Jones, Eiko & Koma, Young Jean Lee, Ornette Coleman, Cynthia Hopkins, Dan Graham, Richard Maxwell, Sufjan Stevens, Sarah Michelson, Lee Breuer/Mabou Mines, Jason Moran, Robert LePage, Meredith Monk, Shirin Neshat, Bang On A Can All Stars, Tim Etchells/Forced Entertainment and more than 100 others.

Bither has been committed to the development of the Twin Cities-based dance and performance communities through the expansion of Choreographers’ Evening, the launching and continued development of the Momentum Dance Festival (now 15 years old) and a wide range of full evening commissions from artists including Michael Sommers, Chris Larson, HIJACK, Morgan Thorson, Emily Johnson, Ragamala Dance, Joe Chvala, Chris Schlichting, and dozens of others.

Additionally, Bither has helped pave the way for significant Walker expansion of performing art-related exhibitions Merce Cunningham: Common Time, Art Performs Life, Trisha Brown: So that the Audience Does Not Know Whether I Have Stopped Dancing, Ralph Lemon’s Scaffold Room, and multiple performance acquisitions, including the entire Merce Cunningham Dance Collection.

Tickets 612.375.7600 or walkerart.org/tickets

Join the Walker

Members receive a 20% discount on performance tickets. Call 612.375.7655 or visit walkerart.org/membership.

Buy in Bulk

Buy a season package of four performances and save 25%— Walker members save 30%.

Students—Come Early

$10 rush tickets are available starting one hour before the show. Limit one ticket per person with valid student ID.

Get Together

Bring 10 or more of your students, friends, and associates and get a 15% discounted group rate, available online and at the box office.

Accessibility

The Walker is accessible to all visitors. FM assistive listening devices, audio description, and ASL interpretation are available for all events. For more information, call 612.375.7564 or e-mail access@walkerart.org.

Partners

The Walker recognizes vital partnerships with five presenting organizations this season.

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series creates a space for innovative new projects and iconoclastic artists in unique presentation formats. Liquid Music performances invite adventurous audiences to discover the new and the fascinating within the flourishing landscape of contemporary chamber music. liquidmusicseries.org

The Cedar Cultural Center

The Cedar Cultural Center is an eclectic music venue located in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis. Over its 27-year history, the Cedar has become a premiere US venue for world music by fulfilling its mission of promoting intercultural understanding through the presentation of global music and dance. thecedar.org

MPR Live Events

Minnesota Public Radio, through the Fitzgerald Theater, commissions authors, artists, musicians, and radio hosts to create narrative-driven and intellectually stimulating stage programs that serve theater audiences as well as their radio and digital audiences. mpr.org/events

The Schubert Club

For more than 130 years, the Schubert Club invites the world’s finest recital soloists and ensembles to the Twin Cities and promotes the best musical talents of our community through performances, education, and museum programs. It has secured a prominent and distinguished reputation among musical organizations nationwide, and is one of the first arts organizations in the country. schubert.org

Northrop

Northrop is an epicenter of discovery and transformation that connects the University of Minnesota and communities beyond by celebrating innovation in the arts, performance, and academics. Northrop presents world-class dance and music performances, speakers, films, exhibits, and more. northrop.umn.edu

Acknowledgments

The Walker Art Center’s performing arts programs are made possible by generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through the Doris Duke Performing Arts Fund, the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Producers’ Council

Performing Arts programs and commissions at the Walker are generously supported by members of the Producers’ Council: Nor Hall and Roger Hale; King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury and Henry Pillsbury; Emily Maltz; Dr. William W. and Nadine M. McGuire; Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation; Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney; and Frances and Frank Wilkinson.

Drinks at the Lounge

The Walker Lounge is the place to be before and after the performance. Grab a cocktail before the show, or stay afterward for a drink and conversations.

Meet the Artists

Mingle in the Walker Lounge or take a master class: the Walker offers a range of ways to interact with some of the most innovative artists and performers of our time.

Free Gallery Admission

Extend your art experience—come back with your ticket within seven days of a performance, and get in free to the Walker galleries.

Head to the Green Room

Go in-depth with the artists and learn about the shows behind the scenes at the Green Room (blogs.walkerart.org/performingarts).