The founders of the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery had no idea how many people would show up to the museum’s grand opening festivities Saturday morning, but by 9 a.m. there was a line outside Plymouth Avenue, and a steady stream of museum-goers filled the museum all day. Located on the fourth floor of the Thor Companies building on the corner of Penn and Plymouth, the museum is a long-time coming first of its kind in Minnesota. MinnPost took in opening day, in words and photos.

Coventry Cowens and Tina Burnside, museum founders. “We started working on the museum in November of last year,” said Burnside, a civil rights attorney, writer, and historian. “I was born and raised in Minneapolis. I grew up on the south side. Minnesota is one of the few states that does not have an African-American history museum. African-Americans have been in the state since the 1800s, but a lot of people don’t know that. They think we came here in the 1960s, but we’ve been here a long time and have contributed to the growth and the vibrancy of the state. One of my favorite pieces here is The Minnesota Voices of the Great Migration, which really shows the history of African-Americans who moved from the South, where they were facing lynching and oppression and discrimination, and they moved north to places like Chicago and Kansas City and Detroit, but also to Minneapolis.”

“The museum allows the community to have a focus of pride,” said Cowens, a philanthropist and women’s rights advocate from Minneapolis. “There have been many ideas and many stops and starts for [proposed African-American] museums in Minneapolis. We basically started last summer, with some high-level conversations, some community conversations, and we just basically beat the bushes for anyone who would listen to our story.”

Pamela Richmond: “I was born and raised in north Minneapolis. This is all of our history. It’s great having this museum, so we can be seen and have our history be known. Why hasn’t there been an African-American museum until now? Do you really want me to keep talking about this? It’s because it’s such a racist state. I was born here, and I did not realize until after I was older, how racist this state is, and also I learned that it’s the second-worst state in the country for people of color. Isn’t that sad? That is why this is important, and I thank the Thor Companies for supporting this.”

Sandra Freeman: “I’m a huge museum person. I’m a retired flight attendant, so in every city and country I go to, there’s one thing I always do, and that’s museums. Particularly African-American museums. I’m from Chicago, so the DuSable museum is my heart, and of course that’s where President Obama’s museum will be.

I’m visiting the new lynching museum [in Montgomery, Alabama] later this year, and that will be powerful. Museums are the best connectors for history — for everybody, not just African-Americans, so I’m glad to see non-African-Americans here, because the more you learn about our history, the closer we come together. ”

Josie Johnson: “It’s important to actually have a visual of who we are as a people in Minnesota, and to have some reference of how long black people have been in Minnesota and the contributions they’ve made in the state of Minnesota,” said historian, activist, professor, and former director of the Minneapolis Urban League Josie Johnson.  “It’s important for us as a people to understand the depth of our engagement. We can tell our children the story. Our children need to know who they are, and that they belong, and that their ancestors’ way of life — sharing, caring, loving — still exists. I’m very happy to be here.”

Denetrick Powers: “I’m the managing director of the Copeland Arts and Training Center. This museum is important, because you have to know where you come from to know where you’re going. I believe that the Thor Companies moving to this intersection is acting as a catalyst for the north side — social catalyst, economic catalyst, cultural catalyst.

They’re supporting this history, and there’s a lot of history that is on Plymouth Avenue, and a lot of history in north Minneapolis.”

Mahmoud El-Kati: “This is the kind of thing we need to do more of in the light of black people’s history in this country, and I think this is a revelation that helps to destroy the social death that black people live in America,” said professor, writer, and historian Mahmoud El-Kati.  “By social death, I mean we’re not visible, we’re not people, we’re not a part of America’s story. Well, that’s not true. I think that’s a lie, not just a myth, but a lie. And this is an example of revealing that we were here, we’ve always been here, since before the Mayflower, and we’re equally a part of the story of Minnesota. Black people were here before Minnesota became a state.”

August, Kara, Taylor, and Avery Cisco: “I live in Minneapolis, not on the north side, but on the south side, but because there’s such a small group of us, ‘us’ being people of color, it’s like the whole city is our neighborhood,” said Taylor. “I do work in the north side and I’m connected to the community, so I’m glad the museum is here. It’s also an opportunity to teach our girls this history. There are not a lot of places that focus specifically and solely on the African-American experience, so when there is something like this, it makes you want to come out and show our support and make sure it thrives.”

Landis Hill: “I’ve been surprised at how much history I didn’t know, and how much I’m learning about my culture. You think you’ve known it all, and you come here and you realize there’s so much more to learn. It’s just new and fresh history for me.”

Shirlee Callender: “I’m portraying Amanda Lyle, who was an African-American woman who celebrated John Brown, who did a lot of things for African-Americans. She wanted to recognize the Caucasian race, especially John Brown, because he was one of the greatest white abolitionists in the country. This [museum] is something that should have been here many, many years ago, and finally they got the opportunity to do it. I think it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing to say it is ours. I just feel blessed that I’m here to see this.”

Meanwhile, the University of Minnesota’s College of Liberal Arts is about to launch a yearlong 150th-anniversary celebration. With 31 departments, more than 520 professors and 15,000 students, it’s the largest college in the U of M system, and it plans to stay around at least another 150 years.

In the words of CLA Dean John Coleman, “The liberal arts are all over the front page of your newspaper. Economic policy, institutional debates, policies about achievement gap, health care access and quality, environmental issues – we study all of these in the college. We’re not a frill off to the side that you do after the serious stuff. We are the serious stuff.”

The anniversary festivities will begin tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept. 12) with the opening of “On Purpose: Portrait of the Liberal Arts” at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery. A show of 60 large-scale portraits by Mexico City-born photographer and CLA MFA Xavier Tavera, it’s an interesting choice for an anniversary statement. “We’re in a very image-rich world,” Coleman said Friday at a preview. “A lot of times, in our academic work, it’s more writing, less image. This is a very creative way to portray the liberal arts.”

It’s the people, people. Faculty and students, diverse in age, gender and ethnicity. “I believe that portraiture is of the most importance right now, in this time,” Tavera said. “The person, and the humanity we’re getting so detached from.”

[cms_ad:Middle]Tavera sees the portraits as a series of conversations – between the individual portraits facing each other in the gallery, and between us and them as we stop to consider them. “The portraits I take are formal,” Tavera said. “All are looking directly at the camera. Hopefully, the camera disappears, and when you approach them, you’re talking to them.

Why should non-CLA people come to see this show? “They’ll get a great sense of the depth of the work that’s done here,” Coleman said. “They’ll get a sense of the power of the inquiry and its relevance. I look around and see the deep dignity of the people in the photos. This is deeply moving to me.”

It was to us, too. Tavera’s beautiful portraits are worth whatever time you can spend on them. There’s humor and wit, seriousness and playfulness, the dignity Coleman mentioned, and a shared sense of pride. These are proud, determined, learned and learning people, whether they’re representing Economics, Art History, or African American & African Studies; Economics, Philosophy, or Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences; Psychology, English, the Institute of Global Studies or the Human Rights Program. Or any of the many other CLA departments, programs, centers and institutes. If you go, look for the portrait of the Consortium for the Study of the Premodern World. Whatever they’re studying looks like too much fun.

A brief aside about the Department of African American & African Studies portrait: The four people pictured are John Wright, Agnes Schaffauser, Yuichiro Onishi and Abou-Bakar Mamah. They’re standing in front of Morrill Hall. The department was the direct result of student activism and protests in the 1960s that culminated in what’s known as the Morrill Hall Takeover. Wright was there then, and he’s here now, part of an eclectic community of scholars.

“On Purpose: Portrait of the Liberal Arts” will open to the public on Wednesday, Sept. 12, at 11 a.m., when the Nash Gallery reopens after summer break. On Thursday, Sept. 13, photographer Xavier Tavera will give an artist talk there. Doors at 5:30 p.m., reception from 6-8. Free. A catalog of the exhibition ($18) will be available at the artist talk (where you can have Tavera sign it) and also at the University Bookstore. FMI.

The picks

Wednesday at the Trylon: “Records Collecting Dust II.” Presented by Sound Unseen, which brings us movies about music year-round and the annual Sound Unseen Film + Music Festival (coming up Nov. 14-18), this film focuses in the 1980s hardcore punk rock scene in Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. Influential people who were there talk about the music, the bands and the records that changed their lives. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($10 advance, $12 door).

Thursday at Fairview Community Center in Roseville: Jonathan Slaght: “From Giant Owls to Striped Cats: Endangered Species Conservation in the Russian Far East.” A wildlife conservationist, author, blogger, photographer and one of the world’s leading experts on Blakiston’s fish owls (hint: they’re big), Slaght lives in the Twin Cities but spends part of each year in Russia’s Far East, tracking tigers, leopards, owls and musk deer. He’ll have rare film to show, taken in a place you’ll probably never see. Social time at 6:45, program at 7. Free.

Friday at the O’Shaughnessy: The Wailin’ Jennys. Nicky Mehta, Ruth Moody and Heather Masse haven’t made an album together for six years. (They took a break to have kids.) If possible, their close harmonies are even closer and their voices even sweeter. Their latest, “Fifteen,” begins with a spare, haunting version of “Old Church,” sung and near-whispered over a single viola drone, then throws the windows open to the sun with a cover of Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers.” Plus there’s a sassy, mom-centric version of Paul Simon’s “Loves Me Like a Rock.” A Woman of Substance event. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($23-57).

Opens Friday at the Pillsbury House Theatre: “West of Central.” Christina Ham’s new play is a noir set in 1966, not long after the Watts Riots. Austene Van is Thelma Higgins, the sharpest black P.I. in L.A., and Harry Waters Jr. is her husband. A tale of deceit, corruption, and backroom deals unfolds among racial tensions. Also in the cast: Aimee K. Bryant, Brian Grandison, Theo Langason, Olivia Wilusz and Stephen Yoakam. Hayley Finn is the director. Ham is a core writer at the Playwrights’ Center and a Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Pillsbury House. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets (pick-your-price $5-25). Ends Oct. 14.

What’s Misty Copeland’s story? How did she become the first African-American woman to be named principal dancer – ballet’s highest title – at the American Ballet Theatre, one of the top classical ballet companies in the world? Ballet fans and dancers can hear her tell it when Copeland comes to Northrop next spring for a special event.

“Inspired: A Conversation With Misty Copeland” will take place March 31 on Northrop’s stage. Robyne Robinson will be the master of ceremonies and Lea Thompson will be a featured guest. Proceeds will benefit Northrop’s expanding youth programming.

Born in Kansas, raised in California, Copeland began her ballet studies at the late (for ballet) age of 13. Overcoming many hardships as a young girl, she joined ABT’s studio company in 2000 and became a member of the corps in 2001. In 2007, she rose to soloist, ABT’s second African-American female soloist and the first in two decades.

In June 2015, Copeland was promoted to principal dancer, a history-making milestone in the company’s 75-year history and ballet in general. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world and put her on the cover.

[cms_ad:Middle]Soon after her promotion, Copeland told CNN, “I had moments of doubting myself and wanting to quit because I didn’t know there would be a future for an African-American woman to make it to this level.”

Robinson is a former Twin Cities news anchor for KMSP/Fox 9. Later this month, she’ll be inducted into the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame, the first person of color to receive that honor. A champion of the arts, Robinson most recently oversaw the arts program at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport, enlivening the space and greeting visitors with public art installations and performances.

Thompson, a Minnesota native, is best known for her roles in “Back to the Future” (as Lorraine McFly) and “Caroline in the City.” Before then, she was a professional ballet dancer who performed in more than 45 ballets with the Minnesota Dance Theatre, many on Northrop’s stage.

Tickets to “Inspired: A Conversation With Misty Copeland” ($20-100) will go on sale to the public next Wednesday, Sept. 19, at 10 a.m. A limited number of VIP tickets ($250) will include a pre-show reception and photo op with Copeland. FMI; 612-624-2345.

ABT will perform at Northrop on Tuesday, April 2, nearly five years to the day when the company danced for Northrop’s grand reopening after a three-year, $88.2-million redo. Will Copeland be there? Fingers are crossed – she will be traveling with the company – but we won’t know for sure until the final casting is announced. On Wednesday, March 27, at 6:30 p.m., Northrop will screen the Misty Copeland biopic “A Ballerina’s Tale” in the Best Buy Theater for free.

In other Northrop news, there’s been a change in leadership. After six years as Northrop’s director (2012-18) – a job that encompassed the annual dance season and everything else happening there – Christine Tschida is now artistic director of the dance series. Tschida came on when Northrop was under construction. She coordinated the myriad activities of the grand reopening and presided over the next four years of programming. In her new role, she’ll focus on the international dance program and the newly restored organ.

Kari Schloner is Northrop’s new director. She joined Northrop as general manager in 2016, overseeing business operations. Before then, she held positions in various nonprofit and for-profit organizations, gaining experience in venue and event management, promotion, production and touring. Schloner aims to build U of M and community partnerships and expand Northrop’s impact throughout Minnesota.

The picks

Now at the Minnesota History Center: “Chinese-ness: Photographs by Wing Young Huie.” A newly minted McKnight Distinguished Artist, Huie usually trains his lens on others. In his latest book for the Minnesota Historical Society Press, due out Nov. 1, he explores the meanings of identity and the nature of belonging through his own life and what it might have been. The youngest of six children born to Chinese immigrants – and the only one born in the United States – Huie grew up in Duluth and first visited China in 2010. He found both places confusing. For “Chinese-ness,” he photographed and interviewed people of Chinese descent and those influenced by Chinese-ness. In a series of diptychs, he wore the clothes of Chinese men whose lives he could have lived. It’s conceptual, kind of dizzying and wildly illuminating. You can see the exhibit for free in the Irvine Community Gallery during regular History Center hours. Ends Nov. 11. Related events: A free community panel discussion with Huie on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 7-9 p.m. A “What Do You See?” gathering at Huie’s Third Place Gallery on Saturday, Sept. 22, 10 a.m.-noon. A book launch on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 7-9 p.m.

Opens Saturday at Artistry: “Awake and Sing!” Clifford Odets’ classic play about a Bronx Jewish family during the Great Depression was first produced in 1935. It still speaks truth to things that matter: family, morality, dignity, the struggle to survive in uncertain times, hope for the future. Directed by Benjamin McGovern, Artistry’s production features Ryan London Levin (“The Last Five Years”), Paul Rutledge (“Noises Off”), Kate Guentzel (Ivey winner for the Illusion’s “My Antonia;” Penumbra’s “Dutchman”), and Miriam Schwartz (a regular at the Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company; “Indecent” at the Guthrie). The play is in the black box, where some performances have already sold out. FMI and tickets ($46-15). Ends Oct. 7.

Sunday at the Jungle Theater: Jazz at the Jungle: “Hot Rhythm and Happy Feet.” Jazz vocalist Connie Evingson has made the Jungle in Lyn-Lake her second home with her long-running Sunday jazz series. Backed by top Twin Cities musicians and frequent visitor Jon Weber, Evingson performs imaginative programs around the music of Duke Ellington, American roots music, Ella Fitzgerald, Brazilian music, the Beatles and whatever else catches her fancy. This Sunday features music you might have heard in a dance hall, café or speakeasy anytime between 1920 and 1940: early blues, Gypsy jazz, pop songs, New Orleans tunes. Her band this time is Patty and the Buttons, led by the brilliant button accordionist Patrick Harison. 4 p.m. FMI and tickets ($30).

The Monday afternoon sun beat down hard on the intersection of Hiawatha and Cedar Avenues, as the estimated 300 citizens of the largest homeless encampment in state history began another week of living in the shade of the Little Earth housing complex.

Three months ago, the first tent sprang up along the narrow 1,000-foot strip of land just north of East Phillips Park, and at the moment 70 more sit amid an orderly array of lawn chairs, water coolers, grills, sleeping bags, laundry, pets, outhouses, police presence, and most any other amenity that makes a society a society.

Tent cities and homeless encampments have become prevalent all over America, and some cities have made sleeping in public areas a crime that local officials are starting to prosecute.  Sweeps, raids, and site clearings have become common reactions to homeless encampments, but in Minneapolis, a coalition of city, county, and American Indian agencies have launched efforts to deliver housing assistance, medical care, and other services, while Mayor Jacob Frey recently promised a “full-throated effort” to find housing for everyone who needs it by the end of this month.

The poverty and despair is palpable, as is the feeling of last-chance community. The following portraits and interviews are with people who are comfortable with having their photograph taken, and people who have, in the Franklin/Hiawatha Encampment, found what most everyone wants — a tribe, if even and only a momentary one. The photos you won’t see are the ones that have not been taken, of entire families huddled together in one small tent, of people sitting in chairs holding their heads in their hands and staring at the ground in desperation, of little kids with haunted eyes, of judgmental drivers honking, of a school bus full of jeering kids, and of the looming danger that comes with nightfall.

Brianna Downwind: “This camp has a worse rep than it really is. It’s not all bad. Here, you can actually be more safe together than on the street alone. This is the face of struggle in Minneapolis right now. My mother is here, with me. My mother said it’s a shame on Minneapolis for having their own refugee camp in the heart of the south side of Minneapolis. They’ve done nothing about it. That’s shameful, it really is. People came through here shouting that the mayor of Minneapolis said that in a month everybody’s going to be arrested or moved out of here. Like, that gives everybody so much hope. That was sarcasm. We need help. This is ridiculous that all these children, all these people, are out here, and people are slowing down and honking and taking pictures but doing nothing about it.”

Chuck Warnick: “People need to know that everybody here is blessed in their own way, and we’re human beings like the rest of the people. Some of us have had unfortunate things happen to us. Some are here by choice. Choices they’ve made in their lives. Regardless, homelessness is not a disease; it’s a problem. As I stand here with you, man, if you notice these cars come by and they slow down like we’re some kind of a freak show, and a lot of the time these people just don’t understand what it’s like to struggle. Most every one of us has eaten out of a garbage can because we’re hungry. It’s a blessing that we’re all here, we all came together and stood together and we’re going to see this thing through and make sure we’re going to eat every day. Different people come here and donate their time and food and I just want to say thank God.

“We can all always find things we don’t have. When I don’t have money, I’ll hold a sign for money, and I remember a car came up to me one time and I said to the lady, ‘You look very nice, where are you coming from?’ She said, ‘I’m coming from the hospital, my son is in a coma, will you say a prayer for him?’ Right then as I said the prayer, I thought about my daughter, and that she’s healthy, and even though I don’t have any family here, most of these people are my associates, some are friends but it’s hard to come by friends. … What I’m getting to is I don’t have anything, man. What you see is what I have on, OK? But my daughter’s healthy, and what else can I ask for? I mean, her son’s in a coma and I’m bitching because I don’t have a house to sleep in? I tell you right now, if I had a house for my life, I’d give it to my kid.”

Angela Bowen: “I’m the main med tent. I’ve been here six weeks. I take care of the Narcan people and I carry the needles and do the needle exchange. I have 20 years’ experience doing this. I’ve had 15 (drug addicts) and I’ve saved 14. I’ve got it all, the needles, the [pamphlets] to teach people to get on the methadone program. I’ve been on the methadone program for six years. We saved a little old lady here the other night. We smudge the [area], and I tell you one night we didn’t smudge, and you could really feel it. My stepdad’s wake is today, and I need to go to that later. He was a medicine man.”

Fabian Jones: “I work with Natives Against Heroin. We are working at being helpers and our main work is to be committed to listening and talking to them, and just letting them know that we do care. Everybody here struggles. I have struggled with addiction, but I and everybody here is here to help, and everybody here knows it.”

James Allen Cross, Sr. :  “I’m the founder of Natives Against Heroin. We started in ’15 as a talking circle, and last year started as a movement. It’s been very successful, and a force for positivity and recovery and they actually see people who care. You know, we don’t just talk about it, we do action.”

Greg Franson: “I volunteer here. I stop fights, I do security, I hand out food, pass out things that are donated, get people into Rule 25s — everything you can think of that can help our people. First and foremost, the public needs to know that all Indians are not drunks, or dope addicts. Everybody down here is not on drugs or drinking. We need to bring our culture back, and we need more people to realize what our culture is. Our culture isn’t just ceremonies. Our ways used to be that everyone was family, and that’s kind of why everybody is here. It’s mainly what it’s really all about. It wouldn’t be this way if everybody was scattered around, and that’s the thing: Our people have been taught through generation to generation that you stay with your people and you will be OK. It doesn’t matter what tribe you’re from or where you’re from, our people have always been caring.

“We’ve been put on reservations forever, and through our ways it’s been passed down from generation to generation that you’re to treat people in a good way, so that’s what we try to do. That’s why I volunteer my time, is to give back. I was an addict, and I’ve been sober for a while now, and this is my way of giving back. I could’ve been one of them. I live in a sober house, so technically I am homeless, and it’s OK. It’s better than living down here.”

“My name is Ogichidaa. It means ‘warrior’ in Ojibwe. This is my first day here. I’m pitching a tent now. It seems like they keep pushing us away and out from everywhere. You go to try and seek shelter somewhere and warmth and whatnot and it’s like, ‘You can’t be here’ to a point where you feel trapped. They’ll pull up when it’s 20 below outside and say, ‘You’ve got to get moving on,’ but you’re just trying to stay warm and they kick us out. I’m not sure where I’ll go when winter comes up ….”

Davonte Lambert: “I’ve been here for going on two months. It’s really nice here. It’s a good place for people to live, as long as people stay out of trouble and don’t fight. Drama is drama here, but it stays within the camp. It’s like a family. So when somebody that comes from the street comes over here, and it’s happened, where we just had a shooting two weeks ago, and the entire camp chased him out of here. It’s like a family here. Everybody’s safe here.”

John Littlewolf: “I’m here, donating and bringing supplies. I’m donating to the Native American Community Clinic and Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center and then I just walked through and saw a Dollar Store down the street, and I got some Mountain Dew and some sugar cookies for a pick-me-up. This is my first time here. I was inspired by social media. I have a lot of relatives and a lot of people who have been helping out and when I saw what was happening down here, I thought I just have to do something. Something inside of me said, ‘Do anything.’ One of my friends said, ‘It doesn’t have to be anything grand. Small effort. Give some time. Give what little you can.’ I’m not a wealthy person. I’m a public servant. Just give what you can: I had today off, and I just had to come down and when I saw it, it took my breath away. I love this neighborhood, and to see this here, I hadn’t been down here in some time, and it just hit me right in my heart.”

Northrup King Building property manager Debbie Woodward first noticed the anxiety among artists when the building was being remodeled to add more rooms for people to rent.

More space in the building, some artists worried, would attract more people with money — putting at risk the look and feel of the DIY neighborhood in northeast Minneapolis that for years served as the only affordable option for artists in the area. “We’re done. It’s over — gentrification,” Woodward recalled tenants saying.

That was in 1998.

Flash forward two decades. Minneapolis is in the midst of a construction boom that has seen building permits exceed $1 billion this year alone, and concerns over Northeast’s changing landscape have become even more pervasive. Researchers, community leaders and even elected officials at City Hall are paying attention.

[cms_ad:Middle]Young homeowners and renters, suburban empty nesters and visitors seeking craft beer and vintage shops are transforming the area. Now it’s not just cranes hovering over long-time residents — but increased costs. Between 2000 and 2015, the median home value in northeast Minneapolis — the areas of Logan Park, Sheridan, St. Anthony East and St. Anthony West — increased an average of 45 percent, while rents rose an average of 13 percent, numbers that outpaced the city’s as a whole, Census data show.

The struggle for some to deal with Minneapolis’ rising rents and property taxes is not isolated to Northeast. But it’s an issue that especially affects the creative community. In a study of gentrification across Minneapolis, a team of University of Minnesota researchers found Northeast’s economic and demographic shifts since 2000 have created a unique market of winners and losers.

New developers are investing in the neighborhood, seeing the climate now as sufficiently desirable, resulting in higher property values, taxes and other living costs that are good for some businesses and homeowners — and bad for others, especially low- to middle-wage renters and workers. And some artists and residents are now wondering how much longer they can call the area home.

The next cheapest place

Before the 1980s, Minneapolis’ art scene thrived in vacant industrial buildings just across the Mississippi river from Northeast, in the part of downtown now known as the North Loop. Attracted to area buildings’ lack of regulations and cheap rent, artists paid as much as $70, or as little as nothing, for space in the neighborhood.

But the city’s economic recovery in the ’80s brought new construction to the North Loop and more attention to the area. Rents soared.

So the artists flocked to the next affordable place: Northeast.

But not everyone found space in the shift. “When the artists came to Northeast, they certainly had to displace someone,” said Brittany Lewis, who did the study on gentrification by the University of Minnesota. “It’s this cyclical pushing and shuffling of low-income communities” to left-behind places.

More beer, more problems?

Even as Northeast’s popularity among artists for affordability grew, the industry remained relatively underground. It wasn’t until 1996 when a group of about a dozen artists came up with the idea of opening their studios to the public in an effort to sell a few high-end pieces for extra money. They called it “Art-A-Whirl,” and Northeast hasn’t been the same since.

As Art-a-Whirl gained popularity, attracting more spectators and artists, organizers shifted the annual event from quaint garage spaces to bigger gallery spaces. By then, the founders had also created what’s called the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association, which exists today as a nonprofit that organizes events with a board of directors and about 1,000 members.

In 2002, neighborhood and city leaders laid out a plan for dealing with an influx of high-end retail, new residents, more office space and luxury housing, documented it in what’s called the “Arts Action Plan.” In 2003, Minneapolis officials designated a portion of Northeast an official Arts District, a title that comes with certain construction and zoning rules that aim to preserve spaces for the creative community.

Then came the beer.

In 2011, Gov. Mark Dayton signed the “Surly Law,” which allowed breweries and taprooms to sell beer on site for the first time. The change soon initiated a shift in Northeast’s economic base; brewers found a home in the DIY culture and underdeveloped buildings that could house their machinery nicely.

Now, researchers say Northeast has the highest concentration of breweries — from Able Seedhouse + Brewery to Indeed to the recently opened HeadFlyer — in Minnesota. “It seemed overnight that we hit 12 breweries in northeast Minneapolis,” a business owner told Lewis for the University of Minnesota’s study on gentrification.

Over the course of months, the researcher collected stories from people who live or work in Northeast, all of whom talked about the neighborhood’s rising costs and concerns over affordability.

Lewis and co-researcher Ed Goetz, director of the U of M’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, compared those anecdotes with census and housing data and building permits to measure if, or to what extent, Northeast’s population and business changed since 2000. The evidence gave a resounding answer. “No one debunked this economic shift was happening,” Lewis said. “There were differing opinions on whether it is good or bad — or for whom.”

During the interviews, neighborhood residents pointed to Art-a-Whirl as the clearest example of the neighborhood’s shift, how the “commodification of rich artist culture” had come to define it. The annual spring event now includes more than 600 artists and attracts 30,000 people for what the researchers call the country’s biggest open-studio tour: a combination of bands, beer, art and shopping. “Now it’s more like Mardi Gras than any kind of real fine arts event,” one homeowner said in the study.

The transformation has been good for some. Nina Guertin, who makes and teaches ceramics in a home studio, says that Art-a-Whirl’s growth has allowed her to get new customers, and Louisa Podlich, who also runs a ceramics operation, said she has gained stronger name recognition with the event’s increased traffic.

The economic gains go beyond just anecdotal. The Minneapolis Creative Index, which measures the impact of art production and industry, has ranked the Twin Cities and surrounding area as the country’s sixth most creatively vital metro area — meaning creative jobs here play a more significant role in the region’s economy than other places. Northeast is at the core of that grade.

A battle of generations

Lewis, a scholar in urban housing and policy, said this phenomenon unfolding in Northeast extends nationwide: Artists move to an underdeveloped area, make it vibrant and attractive to outsiders and then ultimately can’t afford the new economy —“the success they made possible” — themselves.

In the study, some people said they were making plans to move or have already taken the step as new people move to the neighborhood because of the rising costs. “I’m going to be homeless in a minute if I don’t get out,” Lewis recalled an interviewee saying.

One homeowner put the current scene like this: “A lot of the art buildings are already gone. A lot of the professional artists are gone. … I moved my studio an hour and a half away to rural Wisconsin.”

The interviewees also identified tension between some who have lived or worked in the neighborhood for years — they call themselves “raw” artists who produce very few products annually at high prices — and newcomers who produce mass amounts at lower costs in shorter time. The evolution of digitized industries, including design, architecture and technology firms, is adding a new layer to the neighborhood’s changing landscape. Workers in those fields can often afford higher rents and living costs.

Older artists remember the struggle to make the Arts District what it is, and now some of them feel pushed out, Lewis said. Then, there are new people excited to be a part of the scene. “Generations move in, compared to the other generations, with a different vision. It needs be talked about,” said Josh Blanc, president of Northeast Minneapolis Arts District and one of Art-a-Whirl’s original founders.

He emphasized the importance of thoughtful, new development that considers input from the area’s existing artists. “We all have the same thought: Whenever developers come in, they don’t necessarily know the community extremely well.”

In the search for long-term solutions, Blanc and other community leaders are hoping to measure the extent of the growing pains — again — with a second “Arts Action Plan” to study the demographic shifts at a granular level. They’re currently trying to find the funding to make the assessment happen.

Meanwhile, Lewis hopes city officials use her findings, as well as information about other gentrified neighborhoods citywide, to dedicate more money towards people and programs that help people stay in their homes and workspaces. “We keep getting bogged down by the question of (whether gentrification is) good or bad,” she said. “You can’t just use the word. Gentrification is an end game. When it’s happened it’s too late.”

An email with “A message from …” subject header is rarely good news. That was the case with yesterday’s email from Art Shanty Projects. It began brightly enough with facts about the 2018 on-ice program on Lake Harriet: a record-setting 40,000 visitors, more than double the previous high. Art Shanty Projects’ first year in the city after several years in White Bear Lake (and before then, Medicine Lake) was “successful beyond our wildest expectations.”

And then:

Recently, the Board learned that Art Shanty Projects was unable to secure the major grant funding needed to cover a significant portion of our expenses for the 2019 program, contributing to a shortfall in excess of $85,000. As a result of this situation, our Board is currently grappling with difficult decisions regarding the future of the program. In our current funding situation, it is not possible to present a 2019 on-ice program along the lines of last year’s program.

Can Art Shanty Projects present any program at all in 2019? Will it regroup, fundraise and wait until 2020? Or is this the end of the public art happening that began in 2004 and has continued mostly without interruption every year or two since?

A community meeting will be held this fall. We’ll let you know when we hear more about that.

The SPCO’s brilliant and daring start to 2018-19

Name another orchestra that would launch a new season with Terry Riley’s “In C,” the founding work of minimalism. Written for any number of instruments, of indeterminate length, resting on a unwavering pulse and allowing musicians to play when they please, it’s an unusual choice. And so SPCO.

For a season opener concert last Saturday, some of the musicians were positioned around the Ordway Concert Hall and others strolled the aisles, making the Riley a metaphor for the orchestra’s willingness to take risks and its commitment to going out into the community. Along with the Concert Hall, which was built for them, the SPCO performs in 15 neighborhood venues throughout the Twin Cities area.

[cms_ad:Middle]Not having a full-time percussionist of its own, the SPCO brought in Jauvon Gilliam, principal timpanist of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., who played a constant, unwavering pulse on the marimba. The same pair of notes, over and over (and over and over) again, for 25 minutes. That calls for athleticism, endurance and the ability to not lose your mind. It’s interesting what happens to the pulse as you listen to the piece. At first, it’s all you hear. Then it recedes. Then it becomes the road you’re traveling along, the force of gravity that holds you to it.

The Riley was exhilarating, mesmerizing, maddening and joyful. In his brief spoken introduction (good idea, SPCO; more of those, please), artistic director and principal violin Kyu-Young Kim called it “slightly terrifying … It’s more about listening than doing, which feels appropriate for our time.”

Following intermission – everyone needs a stretch break after Riley – we heard Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” with lyrics from a prose poem by James Agee. Soprano Julia Bullock made her SPCO debut in this elegaic, defiant work of memory and individuality. (We thought Gilliam would be resting somewhere backstage, having his wrists massaged, but there he was at the triangle.) Watching Bullock gather herself before she sang, emotions playing over her beautiful face, was breathtaking. We’d love to see her again. (How about a recital, Schubert Club?)

And then the tremendous finish: Beethoven’s “Emperor” piano concerto, featuring SPCO Artistic Partner Jeremy Denk. (And Gilliam again, this time at the timpani.) Denk is one of our greatest pianists, and his command of this epic piece brought the audience to its feet. He returned with an encore: Beethoven’s Five Variations on “Rule Britannia,” played with wit and brio.

Riley, Barber and Beethoven. What a night; what a start to 2018-19. For its 60th anniversary season, the SPCO will play 125 concerts, some in a neighborhood near you. P.S. The first Happy Hour concert of the season is tonight. FMI.

The 2018 MN Theater Awards need help

Back in April, we spoke with Jason Ballweber, artistic director of Four Humors Theater, about Four Humors’ plan to step into the gap left by the Iveys with a new theater awards program. The first awards ceremony was scheduled for Monday, Sept. 24, at Aria.

That’s coming right up, but it might not happen. To its credit, Four Humors posted Monday on Facebook that the ballots they received by the original deadline “do not fully represent the Minnesota theater community.” The number of votes submitted was far smaller than they expected, the results far narrower: “Approximately 90% of ballots came from people who self-identified as white performers and the top results in almost every category centered on the same four theaters.”

The post further said, “We knew that our biggest hurdle would be reaching across the breadth and depth of the theater community we love. We tried our best to reach out, but we realize that despite our best efforts, we have failed.”

So it’s up to us. Do we want this? Can we support it? Can we spread the message in time for this to happen?

Ballots have been reopened and will be available until Friday, Sept. 14, at midnight. Go here to vote and share.

Update: The party at Aria and the awards show will take place as planned. Since the balloting was extended and word got around, more ballots have been submitted. FMI and tickets ($35).

The picks

Tonight (Thursday, Sept. 13) at the U’s Andersen Library: Julie Schumacher: “The Shakespeare Requirement” reading and signing. Winner of the Thurber Prize for “Dear Committee Members,” Schumacher is out with the highly anticipated sequel. Set once more at the aptly named Payne University in the Upper Midwest, it’s an academic comedy that takes on trigger warnings, safe spaces, political correctness and identity politics. In room 120. Doors at 6:30 p.m., reading at 7, signing to follow. FMI (including all-important parking information). Free. First-come, first-served.

Friday and Saturday at the Cowles: SOLO. When Minnesota dancers win McKnight Dancer Fellowships, they also win (along with cash) an extraordinary opportunity: They can each choose a choreographer to create a work especially for them. This weekend, the 2016 and 2017 fellows will dance six bespoke world premieres. With Lisa “Mona Lisa” Berman (choreographer Victor Quijada, Montreal), Chris Hannon (Gina Patterson, Wyoming), Herb Johnson III (Tight Eyez, Las Vegas), Krista Langberg (Karen Sherman, Minneapolis), Sachiko “La Chayl” Nishiuchi (Pepe Torres, Luis Peña, and Angelita Vargas, Spain) and Chitra Vairavan (Eiko Otake, New York). 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($21).

Friday and Saturday at the Parkway: Two nights with Dave King. The newly restored Parkway Theater reopened Thursday with a sold-out screening of “Jaws.” Friday will be the premiere of “Lights! Cameron! Jackson!,” an episodic series from drummer Dave King, directed by Noah Hutton. King plays a character named Cameron Jackson, a guy trying to make a buck, always in search of a great idea – like an original T-shirt slogan, or Magnetic Poetry, or writing custom songs for people’s pets. King describes the series as “an investigation of surrealism and futile activism.” Largely improvised, it’s endearing and foreboding. The evening will include a conversation with King and James Diers, who stars as Blong O. Pederson. Doors at 6:30, film at 7:30. FMI and tickets ($15). On Saturday, King and Diers will return with Halloween, Alaska for the premiere of the legendary band’s first full album of original music since 2011. The night will begin with a duo set by King and Andrew Broder. Doors at 7, show at 8. FMI and tickets ($15 advance, $18 door).

There are plenty of reasons to see “The Gin Game” at the Ives Auditorium in Bloomington. An American classic, D.L. Coburn’s play won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It’s being staged at the elegantly appointed, $20 million theater in the new Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center. It’s presented by Sidekick Theatre, a 5-year-old company that now calls the Ives its permanent home. It’s directed by Tim Stolz, son of Don Stolz, both of Old Log Theatre renown.

And it stars Twin Cities theater legends and real-life couple Candance Barrett and Raye Birk. The chance to see those two on stage in roles made famous by Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn (and later played by Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones) is too good to let pass.

It’s a powerful play, and darker than you might expect going in. Barrett and Birk are Fonsia Dorsey and Weller Martin, two sharp-witted elderly people who meet in a nursing home and get to know each other over hands of gin rummy. Casual conversation becomes light flirtation becomes a battle of wills, furiously fought with words and Weller’s cane. The more Fonsia and Weller learn about each other, the more vulnerable and vindictive they become.

[cms_ad:Middle]Maybe things would have been different if they had met outside the nursing home. But they’re stuck where they are, both living on the edge of poverty, with nowhere else to go and no one willing to take them in. They’ll live out their lives in a place with thin walls and a leaky roof, visiting fire-and-brimstone preachers and dance music that never ends.

It’s fascinating to watch Barrett change from an uncertain new arrival to a formidable foe. And rather terrifying to watch the real Weller emerge: short-tempered, controlling and violent.

We loved seeing these two great actors play off each other and show us their craft. But not everyone in the relatively small Sunday-matinee house felt that way. The Heritage Center is located on the 80-acre campus of the Minnesota Masonic Home, a nursing home. Some of the elderly people in the audience were audibly distressed by the language used in the play. Others who expected an afternoon of light entertainment were surprised.

Because of where they’re located and the audience they’re likely to draw, should Sidekick avoid complex, disturbing, challenging plays? Certainly not. But it might want to beef up its content advisories.

“The Gin Game” runs Fridays through Sundays, with evening and matinee performances. FMI and tickets ($19-26). Ends Sept. 22.

On the road

The Liquid Music-commissioned “Come Through” by TU Dance & Bon Iver sold out four performances at the Palace Theater in St. Paul. Then it sold out the Hollywood Bowl in its West Coast premiere. Eighteen thousand people came. On March 25, it will open the Direct Currents festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Tickets are on sale now (and going very fast), if you’re planning a trip. And/or you can watch the new 10-minute documentary from MN Original.

The Park Square Theatre-commissioned “Nina Simone: Four Women” will open Sept. 25 at the True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta. Written by Playwrights’ Center core writer and Pillsbury House playwright-in-residence Christina Ham, it had its world premiere in March 2016 on Park Square’s Andy Boss Stage (where it broke box office records), then returned in February 2017. It went on to a second production at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., later that year. More productions are scheduled at Northlight Theatre outside Chicago; Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, North Carolina; and the Black Rep in St. Louis. Regina Marie Williams will perform what is becoming her signature role in Atlanta.

And the Minnesota Opera-commissioned “Silent Night,” which had its world premiere in St. Paul in 2011 and won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music, will be performed with nine different companies around the world this season, including the Minnesota Opera, which will present a restaging at the Ordway in November.

More Minnesota bragging

The National Book Awards longlists are being announced.

Three out of 10 poetry finalists were published by Minnesota literary presses: “Feeld” by Jos Charles (Milkweed), “Indecency” by Justin Phillip Reed (Coffee House) and “Eye Level” by Jenny Xie (Graywolf).

One of the 10 finalists for young people’s literature is Bryan Bliss, author of “We’ll Fly Away” (Greenwillow Books), who lives in St. Paul.

Update: On the fiction longlist, released this morning: “A Lucky Man” by Jamel Brinkley (Graywolf).

The picks

Artscape is taking a break and will return Wednesday, Sept. 26. We’ll leave you with a longer-than-usual list of recommendations for things to do, see and hear. Bookmark it or something.

Saturday, Sept. 15, on Nicollet Ave. between 25th and 27th streets: Eat Street Food, Music & Arts Festival. The inaugural and we hope first annual celebration of Whittier will feature performances by Haley Bonar, Malamaya, McNasty Brass Band and Madison McFerrin, the Somali Museum Dance Troupe, Chinese Dance Theatre and more, a fashion show, a family fun zone and F-O-O-D. 1-9 p.m. FMI. Free.

Saturday, Sept. 15 at the Jungle: “Little Women” opens. Sarah Rasmussen directs the world premiere of the Jungle-commissioned adaptation by Kate Hamill (“Sense and Sensibility”) of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel. The cast couldn’t be better: Christina Baldwin, Wendy Lehr and Jim Lichtscheidl, for starters. Plus new music by Robert Elhai. FMI and tickets ($40-45). Ends Oct. 21.

Saturday, Sept. 15, at Modist Brewing: 113 Composers Collective Season Kickoff. Free performances by 113 members Alyssa Anderson, Joey Crane, Benjamin Mansavage Klein and Adam Zahller. The newest of new music plus the Curious Goat food truck will be there. Free. RSVP here.

Sunday and Monday, Sept. 16 and 17, at Crooners: Ethan Iverson and Mark Turner. For his first album release since leaving The Bad Plus, pianist Iverson teamed up with saxophonist Turner for “Temporary Kings,” just out on ECM. The Wall Street Journal called it “austere and elegant.” This week it was Amazon’s No. 2 best-selling jazz album, after Tony Bennett and Diana Krall. 6:30 Sunday, 7:30 Monday in the Dunsmore Room. FMI and tickets ($25-30).

Monday, Sept. 17, at Augsburg’s Foss Lobeck Miles Center: Club Book: Abdi Nor Iftin. In “Call Me American,” the Somali expat and debut author details his long and harrowing journey to America, beginning in Mogadishu, where he risked his life reporting on Islamic extremism for NPR. 623 22nd Ave. S., Minneapolis. 7 p.m. FMI. Free.

Tuesday, Sept. 18, at Shoreview Library: Shannon Gibney’s “Dream Country” book launch. Gibney’s new novel is a story of refugees, America and a determined young dreamer. Her first novel, “See No Color,” won the Minnesota Book Award. Co-sponsored by the East Side Freedom Library and the Ramsey County Library, this event will include a discussion with Dr. Taiyon Coleman and an audience Q&A. 7 p.m. Free.

Wednesday-Friday, Sept. 20-22, at the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock & Dam: 2nd Annual “Illuminate the Lock.” The 49-foot-tall chamber of the lock and dam will host a performance art world premiere. Created by Mike Hoyt, Dameun Strange and Molly van Avery, it will include visual projections on the water, a newly composed soundscape and a story. This one-of-a-kind event is a partnership between Northern Lights.mn, Mississippi Park Connection and the National Park Service. 8:30-9:15 each night. FMI. Free.

Friday and Saturday, Sept. 21 and 22, at Orchestra Hall: Minnesota Orchestra’s season opens: Osmo Vänskä and Emanuel Ax. The orchestra is back from what we’ve heard was a life-changing, eye-opening, ear-opening tour of South Africa. Will it be different? The season will open with music by Tower (“Fanfare for the Common Woman”), Copland and Brahms. 8 p.m. both nights. FMI and tickets ($39-97).

Sunday, Sept. 23, at the Machine Shop: Liquid Music: Hanna Benn & Deantoni Parks: Procession. The increasingly important, restlessly inventive Liquid Music series, part of the SPCO, begins its seventh season with a world premiere collaboration between Atlanta-based vocalist/composer Benn and percussionist/composer/producer Parks. Their new song cycle will incorporate a string quartet of SPCO musicians. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($25/20; free for children and students).

Monday, Sept. 24, at Icehouse: Dan Weiss Starebaby. Minds will be blown. Jazz meets heavy metal and electronic new music in drummer Weiss’s new supergroup. With Golden Valley native Craig Taborn on piano and Fender Rhodes; Matt Mitchell on piano, Prophet 6 and modular synthesizers; Ben Monder on guitar; Trevor Dunn on electric bass; Weiss on drums. 9:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20).

Tuesday, Sept. 25, at Westminster Presbyterian Church: Westminster Town Hall Forum: Clint Watts: Hackers, Terrorists, Russians and Fake News. The venerable speaker series launches its Fall 2018 season with the former FBI agent and current senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. Noon. FMI. Free.

Tuesday, Sept. 25, at the Hilde Performance Center in Plymouth: “Love Letters.” There’s still time for a night of theater outdoors in a park. The newly-formed Harbor Repertory Theater had a successful showing last year of A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters,” so they’re bringing it back for just one night. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and international hit, the touching story of a 50-year correspondence has been performed by actors including Elaine Stritch and Jason Robards, Christopher Reeve, Elizabeth Taylor, Alec Baldwin and James Earl Jones. On the secondary stage. Pre-show live music by Steve Noonan and Friends at 6 p.m., play at 7. Free. Best for ages 13 and up; mature themes and language.

Wednesday, Sept. 26, at the Weisman: Patricia Smith reading. Four-time National Poetry Slam champion, author of eight collections of poetry. A major event and sure to be a thrilling reading. 7 p.m. FMI.

The Playwrights’ Center has announced its 2018-19 season of eight new plays, all free and open to the public. These were chosen from among the 70+ plays developed there over the past year. The performances are staged readings, not full productions, but the casts feature top local and national actors, directors, and design elements.

The season has two parts: the PlayLabs festival in October, with three plays, and the Ruth Easton New Play Series of five plays, one each from December through April. More than 65 percent of the plays featured in PlayLabs over the past decade have gone on to full productions.

Up first in PlayLabs is “Berlin Diary” by Andrea Stolowitz, a play about remembering and forgetting, based on a copy of her great-grandfather’s 1939 diary from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and her own life. The cast: Bob Davis and Miriam Schwartz. Directed by Larissa Lury. Oct. 22 and 26.

In Ariel Stess’ “Kara & Emma & Barbara & Miranda,” a comedy-drama set in Santa Fe, four people try to break free from forces in their lives that are holding them back so they can start again. The cast: Chloe Armao, Zoe Geltman, Peter Christian Hansen, Terry Hempleman, Tracey Maloney, Luverne Siefert and Angela Timberman. Directed by Hayley Finn. Oct. 24 and 27.

The casts and directors for the Ruth Easton Series haven’t yet been announced, but these are the plays.

“Darling Boud (as in Loud)” by Allison Gregory. The six controversial, blue-blooded Mitford sisters – Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah – are brought together in a collusion of family, love and world war. Dec. 3 and 4.

[cms_ad:Middle]“Jeune Terre” by Gab Reisman. The waters are rising around a Louisiana town, the land is slipping away, and a storm is approaching when a theater troupe arrives to tell an old story in a new way. A play with songs. Jan. 14 and 15, 2019.

“The History of Religion” by Carlyle Brown. A journey from mystery to revelation and back again, set against a musical backdrop by multi-instrumentalist Victor Zupanc and percussionist Ahanti Young. Feb. 4 and 5.

“Tiny Houses” by Stefanie Zadravec. On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17 was shot down over a a tiny, war-torn village in the eastern Ukraine. In Zadravec’s play, “a comic riff on Pandora’s Box,” several women on the ground suddenly realized they could disrupt the status quo. March 4 and 5.

“The Dance” by Kim Euell. The personal relationships between three young people – two African-American artists and an activist attorney – are shaped by epic events including Nelson Mandela’s release from prison and visit to the Bay Area. April 1 and 2.

In addition to PlayLabs and the Ruth Easton Series, the Playwrights’ Center will also present a Playwriting Fellows Showcase on Oct. 28, with scenes by nine 2018-19 playwriting fellows including Antonio Duke, Idris Goodwin and May Lee-Yang, whose play “The Korean Drama Addict’s Guide to Losing Your Virginity” recently ended a sold-out run on the Park Square’s Andy Boss stage.

Reservations for PlayLabs will open soon. FMI.

The picks

Tonight (Wednesday, Sept. 26) at Vieux Carré: Cyrus Chestnut Trio. This is the second of two nights with the great pianist and his jaw-dropping trio: drummer Lenny White, part of Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” and Chick Corea’s famed fusion band Return to Forever, and bassist Buster Willliams, who has recorded with everyone from McCoy Tyner to Nancy Wilson. 7 and 9 p.m. FMI and tickets ($30-40).

Thursday at Northrop: Dan Buettner: The David A. Rothenberger Lecture. Where in the world do people live the longest, healthiest lives? A New York Times best-selling author, National Geographic Fellow, award-winning journalist, explorer and Minnesota native, Buettner found five places he calls “Blue Zones.” He wrote very popular articles about them. He now works with municipal governments, large employers and health insurance companies to apply lessons learned to entire communities, dramatically improving the health of millions of Americans. Take the afternoon off (if you can) to hear what he has to say. 4 p.m. Free and open to the public. FMI and reservations. In case you’re wondering if the Twin Cities are a Blue Zone, sadly, no.

Thursday in the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater: 9×22 Dance/Lab. September is the 15th anniversary of the monthly showcase of Twin Cities dance curated and moderated by 2918 McKnight choreographer fellow Laurie Van Wieren. Each piece will be followed by a discussion. Thursday’s choreographers will be Maria Tordoff, Jonathan Arneman and Chris Schlichting. Doors at 7 p.m., performance at 8. FMI and tickets ($6-15 sliding scale).

Friday at the Parkway: The Theater of Public Policy: Civil Fest 2018. If anyone can keep politics civil (besides MinnPost, of course, as anyone who’s been to a MinnRoast knows), it’s T2P2. This event at the newly renovated Parkway will be a nonpartisan celebration of voting and democracy. Political guests from both sides will play classic game show games. T2P2 will provide original sketch comedy inspired by Minnesota politics and improv. The band City Counselor will contribute music throughout the night. As of Tuesday morning, the lineup of pols included Secretary of State Steve Simon, Sen. Jeff Hayden, Sen. Scott Dibble, Rep. Erin Murphy, Rep. Erin Maye Quade, Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Council Member Mitra Nelson and State Auditor Rebecca Otto, with others likely but not yet confirmed. Doors at 7:30 p.m., show at 8. FMI and tickets ($20/24).

Hot ticket

Bob Woodward: A Conversation. On Monday, Dec. 3, at 7:30 p.m., the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of “Fear: Trump in the White House” will speak at the State Theatre with MPR’s Kerri Miller. Tickets will go on sale to the public Friday (Sept. 28) at 11 a.m. ($48.50-$58.50). A presale offer starts today (Wednesday, Sept. 26) at 10 a.m. and ends tomorrow (Thursday, Sept. 27) at 10 a.m. Password: NYTBEST . Buy online, by phone or in person at the State Theatre box office. FMI.

Now in its 13th year, the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival will screen more than 30 films from Palestine, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, the UAE and Iraq, along with films by local Arab filmmakers.

Starting tonight (Thursday, Sept. 27) and ending Sunday (Sept. 30), the four-day event, presented by Mizna, will include an opening night party, post-screening talks and discussions.

Not all of the planned post-screening events will take place. “Of the four international guests invited and who were able to visit, none were granted their visas,” Mizna’s executive and artistic director Lana Barkawi told MinnPost on Wednesday.

Iraqi Kurdish director Hakar Abdulqader’s visa was never approved. For a while, there was hope because he didn’t get an immediate no. The U.S. embassy still has his passport. “Unless he gets a yes and has his passport and visa returned to him in the next few hours,” Barkawi said, “we won’t be able to get him here in time for his film screening on Friday.” Abdulqader’s film is “Separation.”

[cms_ad:Middle]Egyptian actress Yasmin Raeis appears in three of the festival’s films, “Sheikh Jackson,” “Looking for Oum Kulthum” and “Kiss Me Not.” She was not granted a visa in time by the U.S. embassy in Egypt.

Palestinian activist Naila Ayesh, the subject of Julia Bacha’s documentary “Naila and the Uprising,” was allowed into Canada for the Toronto International Film Festival. But she was denied entry to the U.S.

Syrian filmmaker Gaya Jiji, whose film “My Favourite Fabric” will be screened at the festival, was denied a visa by the U.S. embassy in Paris, where she lives. Her passport is Syrian.

“It is frustrating, and a tangible effect of the administration’s attitude to the world,” Barkawi said. “This was all quite stressful for the film artists and for us in planning for this cultural event. I can’t imagine what it’s like if the stakes are higher for an immigrant, refugee, or someone who is separated from a family member in a time of need.”

Despite those disappointments, the festival is solid. Tonight’s opener, Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki’s “Capernaum,” has already made history. It won the 2018 Cannes Jury Prize in May, and Labaki became the first female Arab filmmaker ever to win a major prize in competition. “Capernaum” has previously screened only in Cannes and Toronto; this will be the U.S. premiere. It’s a big deal. The audience at Cannes gave it a 15-minute standing ovation.

On Friday, “1948: Creation and Catastrophe” will screen free for students (middle school, high school and college), followed by a conversation with filmmaker Ahlam Muhtaseb and local Palestinian activist Leila Abdennabi. Sunday’s closing film, “Wajib,” is a Palestinian film from Palestinian American director Annemarie Jacir. The festival also includes a number of films about Syria, and a discussion about Syria and Palestine.

Perhaps the festival’s biggest surprise: More than half of the films were made by women.

All films will be shown at the Film Society’s Screen 3 in the St. Anthony Main Theatre. Go here for the complete schedule, details and tickets. Follow the hotlinks for details and trailers.

And congratulations to Mizna on its 2018 Sally Award, which will be presented on Monday, Oct. 15, at the Ordway. The St. Paul-based Arab American arts organization, publisher of the only Arab American journal in existence (“Mizna: Prose, Poetry and Art Exploring Arab America”), was founded in 1999. Ever since, it has worked to diversify the Twin Cities’ artistic and intellectual life and create spaces where Arab voices can be heard.

The picks

Tonight (Thursday, Sept. 27) and tomorrow at Hopkins Center for the Arts: Pen Pals with Timothy Egan. A few tickets remain to see the National Book Award-winning author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter discuss his life and writing. His latest: “The Immortal Irishman.” Tonight at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 11 a.m. FMI and tickets ($40-50).

Friday and Saturday at the Walker: “Time for Ilhan.” Norah Shapiro’s film traces the rise of the Somali-American politician from Minneapolis – and current DFL-endorsed candidate for Congress – from community organizer to the Minnesota House of Representatives. 7 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday in the Cinema. FMI and tickets ($10/8).

Sunday at Christ Church Lutheran: Dedication recital for the new Christ Church organ. The architecturally significant church designed by Eliel Saarinen (and the former home of the chamber ensemble Accordo, until they outgrew it) now has an organ fit for a National Historic Landmark. A work of art designed and custom-built by Dobson Pipe Organ Builders in Lake City, Iowa, the organ will make its debut in the accomplished hands of internationally acclaimed organist Martin Jean of Yale University. The recital will be followed by a reception. 4 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Sunday at the Dakota: A Celebration of and by T. Mychael Rambo. In late July, the Emmy-winning actor, singer, Twin Cities theater favorite and beloved local personality T. Mychael Rambo was carjacked, robbed and pistol-whipped by a group of teenagers in St. Paul he had stopped to help. Now he’s hosting a benefit for Save Our Sons and The Circle of Peace Movement, organizations that mentor and support at-risk African-American youth. A portion of the proceeds will go to Rambo’s own recovery costs, but “the lion’s share goes to these organizations,” he told the MN Spokesman-Recorder. “The reality is our young people need more help than me.” Performers are a Who’s Who of area talent: Jamecia Bennett, Aimee K. Bryant, Julius Collins, Ginger Commodore, Brittany Delany, Debbie Duncan, Keno Evol, Pavielle French, Tonia Hughes, Patricia Lacy, Thomasina Petrus and Robert Robinson, plus a great band. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($40).

Coming up

The 26th annual Sally Awards – named for Sally Ordway Irvine, whose initiative, vision and commitment inspired the creation of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts – will take place at the Ordway on Monday, Oct. 15. The winners have already been announced: the Washburn Blackbox Acting Program, led by Crystal Spring; the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop; Chinese musical prodigy and pipa master Gao Hong; dancer and creator of “Rooted: Hip Hop Choreographers’ Evening” Maia Maiden; and Mizna, the Arab-American arts organization. So the evening will be less surprise, more celebration, with the opportunity to learn about the winners’ important contributions to our vibrant cultural scene. Doors at 6:30 p.m., ceremony at 7. It’s free, but please RSVP.

Jazz may be uniquely American, but you can flavor it, color it and marry it with anything from anywhere. For Norwegian pianist and composer Tord Gustavsen, who grew up in a rural village and started playing piano when he was 4 years old, it’s natural to bring in the Scandinavian folk songs and European Protestant hymns he heard as a child while also drawing from jazz, African-American gospel and spirituals, Afro-Caribbean and Western classical musical. It all travels through his ears and head and heart and out through his fingers as something new.

The last time Gustavsen came through Minneapolis, in June 2016, he was touring with his album “What Was Said” in a trio with drummer Jarle Vespestad and Afghan-German vocalist Simin Tander. The songs were original tunes he’d written for poems by the 13th-century Sufi mystic Rumi, interspersed with arrangements of Lutheran hymns from his childhood. Tander sang in Pashto, an official language of Afghanistan.

[cms_ad:Middle]The music was exquisite. The night was hot. The concert was in Mindekirken, the Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church just off E. Franklin Avenue, a sweet space without AC. The portable fans had to be turned off so their hum wouldn’t mess with the sound. We fanned ourselves as discreetly as we could.

When Gustavsen returns to Mindekirken next Tuesday (Oct. 2), the weather should be perfect.

Gustavsen made his name in the 2000s with a trilogy of piano trio recordings for the renowned German label ECM, all with bassist Harald Johnsen and drummer Vespestad. “Changing Places” (2003) was ECM’s most successful debut in a decade. “The Ground” (2005) reached No. 1 in Norway. “Being There” (2007) earned raves including Album of the Year from the U.K. magazine Jazz Review.

That would be his last piano trio album until, well, now. Released Aug. 31 on ECM, “The Other Side” finds Gustavsen in the lead on the keys, with longtime drummer Vespestad and new bassist Sigurd Hole. Why the 11-year gap? It’s explained in part by the death of original bassist Johnsen after a long illness. In an interview earlier this week, Gustavson told New Sounds host John Schaefer that Johnson “passed away sadly, tragically, much too early. It didn’t feel right to make a trio with a different bass player at that time.”

It certainly feels (and sounds) right today. “The Other Side,” which we’ve played nonstop for the past few days, is sublime. Gustavsen’s music tends toward the minimalist, spacious and spare, with shifting rhythms and notes that take their time. In his words, “The less we play, the more we say.” He might add, though he probably wouldn’t, “The more you listen, the more you’ll hear.”

It’s chamber jazz, and church jazz, and sitting alone on a lakeshore jazz. There are a lot of piano trios out there, and it’s no small thing to stand out from the crowd by being quieter, more reflective and less showy. Gustavsen has done that from the start.

The 12 tracks on “The Other Side” include several originals; Scandinavian hymns in new arrangements by Gustavsen; a tune by 19th-century Danish composer, organist and folklorist Ludvig Mathias Lindeman; and Gustavsen’s versions of three Bach chorales. Touched with delicate electronics, the music is profound, intimate, elevating and grooving – the latter most notably in Bach’s “Schlafes Bruder” (The Brother of Sleep), a song about death and what comes after. You can almost dance to it.

Let’s hope the trio plays the whole album at Mindekirken. And if they want to pull in pieces from the earlier trilogy, that would be fine, too. This will be the final stop on their U.S. tour, and in our experience, the last concerts are often the best and most expansive. Presented by the Edvard Grieg Society of Minnesota as the first event of its 2018-19 season, the music will be followed by a meet-and-greet reception at Norway House, just across the parking lot. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 2. FMI and tickets ($25 advance or at the door).

The picks

Starts today (Friday, Sept. 28) along the North Shore: Art Along the Lake Fall Studio Tour. Heading north for a cabin weekend or just because? Need an excuse besides the crisp fall air and brilliant colors? (This is supposed to be a really good year for those.) Art Along the Lake, formerly the Crossing Borders Studio Tour, is a chance to meet with artists in their home studios and guest artists at local galleries. This year’s featured artists are Dan and Lee Ross, whose clay and stone sculptures and monoprints are influenced by their travels and their daily lives on the shore of Lake Superior. More than 50 artists will participate in the tour. Daily through Oct. 7. Go here for a printable brochure with maps and artists’ names.

Opens today at the Howard Conn Performing Arts Center in Plymouth Congregational Church: “A Woman Called Truth.” Youth Performance Company presents the story of Sojourner Truth, the abolitionist and women’s rights advocate who was born a slave and grew up to be a great leader and voice for the voiceless. Sandra Fenichel Asher’s play has been cast with young people from all over the Twin Cities metro area. Many learned Truth’s story as they prepared for opening night. Times vary. FMI and tickets ($7-15). Ends Sunday, Oct. 14.

Tonight through Sunday at the Southern: Vie Boheme: “Centerplay.” If you haven’t seen Kendra “Vie Boheme” Dennard dance – with TU Dance, Camille A. Brown, the Karen L. Charles Threads Dance Project, in the Choreographers’ Evening at the Walker, solo at the Southern or in the Guthrie’s “West Side Story” – you should. Ditto if you haven’t heard her sing or experienced her spoken word. She’s strong, athletic, graceful, articulate and fearless, even in the sky-high heels she often wears. And she has a lot to say. Performed to an original score co-written with Eric Mayson, “Centerplay: An Immersive Dance Theater Experience” weaves music, movement, and words in an evening of exploration with a potential for revelation. The performance takes place in the round, with audience members seated among the performers. 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. FMI and tickets ($24-$12). Sunday is pay-what-you-can. Free to ARTshare members. Recommended for ages 13 and up.

Sunday at Plymouth Congregational Church: Philip Brunelle’s 50th Year: Organ Recital and Hymn Sing. One of the world’s premier choral music organizations, the Minneapolis-based VocalEssence is celebrating its 50th anniversary season. Philip Brunelle, its founder and artistic director, is celebrating his 50th year as organist and choirmaster of Plymouth Congregational Church. Brunelle is a genuine treasure in our midst, known around the world, much lauded and awarded, a champion of new music (VocalEssence has commissioned hundreds of new works and performed hundreds of world premieres), and a tireless advocate of singing. He’s so passionate about the power and glory and all-around goodness of singing that if you stumble into his orbit, you’ll get sucked right in. This Sunday launches a series of events marking his half-century of service. Brunelle will play the organ and lead a hymn sing. 4 p.m. Free and open to the public; donations to the 50th Anniversary Fund will be gratefully accepted.

Hot ticket

A global superstar, three-time Grammy winner and reigning “Queen of African music,” Benin-born Angélique Kidjo has done something wild and wonderful: created her own radical reimagining of the iconic Talking Heads album “Remain in Light.” (Which was originally inspired by the sounds of West Africa.) She’ll be at the Cedar on Feb. 19, 2019, which seems a long way off, but we wouldn’t sleep on this. Here’s a video of Kidjo performing “Once in a Lifetime” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in May. Tickets go on sale today (Friday, Sept. 28) at noon. $45 advance, $50 day of show. All ages standing show. FMI.

The message of “Hamilton” is that history has its eyes on you and you can do anything you want with this life as long as you just don’t stop. Just like Alexander Hamilton, who started his hero’s journey at age 19.

That message was heard loudly and clearly by some 2,400 lucky students from 13 area high schools who took in a special Thursday matinee of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical that continues it’s sold-out run at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Minneapolis through October 7.

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The crowd at the Orpheum was a sight to see, to be sure: Brought together by the area nonprofit Project Success, a theater full of kids representing different cultures watching the history lesson-slash-reimagining-slash-dream-of America of their generation live on stage, all of which provided a bit of hope on a grotesquely hopeless day in America.

“I wouldn’t say the students are a less-reserved audience, but they really let go,” said “Hamilton” cast member Conroe Brooks. “They really laugh, and scream, and cry. I remember some of our first performances of this, and I would hear kids audibly crying in the audience. Which you hear sometimes with the regular performances, but it just seems like there’s a lot more going on with these kids. They really feel it and that is a special thing.”

Reduced student tickets came courtesy of the EduHam in Minneapolis education program, in which students spent several weeks in their classrooms studying Hamilton and the founding fathers. Not only did the students attend the high-buck and high-talent production, some (from Burnsville, Creative Arts Secondary School, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Murray Iowa Community School, Patrick Henry, River’s Edge Academy, Roosevelt, Roseville, South, and Tartan) performed original “Hamilton”-inspired raps, songs, and poems on the Orpheum stage before the performance.

“It’s interesting to see how a lot of the attitudes haven’t really changed that much,” said Edison High School’s Connor Arneson, who, along with his twin brother Brandon performed a rap battle between — who else? — George Washington and Benedict Arnold. “The spirit of the revolution is as alive today as it was 250 years ago — in a different form, obviously. I really like history, so it’s really cool to have other people be exposed to history that’s very consumable and makes it fun to learn.”

“The show is special to perform no matter who’s in the house, because people identify with it in different ways and people really have a visceral experience when they see the show,” said cast member Phil Colgan. “But when it’s students who both see themselves up there and relate to the show because of its music or its message, it becomes a rock concert. It becomes a really special experience of us feeling the show being received in a more whole-hearted, unabashed way. We can feel it and they can, too.”

The next EduHam edition of “Hamilton” takes place October 4 at the Orpheum Theater, with 17 high schools participating.

A new biography by historian Arnold Offner, “Hubert Humphrey, The Conscience of the Country,” provides a behind-the-scenes look at the events of 1968 as Humphrey and his advisers struggled to deal with this central challenge facing his campaign. Offner, an emeritus professor of history at Lafayette College, tells how events come to a head in Salt Lake City when Humphrey met the challenge in a dramatic speech delivered 50 years ago, on Sept. 30.

Earlier during that election year, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee had left the chaotic Chicago convention dejected, trailing Nixon by 16 points in the polls and still languishing under LBJ’s shadow. Continually demeaned and humiliated by the president, Humphrey told an aide at one point, according to Offner, “You know, I have eaten so much of Johnson’s shit on this job that I have grown to like the taste of it. “ Offner wrote, “Humphrey continued to behave more like a son who feared a punitive father (LBJ) than a man certain to become ‘captain’ of the Democratic team.”

[cms_ad:Middle]In the weeks after the Chicago convention, Humphrey began crisscrossing the country, struggling to deliver a campaign message while confronting anti-war hecklers carrying “dump the Hump” signs. Even Humphrey’s small gestures to show some sympathy with the anti-war movement were met with Johnson’s disapproval and disdain. At a news conference in Texas in early September, Humphrey held up a copy of a Houston newspaper with an article noting the return a Marine regiment from Vietnam. Humphrey claiming incorrectly that the article indicated a drawdown of troops from the war zone, when, in fact, the regiment was merely returning to the U.S. as a part of regular rotation. Johnson rebuked Humphrey publicly for the misstatement and his vice president was forced to backtrack.

By mid-September, Humphrey’s advisers were convinced that he needed to stake out his own position on the war to provide some daylight between his own views and those of Johnson. With the Paris peace negotiations sputtering, Humphrey’s staff began drafting a speech that spelled out the steps Humphrey would take to deal with the situation in Vietnam after he became president. His campaign used $100,000 of its dwindling cash reserve to buy a half an hour of air time on NBC for a nationally televised address that Humphrey would deliver on Sept. 30 in Salt Lake City.

Humphrey decided that he would call Johnson just before the speech to inform the president about its content but not to seek Johnson’s approval. When the call was made just before the speech was about the air, Humphrey assured Johnson that he was not calling for a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. In later days, Johnson would complain about Humphrey’s efforts to pull away from the administration’s position on the war, but the president refrained from offering a clear judgment about the stance when he took Humphrey’s call.

In the days after the Salt Lake City address, the press and public reaction to Humphrey’s speech was largely positive. On Oct. 1, the Minneapolis Tribune’s front-page headline read “HHH Says He’d End N. Vietnam Bombing.” The Tribune reported that former Eugene McCarthy supporters in Minnesota, who had broken with Humphrey in the past, were applauding the speech.

“It is interesting to see that he (Humphrey) is coming around at least part way to McCarthy’s anti-war position,” one McCarthy loyalist told the paper. “It’s sort of tragic it has taken this long.” During the remaining five weeks of the presidential campaign, Humphrey’s poll numbers began to improve and campaign contributions started increasing.

In the end, on Election Day, after a tepid endorsement by McCarthy, Humphrey nearly caught up to Nixon, losing the popular vote by a margin of less than 1% even while trailing badly in the electoral college.

In the biography, Offner clearly admires the former vice president and lauds Humphrey’s domestic achievements. The book opens with an account of the then-Minneapolis mayor’s dramatic civil rights speech to the 1948 Democratic National Convention where he called for the Democratic Party “to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.” But Offner concludes the biography with a clear-eyed assessment of Humphrey’s tragic flaw: his inability to break with Johnson.

Offner writes, “What Humphrey lacked most was the spirit and courage he had shown as a young mayor and aspiring Senate candidate who twenty years earlier had successfully challenged a Democratic convention and an incumbent president to adopt his civil rights plan for their party platform. Had he done this over Vietnam in 1968, he might have won the presidential election.”

Even so, Offner maintains, “Humphrey was the most successful legislator in the nation’s history and powerful voice for equal justice for all, although he did not attain the presidency he coveted.”

The retired historian’s well-researched account of Humphrey’s career may not have uncovered much new information about the Happy Warrior, as Humphrey was known. But Offner’s 2018 biography will introduce a new generation of Minnesotans to the trials and triumphs of this state’s most notable 20th-century political figure.

Penumbra has extended Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf” another week, adding six more performances to this scorching, ecstatic new production. We saw it on the night of the Ford-Kavanaugh hearing, and like probably everyone in the house – and certainly everyone in the cast – we thought, “Why does this sound so contemporary? It’s 40 years old! What’s wrong with us?”

The topics in Shange’s sprawling “choreopoem” range from date rape to the divinity within us all. The word “choreopoem” was coined by Shange to describe her signature blend of poetry with dance and music. The play is a series of poems. Penumbra turned to Ananya Chatterjea for the choreography, and she brought fluid motion and breathtaking tableaus. Directors Sarah Bellamy and Lou Bellamy (listed in that order on the program) cast Latina and Asian-American performers as well as African-Americans.

We fell in love with the ensemble cast: Christina Florencia Castro as the Lady in Orange, Khanisha Foster (Blue), Sun Mee Chomet (Green), Audrey Park (Red), Ashe Jaafaru (Brown), Rajané Katurah Brown (Yellow) and Am’ber Montgomery (Purple). Each is a force and a flame. Chomet has been this way before; she appeared in Penumbra’s first production of “for colored girls …” in 1999. Her performance of the show’s most famous monologue, “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff,” communicates fury, sensuality and strength.

The Bellamys added three young actresses, who appear at the beginning and the end as Future 1, 2 and 3: Eycis Maxon, Jianna Reynolds and Quintella Rule. They frame the play – stories of oppression, struggle, racism and violence – with innocence and hope. Maybe 40 years from now, when these young women are in their prime, things will be different?

[cms_ad:x100]A special shout to Matthew LeFebvre’s costumes. Created in a rainbow of colors, they flow with Chatterjea’s choreography and make each woman stand out memorably. LeFebvre has had a long relationship with Penumbra under former artistic director Lou Bellamy. We’re glad to see that continue with Sarah Bellamy in charge.

So, what is it like for the cast to appear in this play, at this moment? We were there on a night with a talkback, so we heard it from them. Chomet: “It feeds the work, unfortunately.” Jaafaru: “It came at the right time. It breaks your heart open.” Brown’s last play before this was “The Lorax” at the Children’s Theatre. Her words: “I have been my truest self.” As she described what the play meant to her, she wept. It must be very special to be part of that fierce ensemble, to undergo such a profound experience daily for such a span of time.

Penumbra was founded just two years after Shange’s play made its debut. They’ve grown up together. There’s no question that both remain immediate, relevant and essential.

“for colored girls …” continues through Sunday, Oct. 21. FMI and tickets ($40-15). P.S. Talkbacks are typically on Thursdays, but more may be added due to requests.

The picks

Tonight (Tuesday, Oct. 2) at Aria: Schubert Club Mix: Nicola Benedetti. We’ll have two chances this season to see the exciting, award-winning and in-demand Scottish violinist. As the Schubert Club’s first annual Featured Artist, she’ll perform tonight at Aria for its hip, relaxed (and musically superb) Mix series. In January, she’ll return for its venerable, more formal (and musically superb) International Artist series at the Ordway. Both times, Alexei Grynyuk will be at the piano, and Benedetti will play her 1717 Gariel Stradivarius. Tonight’s concert is at 7:30. FMI and tickets ($30; general admission); 651-292-3268.

Thursday at Northrop: Ballet Hispánico. Making its Northrop debut as the season opener, New York City-based Ballet Hispánico will present a program of works by Latina choreographers. The evening will include Michelle Manzanales’ “Con Brazos Abiertos,” about growing up in Texas; Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s “Sombrerísimo,” written for the company’s male dancers; and Tania Pérez-Salas “3: Catorce Dieciséis,” about the circularity of movement through life, reflected in the number Pi. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($47-27; discounts available). 612-624-2345. Performance preview at 6:15 p.m. in the Best Buy Theater.

Saturday at the Ordway: “La Rondine.” Minnesota Opera’s season gets off on a light foot with Puccini’s only operetta. The titan who gave us “La Bohème,” “Tosca,” “Madame Butterfly” and “Turandot” wrote “La Rondine” (The Swallow) late in his career. World War I forced the relocation and delay of its premiere and it never quite took off. More than a century later, this “overlooked Puccini classic” is now finding its place in the repertoire. (The most recent Twin Cities performance was in 2015 by Skylark Opera in its previous incarnation.) The tale of a courtesan who falls in love with a country boy is given a fresh twist by director Octavio Cardenas, who views it through a lens of regret. Irish soprano Celine Byrne is Magda, Italian-American tenor Leonardo Capalbo (“Tosca,” 2016) is Ruggero in a Minnesota Opera production making its debut. 8 p.m. Five performances; ends Sunday, Oct. 14. FMI and tickets ($25-200).

Hot ticket: Gary Snyder at Macalester

You might not think Macalester’s annual Engel-Morgan-Jardetzky Distinguished Lecture on Science, Culture and Ethics would qualify as a hot ticket. But the last time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder came through the Twin Cities, he read at Plymouth Church and the place was jammed. Environmentalist, Zen Buddhist, teacher, author of 20 books of poetry and prose, and winner of numerous literary prizes, Snyder will present “Minding the Wild: An Evening of Poetry and Discussion.” 7:30 p.m. in Kagin Commons, 21 Snelling Ave. S., St. Paul. Free and open to the public, but tickets are required. FMI and reservations.

The puppets are coming. A lot of puppets. Should we be scared? No, because puppets in the right hands are magical. Bunches of them, large and small, are heading our way. It’s a perfect storm of puppetry.

Starting Friday (Oct. 5) at the O’Shaughnessy with Manual Cinema’s “The End of TV.” Manual Cinema is a performance collective based in Chicago. Their specialty: live cinematic shadow puppet shows. Set in a post-industrial Rust Belt city in the 1990s, told through images, lo-fi video feeds and R&B-inspired art pop songs performed live by a five-piece band, “The End of TV” explores two sides of the American dream: the technicolor promise of television and the reality of industrial decline. Here’s the trailer. It looks amazing. 7:30 pm. FMI and tickets ($28). Scroll down to learn about the free Manual Cinema workshop on Thursday at Heart of the Beast (aka Puppet Central).

[cms_ad:x100]Saturday will be puppet pandemonium at Heart of the Beast (HOBT). The 20th season of “TA-DA!,” HOBT’s Saturday puppet shows for kids, will begin with matinees at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. FMI ($7-2 suggested donation). At 7 p.m. the internationally celebrated, overtly political Vermont-based Bread & Puppet Theater will present “The Grasshopper Rebellion Circus.” Huge puppets (including dancing bears and grasshoppers) will reprise 6,000 years of unhuman history and the uprisings against it. FMI and tickets ($30-sliding scale). A Puppet Cabaret at 9 p.m. will feature new, short, experimental, weird and borderline “artistic” puppet acts by HOBT, Barebones Theater, Bread & Puppet and more. FMI and RSVP. $12. Whew! Bread & Puppet will also perform on Sunday.

Michael Sommers’ storied puppet epic “A Prelude to Faust” will return to Open Eye Figure Theatre for a three-week run starting Friday, Oct. 19. Commissioned by the Walker in 1998, based on Goethe’s poem about a man who sells his soul to the devil, researched by Sommers in Germany and the Czech Republic, it’s “a miniature surreal world of tormented souls, flying spirits and disembodied hands.” Now we’re talking. Sommers will direct this new 20th-anniversary production, which will include “more ecstatic violence and a more intensely heartbreaking love story.” Michael Koerner’s original score will be performed by a live orchestra. FMI and tickets ($24 to pay-as-able). Ends Nov. 11.

And for puppet aficionados who like to plan ahead, the National Puppetry Festival will return to the University of Minnesota in July 2019. More about that then.

The picks

Today’s picks are kind of wonky. Blame the puppets.

Thursday at the U’s Coffman Union Theater: Frank Bidart and Maggie Nelson. The Fall 2018 Esther Freier Lecture is a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Bidart (“Half-light: Collected Poems,” which also won the 2017 National Book Award for Poetry) and MacArthur fellow Nelson (“The Argonauts,” winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism). 7:30 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Thursday at Mia: Panel Discussion on “Horse Nation.” Among the Dakota, Nakota and Lakota people, horses are relatives and community members. “Horse Nation of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires),” an exhibition running concurrently at Mia, Two Rivers Gallery and All My Relations Arts, explores how horses shape history, spirituality and culture. On Thursday, artists Arthur Amiotte (Oglala Lakota), Keith BraveHeart (Titonwan Lakota) and Gwen Nell Westerman (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) will talk about the art and the importance of horses. 7-8 p.m. Register here ($10/$5, free for members of the Native American Art Affinity Group).

Saturday at the American Swedish Institute: “Swede Hollow – Reading of the Stage Play.” Ola Larsmo’s “Swede Hollow” is making its way to the States. One of the most important novels published in Sweden in 2016, it tells of a Swedish family who left everything behind in 1897 and settled in Swede Hollow, St. Paul, home to many immigrants. The English rights have been acquired by the University of Minnesota Press, and the novel has been adapted into a play in Sweden. Now the Swedish stage text has been translated into English. On Saturday, a group of local actors led by Theater Mu’s Randy Reyes will read a selection at ASI. Doors at 9:30, event at 10 a.m., with opening remarks by Erik Anderson of the press. Free and open to the public.

Saturday at the Walker: Kids’ Book Fair. October’s Free First Saturday is also the Walker’s first-ever book fair for kids. Authors and illustrators will be reading and signing all day. Special guest Daniel Salmieri (“Dragons Love Tacos”) will read from his new book, “Bear and Wolf.” The Walker Shop will feature a big display of children’s picture books, board books and story books. Featured authors and illustrators will include Eliza Wheeler (10:30 a.m.), Phyllis Root (11:30 a.m.), Mélina Mangel (12:30 p.m.) and Salmieri (1:30 p.m.) 10 a.m.-3 p.m. FMI. Free.

Monday at the Bryant-Lake Bowl: The Theater of Public Policy: “The Pioneer Press Presses On.” What’s the future of St. Paul’s daily newspaper? Controlling owner Alden Global Capital, aka Digital First Media, the hedge fund that owns nearly 100 newspapers across the nation, has not been kind to them. As the Star Tribune’s Lee Schafer has written, “Alden is treating one of the biggest media companies in the country like a big ATM.” Bloomberg has called Alden “a destroyer of newspapers.” The Nation published a juicy piece in September 2017 about Alden founder Randall D. Smith titled “How Many Palm Beach Mansions Does a Wall Street Tycoon Need?” But this is our rant. Surely the skilled improvisers of T2P2 and their guest, Pi Press journalist and union leader Dave Orrick, will be more moderate and circumspect when they talk on Monday. Doors at 6 p.m., show at 7. FMI and link to tickets ($12/15). MinnPost is a media sponsor.

Hot tickets: Magnus Nilsson at ASI

And speaking of the American Swedish Institute (see above), superstar Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson, a huge hit when he visited ASI in 2015, will return on Sunday, Nov. 4, with another brick of a book. His new “Nordic Baking Book” is 600 pages of breads, pastries, cakes and cookies. Its lavishly praised predecessor, “The Nordic Cook Book,” was even longer. (Oh and meanwhile Nilsson’s tiny restaurant Fäviken won its second Michelin star.) The VIP experience is already sold out. An “All Over Fika: Baked Goods and Books” is still available ($75/185); register here or here. Or come to the “Nordic Table Chef Talk – An Afternoon and Book Signing with Magnus Nilsson” at 3:30 p.m. for $15. Multiple Magnus titles will be available for purchase and signing. Register here.

It’s fitting that a recent MinnPost interview with Ron Stallworth happened by phone. In 1978, Stallworth was a rookie detective and the only African-American in the Colorado Springs police department when he infiltrated the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan — by phoning them and Klan poobah David Duke and posing as a white supremacist.

Today, Stallworth’s story is finding a big-screen audience via Spike Lee and Jordan Peele‘s brilliant “BlacKkKlansman,” based on Stallworth’s 2014 memoir of the same name.

MinnPost chatted with Stallworth in advance of his Oct. 25 appearance at Minneapolis’ Beth El Synagogue, where he’ll be part of the synagogue’s “Heroes Among Us: Combating Hate and Bigotry” series.

MinnPost: Given your line of work, it’s perfect to be talking to you over the phone. Is this really Ron Stallworth?

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Ron Stallworth: Well, of course it is.

MP: In 1979 your boss told you to destroy all evidence of the investigation. Is that why it took until 2014 to have your book published? Tell me about the book and why it took so long to finally write it.

RS: No. In March of 2013 I just started writing, and I wrote for nine months. There was nothing in the interim that prevented me from telling the story. I just didn’t have a junction to do it.

MP: How often did you tell the story over the years?

RS: People I worked with knew about it. It was a conversation piece, showing them my KKK card, laughing about it and “How did that happen?” I’d tell a lot of stories. It was no secret; I just never talked to the press about it and never put it down in writing.

RS: Very surreal. To recognize that I have a book that, a month ago, was number one on the New York Times’ best-seller list and a movie depicting that chapter in my life is getting critical acclaim — very surreal.

MP: What first inspired you to be a cop?

RS: I moved to Colorado in 1972 (from his hometown of El Paso, Texas) to take the test in order to join the police cadet program at the age of 19. I joined the police force with one motivation in mind: to become I high school PE teacher. After a year of working, I realized that a) I was making twice as much money as I would in the teaching profession, and b) I was having too much fun. I stuck it out for 32 years and no regrets.

MP: How much have you kept abreast of what the Klan and other white supremacists groups have been up to since 1978-79?

RS: Oh, I’ve tuned into it. I used to keep abreast of it real good when I was working street gangs in Utah. I also stay read-up on the subject and I’m aware of what’s happening in the country for the most part.

MP: How does your newfound celebrity feel?

RS: This celebrity thing has been interesting. It’s hard to get used to, because I don’t see myself as a celebrity. When people come up to me and ask for my autograph and everything … I find it funny that people want my autograph.

MP: The talk you’re giving in Minneapolis is part of the synagogue’s “Heroes Among Us” series. Do you feel like a hero?

RS: I don’t feel like I’m a hero. I’m just a cop with just another job to do and I did it to the best of my abilities and with the resources I had. I don’t find anything heroic about it. I know other people have said that and I thank them for that, but it’s nothing I attach to myself.

MP: Detectives today are likely faced with some of the same internal cop-shop obstacles you faced when it comes to investigations. What would you say to a young detective right now, who wants to do the job of exposing hate groups, but doesn’t get support from the brass?

RS: Well, I found myself in the same position and I chose to ignore the naysayers who said it couldn’t be done, and that I shouldn’t do it. I put my career in jeopardy by going above the chain of command directly to the chief of police to get his support, which I got. So I would say to them you have a decision to make: How important is it to you to carry out that assignment, and are you willing to accept the consequences of doing so? I was, and any cop today that finds themselves in a similar position would have to come to that decision for themselves.
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MP: What inspired you to do it? Was it literally just seeing the phone number for the local chapter of the KKK and dialing it up and following it just due to your professionalism as a detective and your own natural curiosity, or was there something else that happened, either in your life or your police work, that made you want to pursue the Klan?

RS: Nope, it was just another investigation to me. I saw an ad in the newspaper and I followed it as an investigator to its natural conclusion.

MP: The talk here is “Combating Hate and Bigotry.” With the rise of Trump emboldening racists seemingly every day, how in fact can a sane person combat hate and bigotry? With all your experience, what advice can you give people, knowing what you know?

RS: Well right now, the first thing I would advise them is to register to vote and go vote and get the Republicans out of office and then let’s get Trump out of office, because they are fueling a lot of what’s going on in this country in that regard. They’ve given these people a license to come out from the shadows and do and say the things that they are. I put in my book that, in my opinion, the Republican Party is the natural home of white supremacists, because when they run for office or get politically involved, they don’t do so as a Democrat, they do so as a Republican. Because as David Duke said when he changed his affiliation from Democrat to Republican after losing the election — he changed to Republican and won a Louisiana House of Representatives seat — and his reason for changing was because the Republican Party was closer in line to his way of thinking. I believe that we have to vote these people out of office and get some responsible leadership back in play and not be turned into Republicanism.

MP: Do you feel like a political spokesman now, especially as the November elections approach? I know you’ve been supporting Beto O’Rourke’s campaign in Texas.

RS: He has my vote. He has my entire family’s vote. He is what’s needed not only for Texas, but he’s the kind of politician we need for this country. If more of them were more like him, we’d be better off as a nation right now.

RS: We’re hoping he can break the bar and get [Ted] Cruz out of there and become the first Democrat in 25 years to represent the state. I live in El Paso, Texas, with my wife. We’ve been here a little over a year; it’s where I grew up.

MP: I’m calling from Minneapolis, hometown of Prince, whose version of “Mary Don’t You Weep” concludes “BlacKkKlansman.” Are you a Prince fan?

RS: I am a Prince fan, and I’m honored that my name is now attached to his name in some way, shape, or form with this film. I never saw him in concert or met him, I’ve just been a fan of his music all these years.

MP: Are you having fun doing readings and speaking engagements? Is it a good time for you?

RS: It is a good time for me. I’m busy. I’m in Chicago right now. I’m booked for speaking engagements through February right now. My wife is with me and we’re having fun, but it’s tiring.

MP: After all this, do you have another book in you?

RS: I’m already working on another one. It picks up where “BlacKkKlansman” left off and follows through to the end of my career with further stories about the obstacles, political and racial, that I had to face in order to get things accomplished and overcome barriers.

Penumbra has extended “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.” Latté Da has extended “Once.” But the Jungle’s “Little Women,” based on the book by Louisa May Alcott, must end Oct. 21, and ticket pickings are slim.

Some shows have already sold out. For others, single tickets remain – literally, one single ticket. Because the Jungle is small and intimate from front to back, it doesn’t really matter where you sit. Best availability at the moment: Sunday the 14th at 2 p.m., and Sunday the 21st at 7 p.m. (the final performance).

Why go? Because it’s a Jungle-commissioned world premiere, the first in the theater’s history. Because it’s OK if you haven’t read the book. Because the cast: gloriously diverse, including a Jo who wears pants and is played by C. Michael Menge, an actor whose pronouns are they/them.

The actors are white, black, Latinx and Native American. The Jungle’s artistic director, Sarah Rasmussen, has made it clear from her first play as AD in early 2016 – Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” with an all-female, mixed-race cast – that monochromatic casting is not her thing.

[cms_ad:x100]“Little Women” was written by Kate Hamill, whose adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” launched the Guthrie’s 2016-17 season (and was directed by Rasmussen). Hamill can make a literary classic seem contemporary without snapping your suspension of disbelief. Set during the American Civil War, her “Little Women” feels timeless. When evil Aunt March (hilariously played by Wendy Lehr) declares, “We ought to make the Union great again!” we recognize the sly reference, but it isn’t false or forced.

Directed by Rasmussen in a production that makes excellent use of the Jungle’s new turntable, “Little Women” swirls with energy and emotion. It’s a play about important things: family, love, forgiveness, being true to oneself. There are moments of aching beauty, sweetness and sadness. It’s a joy to be there, sharing the experience with a rapt and appreciative audience. People are loving this play.

We loved the set, the warm lighting, Menge as headstrong Jo, Christina Baldwin as wise Marmee, Isabella Star LaBlanc as fragile Beth (the “conscience of the family”), Christine Weber as big sister Meg (her second-act mommy meltdown is brilliant), Megan Burns as selfish Amy, Michael Hanna as Laurie (who pushes back, like Jo, against assigned gender roles), Jim Lichtsheidl as both Mr. Laurence and Mr. Dashwood, Lehr (playing three parts) and James Rodríguez as John Brooks. Rodríguez has become a regular at the Jungle. He’ll return for “The Wickhams,” the holiday show, as Mr. Darcy, reprising his role in last year’s “Christmas at Pemberley.”

Several previous shows at the Jungle have sold out. Some have been extended. If the Jungle keeps this up, it’s going to need a bigger room. Meanwhile, its production of “The Wolves,” which sold out last year, will have another run, this time at the Southern. Same cast (including Isabella Star LaBlanc and Megan Burns), same crew. Tickets go on sale Oct. 12. If you missed that the first time around, sometimes life gives you a second chance.

Act fast if you want to catch “Little Women” before it’s gone. FMI and tickets ($35-50).

The picks

Friday through Sunday: Bach Society of Minnesota: “Bach and the Forbidden City.” BSM’s performances use Bach as a starting point, then move outward. Last season’s opening concert included music from the Andean Baroque Route of Peru. This season begins with a program that also includes traditional Chinese music and works by Venetian composers Vivaldi and Monteverdi. Pipa virtuoso Gao Hong will perform one of the most famous classical pipa works, “King Chu doffs his armour.” Other guest artists are soprano Carrie Shaw, violinist Margaret Humphrey, cellist Cassidy Miller, Gail Olszewski on harpsichord and Ziya Tabassian on percussion. Artistic director Matthias Maute will lead. 7:30 Friday at Hamline’s Sundin Music Hall, 7 p.m. Saturday at Brau Performing Arts Center in Willmar, 3 p.m. Sunday at Calvin Presbyterian Church in Long Lake. FMI and tickets (prices vary).

[cms_ad:x101]Sunday at the Ordway Concert Hall: VocalEssence 50th Anniversary Concert. Philip Brunelle wanted this to be a five-hour concert. He pared it down to two hours, which must have been a series of painful cuts. The founder and artistic director of VocalEssence (originally the Plymouth Music Series) looked back over 49 years of concerts, commissions and premieres to shape a program made of music and memories. It starts (and ends) with Aaron Copland, who conducted the first VocalEssence concert. In between: music by ABBA’s Benny Andersson, Peter Schickele (aka P.D.Q. Bach), Dominic Argento, Libby Larsen, Stephen Paulus, John Rutter, Jesús López, Benjamin Britten, Handel, John Phillip Sousa and more. Guest artists and speakers include Clara Osowski, Janis Hardy, Don Shelby, Bradley Greenwald, Maria Jette and Dessa. This once-in-a-lifetime concert will be a blast. Concert conversation at 3:10 p.m., concert at 4. FMI and tickets ($20-40). P.S. Although tickets are sold by the Minnesota Orchestra, the concert really, truly takes place at the Ordway.

Monday and Tuesday at the Nautilus Music-Theater Studio in Lowertown: Rough Cuts. For 25 years, Nautilus’ monthly Rough Cuts series has been the place to see music-theater in the making and full productions of new works, guided by founder and artistic director Ben Krywosz. The new season opens with a two-parter: excerpts from “Heroine” by Benjamin Emory Larson, a song cycle about Sojourner Truth, Hypatia, Emily Dickenson, Ada Lovelace and Florence Nightingale, and excerpts from Impossible Salt’s revival of “Heartless,” based on the folk tale of the giant who has no heart. 7:30 both nights. On the first floor of the Northern Warehouse, 308 Prince St. Tickets $5 or pay-as-able. Seating is limited. Free cookies and milk.

Hot ticket: Harrison David Rivers and the SPCO

The 2018 Twin Cities Film Fest doesn’t start until later this month – Wednesday, Oct. 17, to be precise – but it’s not too soon for animal lovers to stock up on pocket-sized packets of Kleenex. You’ll need them.

Each year, TCFF programs a Changemakers Series to raise awareness of a social cause. This year’s cause is animal humanity. Five films will spotlight animals and people who help them. Rachel Mairose of Secondhand Hounds is this year’s Changemaker Award Honoree. The rescue organization she leads and founded in 2009 has saved more than 16,000 dogs, cats and other critters at risk.

These are the films.

“Belong to Us.” A heartwarming family drama about an injured dog that escapes an underground dog-fighting ring and helps to heal the rift between a father and daughter. Kansas City filmmaker Patrick Rea (much of the film was shot there) has previously made horror films. This isn’t one of them.

[cms_ad:x100]“Chasing the Thunder.” In this high-seas feature documentary, a ship owned by the environmental organization Sea Shepherd pursues a notorious fish poacher across two seas and three oceans. It was the longest pursuit ever of a pirate fishing vessel, lasting 100 days and more than 10,000 miles before its dramatic conclusion. It will be shown with “Rhino Shield,” about VETPAW’s work on behalf of South Africa’s rhino populations.

“Life in the Doghouse.” An irresistible documentary about Danny Robertshaw and Ron Danta, founders of Danny and Ron’s Rescue. Horse trainers turned dog rescuers by Hurricane Katrina, they have saved 11,000 dogs. All of the dogs live with them first, before being adopted. When this film was made, they were sharing their home with 70 dogs. Ron Davis’s film captures the remarkable kindness of men who specialize in saving dogs who have been “red coded” – meaning they’re in kill shelters and their time is up.

“Saving Flora.” Jenna Ortega (“Jane the Virgin”), David Arquette, Tom Arnold and Rhea Perlman are in the cast of Mark Taylor’s family drama about a 14-year-old girl who saves an elephant named Flora. Once the star of a circus, Flora can no longer perform her tricks, and the ringleader decides to have her put down. But his daughter has other plans.

“The Eyes of Thailand.” More elephants! Windy Borman’s documentary tells the true story of one woman’s fight to help elephants injured by land mines – and save other elephants from suffering the same fate. Hint: It’s partly about the incredible feat of designing and creating elephant-sized prostheses. Narrated by Ashley Judd.

FMI including trailers, screening times and tickets.

The picks

Today (Friday, Oct. 5) through Sunday in Harris and Sunrise: Fall Pottery Sales. Three Minnesota potters of the upper St. Croix River will hold their fall sales as the leaves turn to flame all around. In Harris (2785 Stark Rd.), Matthew Krousey will host Robert Briscoe, Jo Severson, Adam Gruetzmacher and Hironobu “Nishi” Nishitateno. Important note: This will be Jo Severson’s final show. After 45 years of making quietly beautiful, eminently functional and utterly timeless pots, she’s throwing in the wheel, or the kiln, or whatever potters do when they retire. Noon to 6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. FMI. In Sunrise, (41421 Ferry Rd.), Will Swanson and Janel Jacobson will host Jeff Oestreich, Ernest Miller, Joe Singewald and Karin Kraemer. After 20 years of working in wood, carving small, exquisite sculptures, Jacobson has returned to clay, and her porcelain pots with their delicate carving and soft celadon glazes are remarkable. Daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. FMI.

Opens tonight at the Guthrie: “Two Degrees.” The Guthrie launches its Dowling Studio season with the Midwest premiere of a play about climate change and coping with personal tragedy. Called to Washington, D.C., to testify before a congressional committee, paleoclimatologist Emma Phelps carries both her grief about the planet and her anguish over the recent death of her husband. The play by Tira Palmquist is being presented by Prime Productions, a professional theater begun in 2016 to support women over 50 and their stories. Shelli Place directs a cast that includes Norah Long as Emma, with Joel Liestman, Touissant Morrison and Jennifer Whitlock. “Two Degrees” is part of the Guthrie’s Level Nine series and all tickets are $9. Mature language and content. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets. Ends Oct. 21.

[cms_ad:x101]Tonight at the Mall of America: 4th Annual Curated Style: Straight from the Runway Fashion Show. After 16 seasons, Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn are leaving “Project Runway.” The show will move to Bravo, and Klum and Gunn will work with Amazon on something new. Meanwhile, eight “Project Runway” designers will show off their Autumn/Winter 2018 collections in MOA’s rotunda, including Minnesota’s own Christopher Straub (Season 6), Justin LeBlanc (12), Mondo Guerra (8), Laurence Basse (15) and Candice Cuoco (14). General admission viewing from levels 2, 3 and 4. 8 p.m. FMI. Free.

Saturday at Macalester’s Mairs Concert Hall: The Singers in Concert: Shadows, Tears & Light. The acclaimed choral ensemble led by Matthew Culloton will open its 15th anniversary season with David Lang’s “little match girl passion,” winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and Morten Lauridsen’s “Lux Aeterna,” performed with chamber orchestra. In the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, 130 Macalester St. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($22-36; students free with ID at the door).

Tuesday at Icehouse: Accordo. The top-tier string ensemble made up of present and former SPCO and Minnesota Orchestra principal string players will start its 10th season, “Schubertiade,” on Monday. But that concert – in the new Westminster Hall at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis – is sold out. On Tuesday, in the more casual environs of Icehouse, you can hear selections from the program (string quintets by Cherubini and Schubert). FMI and tickets ($24/12). So you know, Accordo’s Dec. 3 concert at Westminster Hall is also sold out. If you want to hear Accordo in its new space, a few tickets for Feb. 4 and March 11, 2019, are still available. For future reference, this looks like something to jump on as soon as the season is announced.

Hot ticket: Aby Wolf and Eric Mayson Work-in-Progress

With support from a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant, vocalist/composer Aby Wolf and keyboardist/composer Eric Mayson are creating “Champagne Confetti,” a new work based in improvisation. The performers are an assemblage of interesting musicians: vocalists Cameron Kinghorn (Nooky Jones), Amy Hager and Jacob Mullis (Fort Wilson Riot, Pomonono); violinist Sarah Pajunen and cellist Jonathan Kaiser (Dark, Dark, Dark); percussionists Joey Van Phillips (Dessa, Mystery Palace) and Heather Barringer (Zeitgeist); and bassist Ted Olsen. On Wednesday, Oct. 17, at Public Functionary, you can hear where they are so far. Doors at 6 p.m., music at 7. FMI and tickets ($10).

Ojibwe people have made maple sugar, a traditional dietary staple, for centuries. It is easily accessible in the woodlands of Minnesota and can be stored for months without spoiling. While the technology used in the process has changed over the years, Ojibwe people continue to harvest maple sugar in the present day.

Native people have produced maple sugar since time immemorial throughout the Great Lakes and New England. It is produced by boiling the sap of the sugar maple tree (acer saccharum), which grows throughout Minnesota. While the sap of other tree species, such as birch and other maple varieties, can be harvested, sugar maple sap contains the highest concentration of sugar. It takes about thirty-five gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup.

In Minnesota, the harvest of maple sugar usually occurs between mid-March and mid-April, when temperatures are above freezing during the day and below freezing at night. Sap is most plentiful at this time of year as it is the beginning of the trees’ annual growth cycle.

The harvesting process begins with the drilling of small holes of around one inch deep into maple trees. (Before the advent of drills, Ojibwe people would simply gash the trees with an axe.) Next, spigots are pounded into the trees to divert the flow of their sap. Taps made of sumac were common, as sumac branches of two to three inches in diameter can be easily hollowed out. Since the late 1700s, Ojibwe people have also used metal taps.

In the next step of the harvesting process, the dripping sap is collected in a container placed at each tree. Historically, Ojibwe people used birch bark containers for this, as they were easily stacked. Finally, the sap is collected from each tree and boiled in a larger kettle made of cast iron or stainless steel. The process of making maple sugar was greatly aided when Ojibwe people began acquiring cast iron kettles from French traders in the seventeenth century. Prior to this, Ojibwe people boiled thousands of gallons of maple sap in kettles made of birch bark or copper.

Once they had collected the sap in kettles, Ojibwe people boiled it down into granulated sugar, which was used as the primary seasoning in food. Writing in 1855, German ethnographer Johann Kohl noted: “They are fond of mixing their meat with sweets, and even sprinkle sugar or maple syrup over fish boiled in water.” If kept dry, granulated sugar will not spoil for months, providing Ojibwe people with a food source throughout the year.

Before the reservation era (ca. 1871–1928), the opening of sugar camps every spring played an important role in the social life of Ojibwe communities. During the winter, Ojibwe people scattered into family groups of around a dozen people. The opening of sugar camp in the early spring marked the beginning of Ojibwe communities coming back together into larger groups for food production, ceremonies, and social events.

Historically, women performed most of the labor associated with maple sugar production, with men working in supporting roles such as cutting firewood and supplying food by hunting and fishing. This began to change during the twentieth century as entire families worked in sugar camps. Mille Lacs elder Larry “Amik” Smallwood described his family’s sugar camp during his childhood in the 1950s: “Families would help each other and everybody would have a role. There was the wood cutters, the gatherers of water, the boilers, the food makers. It was really a lot of fun long ago.”

In the twenty-first century, Ojibwe people continue to harvest maple sugar, which remains an important traditional food source. Ojibwe families operate camps on reservations throughout Minnesota and may also gather maple sugar off-reservation on county, state, and federal lands in east-central Minnesota — a right derived from the 1837 Treaty of St. Peters and subsequent interpretations, including a 1999 Supreme Court case.

Maple sugar is a vital resource in preserving Ojibwe culture and sovereignty. Mille Lacs elder Larry “Amik” Smallwood noted: “We treat that maple syrup with respect. The same as we would wild rice. If you burn some, if you spill it, if you waste any unintentionally, you got to do a little tobacco ceremony for that because it’s a gift from the Creator.”

For more information on this topic, check out the original entry on MNopedia.

Can a play make the bitterness go away? With the nation even more divided after Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation, can a work of theater, staged on a budget in a bare-bones studio and timed to run before the November midterms, even matter?

Maybe it can. And right now, “maybe” is worth holding onto with all of our might.

“Understood,” a new play by Tyler Mills, opened Friday in a room in the Grain Belt Studios building. It’s only the second play from Trademark Theater, the new company founded by Tyler Michaels, better known as a prodigiously talented actor in Twin Cities musical theater. The first was “The Boy and Robin Hood” in 2017, also written by Mills. Who must have two heads, because the plays couldn’t be more different.

“Boy” was a testosterone-infused retelling of the Robin Hood legend, with lots of fighting and killing. “Understood” is an intimate, contemporary relationship drama that suggests a way into healing the rifts between us as individuals and a nation. It does so without being stickily earnest or hitting us over the head.

[cms_ad:x100]“Understood” is the story of Julie and Chris, a couple whose marriage is in trouble. When Julie takes a break to visit her sister in Chicago, she meets another man, Josh. Meanwhile Chris meets another woman, Rachel. Adelin Phelps plays both Julie and Rachel, Sasha Andreev both Chris and Josh.

The play moves back and forth in time, showing us how Julie and Chris first met, fell in love and married. The many short scenes are divided by sudden blackouts. When the lights come back up, at full intensity, Phelps and Andreev are in a different place on the stage, at a different moment in time or as different characters.

At first, it’s a bit confusing. And there are some scenes that verge on the surreal – snippets of conversation, dreams, the search for a missing dog named Jack. But things soon click into place. The sounds between scenes – sometimes loud and metallic, sometimes softer and melodic – are clues to what’s coming next.

Julie and Chris are liberals. We learn this in the first scene, when Julie tells Chris about a dream in which she asks their dog, “How can you be against gay marriage? Or say that global warming isn’t real? Or that more guns is the answer to anything at all?  I wanted to know how so many people can be wrong about so many things.” To which Chris replies, “That’s easy. It’s because people, by and large, are idiots.”

Since Julie and Chris are the main characters, this makes Rachel and Josh – she’s an evangelical Christian, he’s a working stiff who’s pro-gun and anti-gay – the outsiders, or others. Conservatives who go to see “Understood,” if any do, might be put off by this. But Rachel and Josh are as human and as sympathetically drawn as Julie and Chris. Which may seem like a small thing, but it’s huge in a time when it’s the norm to demonize, satirize, memify and mock.

Early in the play, Chris says, “I think if you really understand someone, there’s no way you could hate them.” That line belongs on billboards. And what’s the start of understanding? Being willing to listen. Rachel and Chris show us how that’s done, listening first to strangers and eventually, once more, to each other.

Tyler Mills navigates rocky ground without resorting to clichés. His characters are real, their speech natural. Tyler Michaels directs with a sure and sensitive hand. The dialogue is sometimes tricky, and parts overlap as Julie and Josh argue, their voices rising. Over and over, Phelps and Andreev disappear and reappear seconds later. Timing is everything and on opening night, no one missed a beat.

[cms_ad:x101]Sarah Brandner’s scenic design is simple: gray boxes (thankfully not bubbles) and chairs. Sarah Bahr’s costumes are so impeccably neutral that Phelps and Andreev can switch roles from the inside out, without having to change what they’re wearing. Karin Olson’s lighting and Katharine Horowitz’s sounds are key to the play’s success. A few sounds neared jump-out-of-your chair volume and could be toned down a bit, but honestly, everything else was perfect.

“Understood” won’t save the world. But it gives us a glimpse of how it might feel – how ultimately freeing it might be – to have a civil conversation with someone we disagree with on things we care deeply about. Even if no minds are changed. Even if we’re still thoroughly convinced that the other is totally wrong. That in itself is a glimmer of hope, small in our inky darkness, but steady and warm.

***

“Understood” continues through Oct. 28 in Soma Studios on the second floor of the Grain Belt Studios building in NE Minneapolis. On Thursdays and Sundays, there’s a post-show discussion with a moderator from Better Angels, a national citizens movement to reduce political polarization. The play runs 90 minutes with no intermission. Adult language. FMI and tickets ($25/15).

American composer John Harbison has won the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Fellowship. He’s written music for most of the nation’s great musical institutions, including the Minnesota Orchestra, which named Harbison its Season Composer for 2018-19.

This is Harbison’s 80th birthday year, and he’s spending much of this week with us here in Minneapolis. You’ll have several chances to hear his music and even see him in person. Perhaps Gov. Dayton will pick a day and proclaim it John Harbison Day.

Harbison is in residence at the University of Minnesota. On Friday afternoon, Oct. 12, he’ll be at Lloyd Ultan Recital Hall (in Ferguson Hall) for a guest master class and conversation starting at 4:30. School of Music students will play his “Trio Sonata,” “Saxophone Sonata” and “Violin Duo (Reflection).” Free and open to the public. FMI.

[cms_ad:x100]On Friday and Saturday, Harbison will be at Northrop for the world premiere of his organ concerto “What Do We Make of Bach? for Orchestra and Obbligato Organ.” Osmo Vänskä will lead the Minnesota Orchestra in the first public hearings of the Northrop’s restored, historic, majestic and rare Aeolian-Skinner organ, built in the 1930s. After 18 months and $3 million – and many years of silence – the mighty instrument (with nearly 7,000 pipes, from the size of a pencil to 32 feet tall) is ready for its big comeback. Organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs will be the featured soloist. The concert will also include music by Bach and Saint Saëns. 8 p.m. both nights. FMI and tickets ($102-12). Limited availability; if you don’t have luck through Northrop (612-624-2345), try the Minnesota Orchestra (612-371-5656), and vice versa. Pre-signed copies of Harbison’s newly published memoir (also titled “What Do We Make of Bach?”) will be available for purchase.

Harbison is also a jazz pianist and arranger. On Sunday, Harbison himself will play jazz piano as the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota launches its 2018-19 season with “Happy Birthday, John Harbison!” The concert will feature a composition from each decade of Harbison’s life, some Bach, a jazz combo and, says CMSM, “a surprise premiere.” Participating artists will include Adam Kuenzel, Gabriel Campos Zamora, Ariana Kim, Young-Nam Kim, Anthony Ross, Anthony Cox and Fred Harris. Altogether stellar. 4 p.m. at Hamline’s Sundin Music Hall. FMI and tickets ($25-15).

The picks

Tonight (Wednesday, Oct. 10) at Coffman Union Theater: Adam Gopnik reading. The longtime staff writer for the New Yorker and author of several nonfiction books will read from his latest, “At the Strangers’ Gate: Arrivals in New York.” 300 Washington Ave. SE. 7 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Tonight at TU Dance Center: TU Dance Company Showing. See what TU has in store for its 15th anniversary performance season. The company founded by Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands vaulted to national prominence following three sold-out performances with Bon Iver in last year’s Liquid Music series, which led to a sold-out performance at the Hollywood Bowl in August and a date at the Kennedy Center next March. The showing will feature excerpts from the fall concert program at the Ordway, which takes place Oct. 27. Doors at 5 p.m., showing at 5:30. 2121 University Ave. W., St. Paul. Free, with advance reservations required. Call 651-282-3115 or reserve online.

Tonight at Crooners: Russell Malone Quartet. The parade of national and international artists to the jazz club in Fridley continues. Guitarist Russell Malone, an eloquent master of his instrument, has played with everyone from B.B. King to Aretha Franklin and Ornette Coleman. He’ll bring his own quartet to the intimate Dunsmore room: New York-based Rick Germanson on piano (he was a great favorite at the old Artists’ Quarter in St. Paul), Luke Sellick on bass and Willie Jones III on drums.  7 and 9 p.m. FMI and tickets ($25-35).

Thursday at the Trylon: François Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” with special guest Justin Pierre (Motion City Soundtrack). Honestly, we don’t know what Truffaut and Pierre are doing on the same evening, but it sounds like fun, it’s at the Trylon, and Sound Unseen came up with it, so our advice is to roll with it. Truffaut’s absolutely seminal film – his first feature, and the story of his own childhood – will screen in 35mm. Pierre, whose debut solo album “In the Drink” comes out Friday, will give a short acoustic performance. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($10 advance, $12 door).

Saturday: Cassette Store Day. Remember cassettes? One of the most awkward, impractical ways to deliver music ever? The slippery plastic cases? The J-cards? The winding-them-tight-with-a-pencil thing? And yet, so easy and cheap. Before digital, cassettes were how you got your music out there, and your radio shows. Cassettes are back, or back enough there’s now an actual Cassette Week leading up to Cassette Store Day. Here’s a list of North American CSD releases and participating record stores, including Down in the Valley (Golden Valley) and Dead Media Records (Minneapolis). FMI.