“To build a more equitable society, we need to establish trust between communities and create space for meaningful conversations and empathy,” Lindsey said in a statement. “The Minnesota Humanities Center is bringing people together through stories and dialogue in a way I’ve long admired.”

The mission of the Minnesota Humanities Center is to build a thoughtful, literate and engaged society. It uses philosophy, literature, civics, history, language and more to focus on what unites us, not divides us, bringing the humanities out of scholarly institutions and into the lives of everyday Minnesotans.

The “We Are Water” traveling exhibition is a project of the Minnesota Humanities Center. It began at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus in October, is now at the Hormel Nature Center in Austin and goes from there to Carleton’s Weitz Center in Northfield.

‘All Is Calm’ wins Drama Desk Award

Being nominated for a Drama Desk Award is great. Winning is even better. On Sunday at the 54th Annual Drama Desk Awards in New York, Theater Latté Da’s “All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914” won the 2019 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience. All the more reason to see it this year, when the same production audiences loved off-Broadway, with the same cast, will play at the Ritz for nearly a month starting Nov. 27.

“All Is Calm,” which tells the story of a moment in history when Allied and German soldiers laid down their arms and celebrated the holiday together, was created by Peter Rothstein, Latté Da’s founding artistic director. It premiered in 2007 and is now a holiday tradition. It has toured the United States for 10 seasons, reaching more than 50 cities. It has also been licensed and performed by theater companies and choruses across the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Tickets to this year’s production are available now as an add-on to season packages. Single tickets will go on sale Sept. 25. FMI.

Schubert Club announces new composer-in-residence

A member of the St. Paul hip-hop band Heiruspecs, a McKnight Fellow and a recent winner of an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship has been named the new Schubert Club Composer-in-Residence.

Starting Sept. 1, deVon Russell Gray, aka dVRG, will start a two-year term of creating music, taking part in Schubert Club education and community programs, advising on artistic projects and advocating on behalf of the 137-year-old music presenter, one of the oldest arts organizations in the country.

A classically trained composer and multi-instrumentalist, Gray joins an impressive list of Schubert Club composers-in-residence that includes Abbie Betinis, David Evan Thomas, gamelan artist Joko Sustrisno and early music ensemble Belladonna. The most recent was Reinaldo Moya, whose new opera, “Tienda,” was performed in a partially staged version at TPT in May.

Barry Kempton, the Schubert Club’s artistic and executive director, said in a statement, “The committee’s decision was unanimous. We were certainly impressed by the composition samples that deVon submitted with his application, but we were also won over by his sense of who he is as a musician and where he hopes his musical journey will take him. He is a musician with a broad range of interests and influences.”

That’s for sure. We’ve seen him several times – including at the premiere of his 2015 Cedar Commission, “Fractious Child (string 4tet)”; with Chastity Brown; at Icehouse dates with various musicians; and most recently at the Cedar for “Cosmo Sun Connection: Celebrating the Life and Music Legacy of Sun Ra.” All different, all deVon.

Of his music, Gray says, “My work has always been about the exploration of intense personal inner spaces as well as the communal imbibing of the resultant magic.”

The picks

Tonight (Wednesday, June 5) at the Parkway: “Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?” On Saturday, the Parkway will pay tribute to the Beatles’ favorite American musician with a live performance by Dream on Nilsson, the Twin Cities’ tribute band. But first, a rare screening of John Scheinfeld’s documentary stuffed with songs, never-before-seen film clips, personal photos and interviews with people who knew Nilsson well, including Mickey Dolenz, Terry Gilliam, Randy Newman, Yoko Ono, Robin Williams and Brian Wilson. Dream On Nilsson will play a brief acoustic performance prior to the screening. Doors at 6:30, pre-show music at 6:45, screening at 7:30. FMI and tickets ($9 advance, $11 door).

Starts Thursday at the Off-Leash Art Box: Right Here Showcase. Emerging artists get the spotlight. So do established artists. But what about those in between? Now in its fifth year, Paul Herwig’s juried showcase is the only annual program that supports Minnesota-based, midcareer contemporary performing artists and introduces new audiences to their work. This year’s featured artists are Non Edwards (dance and performance artist), Zhauna Frank (dance and theater artist; former principal dancer with Ballet of the Dolls), Jennifer Ilse (interdisciplinary dance artist; co-artistic director of Off-Leash Area) and Blake Nellis (improvisatory dance artist and photographer). Each will present a new work. Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m., this weekend and next weekend. 4200 E. 54th St., Minneapolis. FMI and reservations ($10-30 sliding scale).

Opens Friday at the Uptown Theatre: “Walking on Water.” You know Christo. With his wife and creative partner, Jeanne-Claude, he wrapped the Reichstag and the Pont Neuf in fabric, put pink skirts on islands in Biscayne Bay, installed a series of 7,503 saffron-colored gates in Central Park and completed several more monumental projects around the world, all fleeting and temporary. Ten years after Jeanne-Claude’s death, Christo set out to realize the Floating Piers, a project they conceived together years earlier: a wide golden walkway across the Italian alpine Lake Iseo, sturdy enough to support hundreds of thousands of people. If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to realize a Christo project, and how insane it really is, you’ll love this.  FMI including times, trailer and tickets.

Theater Latté Da’s latest world premiere is beautiful on the eyes, the ears and the heart. There were tears on opening night as the audience rose to its feet to applaud.

Harrison David Rivers’ “To Let Go and Fall” is a love story that spans 35 years in the lives of two men. They meet in a summer dance program at 16 and fall in love; part at 25, when both are dancers for the American Ballet Theatre; and reunite at 51. They have lived on opposite sides of the country for 26 years. Although Todd made different choices, it seems they were probably each other’s greatest love.

It was Todd who broke up with Arthur, partly out of fear of staying in New York, where so many gay men were dying of AIDS. Todd has written a letter to Arthur once a year ever since, with no response. Now Arthur has written to Todd, asking him to come. They meet at one of their old haunts: the courtyard of the reflecting pool outside the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center.

“To Let Go and Fall” is the second play this spring with a pool, after Mary Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses” at the Guthrie. The pool at the Ritz is not as large or deep as the one in “Metamorphoses,” but it still commands the stage. The gentle motion of the water, and the way it handles the light, are part of the beauty of this production.

So is the music. “To Let Go and Fall” isn’t a musical. There’s no singing. But the music plays a defining role. Composed by cellists Jacqueline Ultan and Michelle Kinney, who perform it live from lucite platforms in the pool, it makes everything richer and deeper. The sound of two cellos together goes straight to your core.

Eight actors play the two characters. Arthur and Todd at 16 are played by Jon-Michael Reese and Austen Fisher; at 25, by JuCoby Johnson and Tyler Michaels King; at 51, by André Shoals and Mark Benninghofen. Da’Rius Malone and Conner Horak are shown dancing in projections at the back of the stage.

We meet Shoals and Benninghofen first, in a touching reunion scene. It’s 2017. They’re in mid-conversation when Reese and Fisher enter the courtyard near the pool. It’s 1982. We watch their relationship begin. After an interlude, Shoals and Benninghofen are deep in conversation when Johnson and Michaels King enter. It’s 1991.

Although four and sometimes all six actors share the stage, their conversations weave together, and they even look at each other, there’s no confusion about when in time we are. Director Sherri Eden Barber and lighting designer Mary Shabatura make sure we follow the story, a realistic portrayal of human emotions, fears, failings and regrets. One scene lets us into Arthur’s imagination, and we see how things might have been.

Shoals and Benninghofen are the most compelling versions of the characters, perhaps because we get to know them best. We meet them first and see them last in a scene so poignant and beautiful (that word again!) it’s almost overwhelming. Scenic designer Maruti Evans gives us a surprise at the end that ties everything together. If you go, pack a tissue.

“To Let Go and Fall” continues through June 30. Ages 13 and up; strong language and adult themes. FMI and tickets ($31-51).

P.S. One minor beef we (and others writing about this play) have with the playwright is how he characterizes 51 as old. Shoals and Benninghofen call each other “old man” – affectionately, but still. Todd bemoans that “old habits only get worse in old age” and complains about his receding hairline. Arthur considers 51 the end of his “full career” on the stage and in the classroom. We saw Baryshnikov at the State Theater in 1998. He was 50 at the time, bare-chested, wearing tight red shorts and dancing to “Back in the U.S.S.R.” Mr. Rivers, please.

P.P.S. “To Let Go and Fall” was part of Latté Da’s 2018 NEXT Festival of new works in development. Some of us saw a staged reading last July. If you enjoy watching a play (in this case, a musical) take shape, Latté Da will give you another chance this year. “Twelve Angry Men” is part of its 2019-20 season and set to open May 27, 2020. But you can see an earlier version this July 20 and 22. And what a cast. Take a look.

The picks

Tonight (Thursday, June 6) at the Weisman: Exhibition preview party for Rose and Melvin Smith: “Remembering Rondo.” Artists Rose and Melvin Smith lived in Rondo for many years, documenting the neighborhood’s everyday life in paintings, collaged portraits and three-dimensional models of buildings. The Smiths are committed to sharing the role of the Twin Cities in the history of the civil rights movement. They insist that Rondo – a neighborhood lost when the I-94 freeway tore through it – is more than a local story, and all America needs to remember it. The preview will include small bites, music by PaviElle (who hails from Rondo) and conversation with the artists. 7-9 p.m. Free with registration. A Remembering Rondo Community Day will take place July 17, with storytelling by Beverly Cottman and a screening of the documentary “Rondo: Beyond the Pavement.” FMI.

Friday through Sunday on the Minneapolis riverfront: 25th Annual Stone Arch Bridge Festival. The great downtown art, music and community festival has hit the quarter-century mark. A Father’s Day tradition, it brings more than 200 artists, 30 bands, food, family activities, a Culinary Arts Market, a Vintage and Vinyl Market, a beer sampler, an Art of the Car Show and more to the banks of the river, SE Main Street and nearby parks. It’s a beautiful part of the city, and if the weather is good, a perfect place to spend a day or two. Friday is the kick-off concert in Father Hennepin Park. The festival runs Saturday from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. FMI.

Friday and Saturday at Vieux Carré: Acoustic Deathwish. We mentioned this earlier in the week, when we wrote about Vieux Carré’s closing, but here’s the official thumbs-up preview. Anthony Cox (upright bass), Brandon Wozniak (tenor saxophone) and Dave King (drums) together? Power trio. King is best known internationally as a member of the Bad Plus; he’s also part of Happy Apple, Halloween Alaska and several more bands and projects. Wozniak has been literally blowing us away since he returned to the cities in 2006 after six years in New York and six months in Shanghai. Anthony Cox is a legend. 9 p.m. both nights. FMI and tickets ($15).

Tuesday at the Walker: “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.” In 1975, America was divided and Dylan went on tour. Piecing together footage that was abandoned for decades, then restored, including Dylan’s first on-camera interview in more than a decade, this film – part documentary, part concert film – will screen in theaters across the United States on Tuesday, a one-night-only “road show,” before it starts streaming on Netflix on June 12. On June 7 (that’s tomorrow), Dylan will release a 14-disc box set of rehearsals and six full shows from the tour. With Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Sam Shepard, Allen Ginsberg and Sharon Stone. The Walker event is sold out. An in-person wait list will start an hour before the screening. FMI. Tickets (if available) will be $12/10.

Each year since 2004, the Minnesota State Fair has commissioned a Minnesota artist to create an original interpretation of the Great Minnesota Get-Together. It’s a big job to make a single work of art that will capture the essence of an event rich in history and tradition, an economic powerhouse ($268 million in 2018), something near and dear to Minnesota hearts and one of the few places where everyone feels they belong and are welcome.

The art must also have broad appeal and raise money for the fair. Sales of limited-edition signed prints, posters and other merchandise support educational programs and improvements to the buildings and grounds. And, like any commissioned work of art, it must make the patron happy.

The first 15 artists included painters, illustrators, muralists, printmakers and a collage artist. R.J. Kern, whose art was unveiled last night at a special event on the fairgrounds, is the first photographer to be chosen as the fair’s official commemorative artist. Kern is an award-winning fine-art photographer whose work has been shown in exhibitions around the world. In Minnesota, he’s represented by Burnet Fine Art & Advisory.

Kern also has history with the fair. He’s been accepted into the Fine Arts Exhibition three times. Last year, he won both the First Glance Award from the Minnesota State Fair Foundation and the Great State of Minnesota Award from Minnesota Citizens for the Arts. He hopes to get in again this year, but being the commemorative artist is no guarantee. Like everyone else who submitted, he’ll just have to wait to hear what the jury decides.

Shown above, “Minnesota State Fair Supreme Champion Pairings from 2018” features Kern’s portraits of the top male and female open-class exhibition winners in several categories. Kern photographed them two-by-two moments after their wins, then created a composite image. Standing still (momentarily), looking calm and serene (they weren’t), these are the best of the best of 2018’s turkeys and ducks, chickens and geese, rabbits and draft horses, sheep and goats, llamas and pigs, cattle and stock dogs.

We spoke with Kern on Wednesday, with one of his limited-edition prints resting between us on a table. This interview has been edited and condensed.

R.J. Kern: If you step back and look at photography as an art form, we’re relatively new. It’s taken a while for photography to gain acceptance in the art world. The National Gallery of Art just started collecting photography in 1994. Before, if you were a photographer, you were an editorial or newspaper photographer. Ansel Adams was commissioned by Congress. The photography legends were hired by Life magazine and the New York Times. They were never in art galleries. That’s changing very quickly.

MP: Why this particular photograph?

RJK: Animal husbandry is the roots of the fair. Who had the best ram to mate for breeding purposes? This wasn’t about showmanship. These were working animals, This was a business. The supreme champion was a mating animal, one you would lend out to other folks.

That’s where the Minnesota State Fair started, with the animals. Today it’s the music and food. The fair liked it when I wanted to focus on the animals. Let’s remind people that this is what kickstarted it all.

If you look at the origins of photography and fairs, they happened at the same time. Animal judging started in the mid-19th century. The first state fair in the United States was in New York in 1841. The 1851 World’s Fair [in London’s Hyde Park] was the first photography exhibition. Some of the first photographs were of prize-winning animals. Champion bulls and champion horses.

I really wanted to keep the focus on the animals. What would the Great Minnesota Farm Family look like? Here’s my artistic interpretation.

MP: Tell us a bit about the process of photographing all of these animals.

RJK: We constructed a studio on the fairgrounds for 12 days. It was right by the horse barns. It was like a wedding reception tent. The owners were notified in writing that if their animal was selected as supreme champion, it would be part of the commissioned art. The owners were all supportive. They are also very particular about how their animal is photographed. Some of these animals are auctioned off. Some are sold for a lot of money. They want to put the animal in the best light possible.

As soon as the animals were judged, within five to 10 minutes, they were escorted to the studio by their handlers and owners. I had everything mapped out ahead of time, including where the animals would stand. Most of the images were shot in periods of five minutes.

This all took place over 12 days — what the fair called “12 days of fun.” It really was fun! They rolled out the red carpet. It took 12 days because they can’t manage all of those animals at the same time in the barns. The bull and dairy cow were on the last day. The horses and dogs were on the first day

MP: What were some of the challenges?

RJK: The animals were coming right off the supreme champion ceremonies. They were excited. It’s like a beauty pageant, so they’d been groomed and detailed all day long. They’ve been waiting in line and held. That’s a lot of stimulus. Plus they were stressed. The dairy cow had to be milked. The animals had to relieve themselves and cool themselves off. The dogs were hyped up. They had just gotten off agility trials.

You can’t pose an animal. You have to have patience and a sense of humor. You have to stay persistent and try again.

MP: Which animals were the hardest to photograph?

RJK: I was expecting the dogs to be the easiest, but they were the hardest. Herding dogs are working dogs. They’re not lap dogs. Getting them to sit still … They were pretty juiced up. The draft horses had also been performing. They’re like champion athletes after a big contest.

MP: Which animals were the most fun to photograph?

RJK: It’s a toss-up between the ducks and the llamas. They were the most alert and just comical. Easy to be around. The pigs were drama queens and kings. They have a one-track mind and a sharp sense of smell. They’re smelling all around, and they’re big animals.

MP: How did you create the final image?

RJK: The compositing process took about 80 hours. We wanted to make sure it looked like all the animals were there at the same time in the same place. They were all in the same place, but not at the same time, for safety reasons and logistics reasons. It was important to have a neutral backdrop that was not distracting, so we used the straw bales.

MP: How would you like people to respond to your photograph?

RJK: I think it will put a smile on people’s faces. That’s a step in the right direction. I think it will appeal to a wide age demographic. I think kids will really enjoy it. I know the owners of the animals are very excited to have their animals featured. For them, this is a document.

If you look at a lot of traditional agricultural photographs of animals, they’re all from the side, so you can see the structure of the animal — the loin, the gait, the posture. But these are portraits. They’re looking at us. I hate to anthropomorphize, but they kind of look like people.

“Minnesota State Fair Supreme Champion Pairings from 2018” will be on display in the Fine Arts Building for the duration of the 2019 Minnesota State Fair.

“Slavery never ended,” Jason Sole told a group of about 60 who attended the opening of the Humanize My Hoodie art exhibition at the Brookdale Library Friday evening. In a riveting and impassioned two-hour presentation, Sole traced a history of racism as chronicled by everything from Frederick Douglass’ must-read “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”  [PDF] to Ava Duvernay’s must-see Netflix series “When They See Us,” and it’s no stretch to say that Sole’s small but growing Humanize My Hoodie movement/exhibit deserves to be mentioned in the same breath, and to be seen far and wide and outside the confines of a suburban library.

“I’m a father, I’m an author, I’m a community member, a lot of people know me as an activist, I teach at Hamline University, and I teach criminal justice, but I’m also somebody who’s formerly incarcerated, so for me, I know what it’s like when I’ve got on a hoodie, versus when I have on a suit,” said Sole, who co-founded the Humanize My Hoodie brand/movement/hoodie with his friend and fellow father/activist Andre Wright, the acclaimed Iowa-based fashion designer, brand label owner and photographer.

“We’re intentional about being dressed the way we are today,” said Sole, clad in basketball shoes, gray sweats, a Timberwolves cap and a grey Humanize My Hoodie sweatshirt, as Wright, clad in green and black military fatigues and a matching Humanize My Hoodie sweatshirt, looked on. “When we’re walking outside, or when we’re at the grocery store wearing a hoodie, people don’t know I love my children and all that. They don’t know I teach. They don’t know I protested at Ferguson. They don’t know I stand up for what’s right. They don’t know anything about me, and their instant reception is that I’m a threat and I’m harmful. So when we started the project, it was just to say, ‘Humanize us. Right now.’ Two years later, we’ve impacted an entire country.”

For the rest of June, library-goers in Brooklyn Center will be haunted by a mannequin wearing a red Humanize My Hoodie hoodie, posed with arms up, in obvious homage to the “hands up, don’t shoot” cry that was attributed to Michael Brown in 2014, and became a battle cry at protests and a shorthand elegy for all the young and old black men and women who have been killed by police, and profiled and demonized for their choice of clothing.

“I want to lift up Trayvon Martin. That boy should not have have died,” Sole told the audience of educators, librarians, activists and students. “So I want to get over that stigma of the hoodie and black men right now. I teach criminal justice at Hamline, but I’ve also been incarcerated, and it’s important that this exhibit is next to the courthouse here, because all of our exhibitions are criminal justice-oriented.”

Sole is a Hamline University professor, former president of the Minneapolis NAACP, author of the 2014 book “From Prison to PhD: A Memoir of Hope, Resilience, and Second Chances,” and director of St. Paul’s Community-First Public Safety Initiatives.

Friday at the library, Sole told the story of how the hoodie project blew up after Wright wore a Humanize My Hoodie hoodie to New York fashion week, and the professional respect and personal affection between the two men was evident throughout the telling of how they came to be a duo.

The exhibit, organized and presented by the Brookdale Library’s Black Culture and History team, is a somber if inspiring collection of hoodie-themed photos by Wright, augmented by quotes from the likes of Douglass, James Baldwin, Michelle Alexander, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Meek Mill, and Ayanna Pressley. MinnPost took in the opening, in interviews and photos:

Andre Wright: “We’ve gotten a number of celebrities to support Humanize My Hoodie. We’ve seen the hoodie with Meek Mill; we’ve had the hoodie seen with ancestor Nipsy Hussle; Rhymefest, who wrote “Jesus Walks” with Kanye West, has been an advocate for the movement. It’s a worldwide movement, because I’ve traveled to 27 countries, and they’ve all seen it and they’ve all asked questions, and I think that’s cool.”

Jason Sole: “[Minneapolis NAACP justice state chair] James Badue-El tells the story of how he was going into the gas station, and when he came out, a young white guy came up to him and apologized. James was startled and he said, ‘What are you apologizing for?’ The guy said, ‘When you went in there with your hoodie on, I thought you were going to rob the place. And when I saw those three words on your shirt, I just needed to apologize to you.’ And that led to a 20-minute conversation and they exchanged phone numbers, and just the fact that that story exists is everything, you know? Just to know that impacted that guy in that moment, to help with his threat perception, or his implicit bias, that is pretty powerful.

“The hoodie has always had trauma. Skeletor had a hoodie, the grim reaper had a hoodie. But when we started wearing it in the ‘80s with Run DMC, all they wanted to talk about was their deejay and their Adidas, but it took on a more criminal element. If you look at Trayvon being killed, the hoodie, in some ways, was probable cause. If you look at it, even Geraldo Rivera said, ‘The hoodie is just as much to blame as George Zimmerman.’ So we’re already considered more threatening because of the melanin in our skin, and when we add a hoodie to it, somehow people just think that takes it to another level of dangerousness, and that’s not true.

“People always tell me they feel more power when they have [a Humanize My Hoodie hoodie] on, like they have a hedge of protection on. I feel it when I’m wearing it. When I see people look at it in the grocery store or gas station, I feel like at least that’s a moment for them to check themselves about whatever they were thinking in that moment.”

Lewiee Blaze, who recently released his debut EP “Young Black & Gifted,” performed his spoken-word epic “Black Lives Matter.” 

Jason Sole led the opening-night crowd through the Humanize My Hoodie exhibit Friday at the Brookdale Library in Brooklyn Center: “What’s the price for a black man’s life? Check the toe tag, not one zero in sight.” — J. Cole

Andre Wright: “I think about Central Park and the pain Ava [Duvernay] went through to create that movie and produce it. And I feel that same way, a lot of the people in these photos I know personally, and it was a very traumatic experience for me. I was just telling Jason that sometimes I would tear up, not because the work was so great, but just because here it is, 2019, and I’m still creating work like this?”

Natasha Givens and Pastor Danny Givens, Jr. “This was right outside of New Rules building over northeast; I was the photographer,” said Natasha. “I work with Danny often, I’m sort of his PR person, and this shot has so much meaning. It’s powerful.” “I’m wearing my collar and the hoodie in this because there’s a duality in this experience in that I’m a person of faith and a leader in a faith community that represents peace and love and equity and equality,” said Givens. “[But] I hesitate when I wear a hoodie. I’m definitely not walking around after 8 o’clock at night with a hoodie up, not even to take my trash out. This represents a facet of humanity that’s based on fear and fragility. It’s difficult. But I’m proud to wear my hoodie.”

Humanize My Hoodie hoodies and more information here.

“The John Candy Joke That Still Makes Steve Martin Cry,” Vulture

For the Gen-Xer on your gift list, Nick de Semlyen has written a book entitled “Wild and Crazy Guys: How the Comedy Mavericks of the ’80s Changed Hollywood Forever” about the “Saturday Night Live” and “SCTV” television stars of the 1970s taking over theaters in the ’80s with classics like “Ghostbusters” and “Beverly Hills Cop.” Vulture has an excerpt with comedian Steve Martin recalling his work with the late John Candy in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” from teen-angst filmmaker John Hughes. — Corey Anderson, creative director

“NRA money flowed to board members amid allegedly lavish spending by top officials and vendors,” The Washington Post

Studying tax filings and other documents outlining the NRA’s finances, the Washington Post discovered that the group is funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to some of its board members. The findings add to mounting allegations of financial mismanagement, and some of the group’s 5 million fans who donate money are becoming skeptical of where their money is going. “I will be the first person to get in your face about defending the Second Amendment, but I will not defend corruption and cronyism and fearmongering,” a Philadelphia-area bakery owner and lifetime NRA member told the Post. — Jessica Lee, local government reporter
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“Key findings about U.S. Immigrants,” Pew Research

Try to get past the pedestrian headline and ride along with Pew Research assistant Jynnah Radford as she pores over all the data and research on immigrants in the U.S. at a time when there are nearly as many foreign-born residents of the U.S. than the previous peak in 1890. Of the 44.4 million born outside the U.S., 45 percent are naturalized and 31.5 percent are permanent or temporary lawful residents. — Peter Callaghan, state government reporter

“Earliest Van Cliburn Video?” YouTube

Norman Lebrecht at Slipped Disc tipped us to this YouTube video of a 1953 performance by a 19-year-old Van Cliburn. This was before he won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and even before his Carnegie Hall debut. At Juilliard, as a student soloist competition winner, he performs Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Jean Morel conducting. Of course this is not an actual video — 1953 was a long before everyone had iPhones — but it’s a wonderfully crisp and clear recording. There’s nothing to see but a portrait of a serious young man, but it’s definitely something to hear. — Pamela Espeland, Artscape columnist

Theater Mu has a new artistic director. Lily Tung Crystal comes to Mu from San Francisco, where she co-founded and currently serves as artistic director of Ferocious Lotus Theater Company, a collective that develops Asian-American artists, collaborates with Asian-American playwrights and creates socially relevant work. In her nine years with Ferocious Lotus, Crystal has commissioned and presented world premieres and directed regional premieres.

Crystal is also an actor and musical theater performer who trained at Studio American Conservatory Theatre, Cornell and Columbia. Plus she’s a leadership and transition coach.

Crystal said in a statement, “With its 27-year history, Theater Mu has been an important influence on the national theater scene, particularly among Asian American artists and the Asian American community at large. Having founded a theater with a similar mission in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve always been inspired by Theater Mu.”

Theater Mu launched a national search for a new AD in January. Just a month earlier, in December, Mu fired its former artistic director, Randy Reyes, following complaints about his conduct. In partnership with Penumbra Theatre, Mu was back on its feet in April with a strong production of “The Brothers Paranormal.” Next up, “Hot Asian Doctor” is set to begin at the Mixed Blood on Aug. 16.

Crystal will assume her new role in September. Theater Mu’s managing director, Shannon Fitzgerald, said in a statement, “I have no doubt that [Crystal’s] leadership and experience will strengthen Mu as we continue to move Asian American theater forward.”

Zenon’s last dances

In March, Zenon Dance Company announced it would close in June, after 36 years. The reason given by Linda Andrews, the company’s founding artistic director: lack of funding. Zenon was supported by the Jerome Foundation and the Target Foundation. It has been known and loved for its artistic excellence, many commissions and world premieres.

Zenon Dance Company Final Performance Season: Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. FMI and tickets ($38). Saturday will be a gala performance and farewell, with remarks by Andrews and an after party with music, cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and a champagne toast. 7:30 p.m., doors at 6:30. FMI and tickets ($100).

The picks

Tonight (Tuesday, June 11) at the Dakota: Maceo Parker. Calling his music “2 percent jazz, 98 percent funky stuff,” the irrepressible saxophonist played with James Brown in the 1960s, George Clinton and P-Funk in the 1970s, Ray Charles and Prince in the 1990s. Plus he leads his own band. On Sunday, they played the Hollywood Bowl at the Playboy Jazz Festival, and now, with equal heat and funkiness, they’ll play the slightly smaller Dakota. 7 and 9 p.m. FMI and tickets ($25-50). P.S. Want to know more about funk? Check out “How James Brown Invented Funk,” featuring Nahre Sol and L.A. Buckner, part of TPT’s Sound Field series.

Saturday at SpringBOX: Sharon DeMark: Dailies: A Year of Drawing Exhibit and Fundraiser. When the news roughs us up every morning, what do we do? Sharon DeMark gave herself an assignment: Create one small watercolor drawing every day for a year and post it on social media. We stumbled across DeMark’s Instagram and were fascinated by the discipline, the artistry and the variety: birds, flowers, bowls, hangers on a closet rod, chairs, a pair of glasses, Jello cubes. DeMark will hold a one-day show on Saturday evening of more than 150 small (4 ½” x 6″) watercolors. Make a donation to the Twin Cities Theaters of Color Coalition (TCTOCC) and bring one home. DeMark is a longtime arts supporter and a program officer for the St. Paul & Minnesota Foundations. 262 University Ave. W., St. Paul. Drinks, snacks, and music provided. 7-9 p.m. Free.

On the horizon

Quick mentions of events just announced or further out.

July 28: Tony Bennett at the Orpheum

Aug. 3: Hazelfest 2019 with Jeremy Messersmith, Kat Perkins, Nicholas David and more

Sept. 4-5: Pat Metheny Side Eye at the Dakota

Last June, Springboard for the Arts bought a building at 262 University Ave. West in St. Paul that formerly housed a Ford dealership. No surprise, it had a large parking lot. Springboard bought that, too. Then it launched a $5.85 million capital campaign for redevelopment of the site. The Saint Paul, F.R. Bigelow and Mardag foundations together committed $500,000.

Now Knight Foundation has added a $1 million anchor investment. Victoria Rogers, Knight Foundation vice president for the arts, said in a statement, “Springboard for the Arts has been part of the fabric of St. Paul for 28 years, but its influence has been far reaching, extending across Minnesota and other cities within the United States … This new home will allow it to provide more local and national artists access to its unique tools and trainings, while creating a lasting, vibrant neighborhood meeting place.”

Nicknamed SpringBOX, the site has already hosted more than 150 events, including Little Mekong Night Markets. It has invited 4,500 artists, community members, organizers and partners to use the space. Currently at SpringBOX: “Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture,” an exhibition featuring the work of 21 practitioners, academics and students.

When completed, SpringBOX will be a visible home for art and community along the Green Line. It will house Springboard’s offices (the organization has been renting space in Lowertown), multipurpose community spaces, a public lawn and green space, an artist resource lab, and a large event and public space for markets, performances, artist-led projects and community celebrations.

In the words of Laura Zabel, Springboard’s executive director, “SpringBOX will create a physical, visible, and accessible home for creative people power in the neighborhood and across the city.”

This isn’t the first time Knight has supported Springboard. In January 2014, when the foundation announced $8 million in new funding for the arts in St. Paul, Springboard was one of five “anchor institutions” to share $3.5 million. The other $4.5 million would go to the Knight Arts Challenge.

Since 2005, Knight Foundation has invested more than $39 million in St. Paul, including more than $12 million in arts and culture.

Kathleen Spehar to leave the O’Shaughnessy

Our great loss is Tallahassee’s considerable gain. On Friday, St. Kate’s announced that Kathleen Spehar, director at the O’Shaughnessy Auditorium, will leave her post late this summer to take on a new role as executive director at the Council on Culture and Arts (COCA) in Tallahassee, Florida.

Spehar has served as the O’Shaughnessy’s director since September 2011. In eight short years, she has built and deepened partnerships with other arts organizations; expanded and diversified programing; grown the O’Shaughnessy’s artistic and community presence on the local and national scene; amplified and supported women innovators in the performing arts; featured top choreographers, dance companies, musicians and songwriters; and presented, commissioned and supported new works and projects. In a time when fists and belts are tightening, she tripled third-party funding to the O’Shaughnessy, including five national grants in the 2018-19 season.

Spehar also made the O’Shaughnessy feel especially welcoming and accepting. We were there most recently for an extraordinary event: Toshi Reagon’s “Parable of the Sower,” a post-apocalyptic science fiction opera based on a book by Octavia Butler. It was totally sold out to one of the most mixed and enthusiastic crowds we’ve ever experienced.

We saw Lizzo at the O’Shaughnessy (before she was selling out the Armory), and Maria Schneider with her orchestra (Spehar left the house lights on because Schneider wanted to look out and see her friends and family), and TU Dance, and Karen Charles Threads Dance Project, and Camille A. Brown & Dancers (with an incendiary performance by Vie Boheme and Maleek Washington), and Maureen Fleming (in a jaw-dropping night of butoh), and more, but not enough. Never enough. Many of the events we were sorry to miss took place at the O’Shaughnessy.

Spehar will be here through the Momentum New Dance Festival in July. If you go, look for her in the lobby. She’ll be the spark moving through the crowd, greeting people, making sure everyone knows where they’re going, asking if anyone needs help. We’ll miss her terribly, and we wish her everything best in her new position.

The picks

We dropped our Stone Arch Bridge Festival pick into last week’s Artscape by mistake. Sorry for any confusion.

Tonight (Wednesday, June 12) at Crooners: Rose Ensemble Cabaret Night. The Rose Ensemble will give its final (and sold-out) concert at the Basilica of St. Mary on Saturday, June 15. But before then, in the new Lakeside Tent at Crooners (or the Dunsmore Room, if it rains), several Rose Ensemble singers will join pianist Dan Chouinard for an evening of show tunes, pop tunes and classical tunes. With Kristine Boerger, Peter Tuff, Bradley King, Alyssa Anderson, Daniel Mahraun, Rose Ensemble founder Jordan Sramek, Garrett Eucker and maybe more. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($10).

Thursday at the Trylon: “Bungalow Heaven: Preserving a Neighborhood.” Tired of teardowns? Worried there won’t be any charm left in Twin Cities neighborhoods in 10 years, maybe sooner? Joaquin Montalvan’s 2015 documentary tells the tale of a declining Pasadena neighborhood that chose preservation. Presented by the Twin Cities Bungalow Club. 7 p.m. FMI including trailer and tickets ($5).

Thursday through Saturday at Orchestra Hall: Minnesota Orchestra Season Finale: Vänskä Conducts Mahler’s Tenth. If you’re a famous composer of big, sprawling symphonies and you learn that your wife has been having an affair (with Walter Gropius), what do you do? You write it into your final symphony. Mahler died before its completion; the Minnesota Orchestra will perform the edition by British musicologist Deryk Cooke. Following the season finale concerts, Osmo Vänskä and the orchestra will record the Tenth for future release on the BIS label, adding to their series of Mahler recordings. Thursday at 11 a.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. FMI and tickets ($30-$102). Note: Friday night’s concert will be broadcast live on Classical MPR, with Brian Newhouse in the backstage broadcast booth. This will be Newhouse’s final Minnesota Orchestra broadcast. (Don’t worry; he’s not leaving MPR.) MPR will name his Minnesota Orchestra successor in time for the 2019-20 season.

Friday at the Parkway Theater: “Mueller, She Wrote LIVE!” Come for the news, stay for the fantasy indictment draft. An all-woman political podcast born in San Diego, “Mueller, She Wrote” features A.G., a government employee who goes by her initials, and fellow stand-up comedians Jaleesa Johnson and Jordan Coburn. It began in 2017 and has been mostly recorded at the Comedy Store in La Jolla. The women are on the road and the Parkway is one of their stops. Think they’ll talk about Barr’s decision to give key documents to Congress? Or maybe mention that Google’s search tool called the Mueller report “fiction”? 7 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show. FMI and tickets ($30 advance, $40 door, $60 VIP Meet and Greet).

Mill City Summer Opera will be looking for another venue. The Minnesota Historical Society won’t be extending MCSO’s contract beyond this season, so this summer’s offering, Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte,” will be your last chance to see an opera in the Mill City Museum’s dramatic Ruin Courtyard. Tickets are on sale now for that production, which will be directed by MSCO’s artistic director Crystal Manich and run for seven performances in July. Two reasons to go: the setting, and to see how Manich handles an opera with gorgeous music but a problematic story.

The James J. Hill Center will close to the public starting July 3 to figure out its future. A gift from the estate of James J. Hill, the historic building opened in 1921 as a free general-purpose reference library. When that became unrealistic in the 1970s, it switched to business reference services. More recently, the Hill has focused on small-business owners, startups and entrepreneurs. It has also been an event center, wedding venue and performance venue. The Hill has been home to the Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society and has hosted several concerts. It’s a beautiful space, one of a kind, just around the corner from the Ordway and facing the newly spiffed up Rice Park.

The Pioneer Press reported that “the center recently completed a historic structure report that gave board members pause. Without releasing actual numbers, [Executive Director Tamara Prato] called the projected cost of maintenance and repairs ‘significant for the building for the long term.’” All contracted rental events will be honored through 2019. So Schubert Club Mix fans can still plan to see David Grielshammer play there on Oct. 3.

The Haunted Basement has found another basement – in the Rosedale Shopping Center in Roseville. More precisely, “the southeast corner of the mall’s lower level, in the space formerly occupied by the now deceased Herbergers.” It will have more than 20,000 square feet of usable interactive space in which to scare the bejesus out of people. Rosedale approached the Haunted Basement with the idea. Construction and design work is currently in progress for this year’s creep-a-thon, which runs from the end of September through early November. Tickets will go on sale Aug. 1.

The Haunted Basement spent the first several years of its life at the Soap Factory. In 2017, it moved from there to a former General Mills research facility. Now it’s off to the ’burbs. Props to Rosedale for throwing down the welcome mat. For a time, the mall was known for its Sunday-morning dog-walking program, a winter venture that drew hundreds of people and pups. That ended permanently in early February.

HUGE Improv Theater will leave its current rented home at 3037 Lyndale Ave. S. and relocate to its own, purchased building at 2728 Lyndale Ave. S., now Art Materials. The closing is planned for September 2019, and HUGE anticipates moving in 2020. The theater has launched a $3.2 million capital campaign and hopes to meet a preliminary fundraising goal of $640,000 by September, which will allow it to secure an affordable loan.

The picks

Tonight (Thursday, July 13) at 900 Hennepin: “It’s the People” Opening Celebration. A new public art project by Hennepin Theatre Trust honors the people whose experiences and stories make Hennepin Avenue what it is. Nine large-scale portraits by Minnesota artists have been made into banners that will hang on City Center, the Pantages, the Saloon, 900 Hennepin (the Hennepin Theatre Trust building) and FAIR School. All have themes: workforce, transportation, LGBT+, theatergoers, youth. Hear from the artists; grab a map; enjoy live music, performances, snacks, and an arts activity. 5-8 p.m.

Sunday on your teevee: Minnesota Original. TPT’s award-winning series returns post-pledge with new stories about Minnesota arts and artists. Profiled this week are the artistic partnership Free Black Dirt, which voices narratives often erased or ignored; Larsen Husby, who walked every street in Minneapolis; Ricardo Levins Morales, an artist with a message and a mission; and “1855,” a show created by two Faribault high schoolers that explores the history of their town. Next week’s program (Sunday, June 23) spotlights Bodega Ltd., aerospace engineer-turned-artist Mary Jo Hoffman, architect-turned-artist Daphne Lee, writer and designer Kate Arends and minimalist photographer Wing Ho. MNO airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on TPT 2.

Monday, Wednesday and Saturday (June 22) at the Film Society’s St. Anthony Main Theatre: National Theatre Live: “The Audience.” Each week for 60 years, Queen Elizabeth II has held private meetings called audiences with her prime ministers. Helen Mirren is Her Majesty in the Tony Award-winning production of Peter Morgan’s play. The original 2013 broadcast from London’s West End returns for National Theatre Live’s 10th birthday. FMI including trailer, times and tickets ($20-10).

Tuesday at the Ted Mann: Dominick Argento Memorial Concert. The beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, University of Minnesota professor emeritus and longtime Minneapolis resident died in late February. It was cold then, and wintery, and the streets and sidewalks were icy and everyone was in a bad mood. Now it’s warm and green and the air is full of lilac perfume, so you’ll want to leave work early for an afternoon of music by and reminiscences about Argento. Philip Brunelle, who curated this event, will lead the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra will play, Maria Jette, Vern Sutton and boy soprano Sam Nelson will sing, and others who knew and admired Argento will share their memories of this great man. 3 p.m. FMI. Free.

Take naps if you need to. Then stay up late Friday and Saturday, because Northern Spark happens just once a year. Formerly a one-night, dusk-to-dawn marathon, the free nighttime arts festival is now spread over two nights, June 14-15, from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. You don’t have to sleep in the whole next day, and if it rains the first night, there’s always the second night.

This year’s theme is “We Are Here: Resilience, Renewal and Regeneration.” The festival will take place in three locations: the American Indian Cultural Corridor (AICC) in Minneapolis, at All My Relations Arts and the Franklin Library; the Commons in downtown Minneapolis, an urban park where the winner of this year’s Creative City Challenge, “Radical Playground,” will debut on Friday; and St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood, at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center and the Rondo Community Outreach Library.

Northern Spark at the Commons will also be the site for a reception for the national conference of Americans for the Arts (AFTA), which is here through Sunday.

It’s a challenge to figure out how to “do” something as large, diverse and spread-out as Northern Spark. Start by spending some time on the website. Get your bearings on the interactive map. (The Art tab will also tell you where the info tents and bathrooms are.) Head for the Art & Events page and look around. There are 33 projects distributed over the three locations. Pick a project that interests you and go there. Or browse by neighborhood. The site lets you create a “My Night” list of projects you want to see. Make a wish list. Download a free Metro Transit Ride pass. Bring a water bottle. Wear comfortable shoes.

Out of the 33 projects, we’ve made a wish list of eight, as a starter. If you go, stay open to suggestion, distraction, and going with the flow. Just being in an engaged and lively late-night crowd at any of the three locations will be a kick all by itself.

At the Commons

Kalpulli Yaocenotxli: “Radical Playground Opening Performance.” This will only happen Friday night from 9:10-9:30 p.m. It will begin with a blessing and procession that transitions from the Northern Spark Americans for the Arts reception tents to the Radical Playground installation with an opening dance ceremony. The performance will include at least three commissioned alebrije puppet outfits by artists in Oaxaca.

Foci Artists, “Neon Garden.” A wall of interactive neon will be a chance to take a selfie for social media – and think about how we communicate. A portable neon bending station will clue us in to how neon works.

Along the AICC

Rosy Simas (Seneca) and Heid E. Erdrich (Ojibwe) with Jonathan Thunder (Ojibwe): “WEave: HERE.” At 11 p.m. both nights, Simas will lead an hourlong procession along Franklin Avenue to an installation curated by Erdrich and Thunder. The performers will be in sculptural costumes highlighted by projections.

Marlena Myles, Tamara Aupaumut, Elsa Hoover, Dawi, James D. Autio and Jess Grams: “Hanyétu Wówapi Thipi (The Night Library).” The library will become a cultural embassy filled with indigenous language and stories.

“Let All the Nations Know: Hymns from Indian Melodies and the Sacred Harp.” Because sacred harp/shape note singing.

In Rondo

Tish Jones, Co-curator and MC: “Rondo Stage and Open Mic.” With live music, poetry, and song – and the charisma of Tish Jones – this will be a destination on both nights.

Baba Jesse and Resounding Rhythms: “Resounding Strength – Resilient Song.” An interactive audience drum circle, with the refreshing, renewing rhythms of the djembe drum.

Chris Scott, Clarence White, and Hawona Sullivan Janzen: “Rondo Family Reunion: Pictures and Poems for Our People.” Photographs and poetry will tell the stories of the Rondo diaspora. Follow the lawn signs to find them.

Dark & Stormy’s ‘Dry Powder’ 

If you want to see a light-hearted comedy, a jolly farce or perhaps a perky musical, never, ever go to a Dark & Stormy production. But if you long to see something twisted, occasionally murderous, always thought-provoking and often wickedly funny, D&S is for you.

Their latest, Sarah Burgess’ “Dry Powder,” is a tale about a private equity firm in a PR crisis, looking for a way out. Morals, ethics, integrity and compassion are not in their vocabulary. They’re all jackals. Directed by Michaela Jackson, the play is smartly cast, with Robert Dorfman as Rick, the rapacious, mendacious head of the firm; Sara Marsh and Alex Galick as Jenny and Seth, his competitive, manipulative minions (D&S is Marsh’s theater; she’s the founder and artistic director); and Darrick Mosley as Jeff, the man who owns the California-based luggage company they mean to acquire. Jeff seems to really, really care about his employees.

Oleaginous and smiling, Rick is the baddest of the bad. (Watching Dorfman crook a finger or raise an eyebrow is priceless.) Jenny and Seth trade zingers as they vie for Rick’s approval. You almost feel sorry for Jeff, just a guy trying to save his ripe-for-picking company and his poor, failing winery. As always, D&S, which uses what little money it has to pay the actors, strips the production down to bare essentials: a desk, a high table, a couple of chairs. Swapping one tie for another (with a flourish) constitutes a costume change. The theater – a room in the Grain Belt Warehouse – isn’t even a black box. It’s a gray box. The play is in your face and almost in your lap.

An area premiere, “Dry Powder” continues through June 29. It runs about 90 minutes with no intermission. FMI and tickets ($34-39; $15 under 30).

Oratory Bach is now the Bach Roots Festival

Under founding artistic director Matthew J. Olson, Oratory Bach Ensemble is transitioning into an annual 10-day summer event featuring music by Bach and composers he influenced.

The inaugural Bach Roots Festival starts this Sunday, June 16, and continues through June 24 with concerts in breweries, a Vespers service, and two performances of the B Minor Mass. (Bach didn’t only write church music; he also wrote music for casual summer concerts at a Leipzig café.) Each event will be in a different place or city: Minnetonka, Minneapolis, St. Paul, New Ulm, Northfield.

Most concerts are $20 or less, and the Bach & Brews night in New Ulm is free because New Ulm is Olson’s hometown. Featured artists include soprano Linh Kauffman, mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski and organist Stephen Hamilton. FMI and tickets.

The Bach Roots Festival joins a robust summer line-up of classical music that also includes the Twin Cities Early Music Festival, the CELLOici recital series, the Source Song Festival, the Lakes Area Music Festival (LAMF) in Brainerd and the Minnesota Beethoven Festival in Winona. We’ll preview those in future Artscapes.

The first game back from a road trip usually draws plenty of media types to the Twins clubhouse before batting practice, and Tuesday was one of those days. Camera crews from three local network affiliates, along with more than a half-dozen print and digital reporters, interviewed Nelson Cruz about the shooting of fellow Dominican David Ortiz, and Jason Castro about the club’s unexpectedly dominant start.

In the midst of this, first baseman C.J. Cron, enjoying a rare day out of the lineup, walked though the clubhouse to his locker. Draped on the chair he found a red T-shirt, that night’s promotional giveaway item, celebrating the Twins’ so-called “Bomba Squad.” At that point, Cron had contributed 14 “bombas,” aka home runs, to the club’s major-league leading 125, a total that matched the 1964 club record for the most before the All-Star Break. By Thursday it was up to 132, with the break still nearly four weeks off.

Cron, 29, has quietly managed to do something difficult without fanfare or controversy. It’s hard enough to replace a popular player like Joe Mauer, whose number 7 the Twins will retire before Saturday night’s game with Kansas City. It’s even harder to upgrade the position in the process. Twins managed to do both with Cron, minus the fan outrage and awkward comparisons that often come with such transitions. Cron’s two-run homer Thursday, his ninth since May 8, gave him 15 on the season, third on the club behind Eddie Rosario (19) and Max Kepler (16).

Through 66 games, Cron’s production in most categories exceeds Mauer’s at a similar point last season.  There’s a caveat, though: Mauer missed 25 games last May and June with a cervical neck strain and concussion symptoms that hastened his decision to retire. Surprisingly, Cron even has a few more homers and RBI than Mauer did in his 2009 MVP season, when back problems kept Mauer out until May 1.

Cron has hit and fielded so well that he drew more than 300,000 votes in the first round of All-Star balloting at first base, second to Luke Voit of the Yankees and about 16,000 votes ahead of last year’s starter, Jose Abreu of the White Sox.  Perennial fan favorites Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols lagged farther behind. It usually takes well over 1,000,000 votes to win.

“You look at the numbers, over 300,000 people, that’s a lot of people getting on their phones and their laptops,” Cron said. “That’s the part that’s cool more than the actual All-Star part. Whether or not I go or not isn’t important. Just seeing that support has been awesome.”

That Cron was even available for the Twins to sign remains one of the head-scratching developments of the off-season. Tampa Bay designated Cron for assignment though he led the Rays with 30 homers and 74 RBI, both career highs, while mostly used as a designated hitter. Cron slugged 20 percent of the Rays’ homers and had more than twice as many as anyone else. Teams generally covet arbitration-eligible players like Cron with two years to go before free agency.

But home run power has become so ubiquitous in today’s game that most teams believe they can replace slugging as easily as a worn set of drapes. Across MLB, twenty-seven players hit at least 30 home runs last season. Twenty-seven.

Besides Cron, Tampa Bay thought it had two promising DH/first basemen on the major-league roster (Jake Bauers, a rookie they traded a few weeks after letting Cron go, and Ji-Man Choi) and two more coming in the farm system (Nathan Lowe and two-way prospect Brendan McKay). Cron was due a big raise in arbitration, another deterrent for the cash-strapped Rays; his one-year, $4.8 million deal with the Twins more than doubled his 2018 pay.

Once Mauer announced his retirement, new Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, previously a Tampa Bay coach and executive, pushed hard for Cron. Twins Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey said the club approached Tampa Bay about Cron before the Rays designated him.

“Rocco was as big an advocate for him as anyone on our staff,” Falvey said. “Our scouts liked him. The biggest question for us was, how was he going to be at first (base), because he hadn’t played it every single day at the big-league level.”

Mauer was never the same hitter after his 2013 concussion ended his days as a catcher, but he quickly proved to be an above-average defender at first base. Internally, the Twins determined his replacement had to be at least Mauer’s peer with the glove. In camp, that gave Cron the edge over former Yankee Tyler Austin, who was eventually designated for assignment and traded to the Giants. “We knew whoever was going to stand at first after Joe was going to have to fill some pretty big shoes,” Falvey said.

Cron had been a catcher until the Angels drafted him in the first round in 2011. With their help, Cron developed into a reliable first baseman. One winter, at the Angels’ minor-league complex near his home in Phoenix, he took ground balls nearly every day from Mike Gallego, the former Oakland infielder and L.A.’s director of baseball development.

“I think the major issue coming up through the minors and my first two years in the big leagues was gauging the positioning aspect of it, knowing what balls you need to go after and what balls you need to go to first on,” he said. “I think I took a little while. I wasn’t aggressive enough, I guess, going to get that ball in the hole (between first and second). The more you do it, obviously, the better you’re going to get.”

Most defensive analytics aren’t as reliable as hitting and pitching analytics. One stat, range factor, offers some basis for comparison. Last season Mauer averaged 7.71 fielding chances per game, below the league average of 8.43 and a number that declined every season after his move to first in 2014. Cron averages 7.98 chances against a league average of 8.19, a slight improvement. Better yet, if your eyes tell you Cron is a pretty good first baseman, go with that. In the fifth inning Thursday, Cron made a nice over-the-shoulder catch of a pop in short right, then cradled a hurried Micheal Pineda throw against his body to save Pineda an error.

“He has good, soft hands, and he’s very good around the bag,” Baldelli said. “He’s always worked hard at his craft and wanted to improve, and he has. He could pick some balls out of the dirt, but he wanted to continue to work at it. If he thinks he needs to spend time on something, he does. That’s what being a good, professional baseball player is all about, and that’s something he’s always brought to the table.”

In some cities, replacing an iconic figure can be traumatic for the newcomer. In 1996, when Tino Martinez took over for the sainted Don Mattingly at first base for the Yankees, fans enthusiastically booed Martinez at the home opener. This being the Yankees, there were mitigating circumstances. Mattingly hadn’t actually retired yet; he and owner George Steinbrenner had been feuding since the previous season. But fans directed their anger at the intensely-competitive Martinez, who started slowly before coming around and winning them over. By season’s end, Martinez contributed 25 homers and 117 RBI to the first of four World Series champions in five years for manager Joe Torre.

In this case, Minneapolis/St. Paul isn’t New York or Boston. And Jim Pohlad, thankfully, isn’t George Steinbrenner. Twins fans liked and appreciated Mauer but never revered him the way Yankee fans revered Mattingly. Cron eased into Mauer’s old job without the scrutiny and stress that usually accompanies such moves. Maybe that’s why he has been so good.

“I’ve seen (Mauer) around a couple of times, just mostly saying hello, how he’s been, never anything about the position,” Cron said. “That guy’s a legend here in Minnesota. I knew I wasn’t able to take that part there. Just playing my game and trying to help the team win is all I can do.”

“I never heard about Juneteenth. I grew up on the southside of Chicago, and I only heard about Juneteenth when I came to Minnesota,” said Troderick Holmes, a volunteer for Bethune Park’s “Juneteenth: Celebrating Freedom Day” in Minneapolis, as the park’s Juneteenth board and planning committee gathered at the adjacent Phyllis Wheatley Community Center Monday afternoon. “Juneteenth is special, man. It’s not just for blacks. I think it’s a day for everyone, because it’s a day of peace, love, and happiness.”

June 19 is the anniversary of the day in 1965 that Union soldiers marched into Texas and made law the last 250,000 slaves’ emancipation, which is why Juneteenth is also known as “Black Independence Day” and “the Black 4^th of July.”

Minnesota was the fourth state to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday,  and President Barack Obama declared Juneteenth a national day of observance in 2014.

“Truthfully, as a child, it just meant going to a park and having fun at an outdoor carnival,” said Lorna Pettis, a board member at Bethune and organizer behind this year’s celebration. “The significance of Juneteenth wasn’t really taught then. Now, I think it’s great because it gives the opportunity for children — not just black children, but all children — to learn what Juneteenth means around the celebration of black folks’ freedom. We’re teaching our children what may or may not have ever been taught as far as our culture and history and the significance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and all those leaders before us that tried to get social justice and everything in place, and everything they don’t teach in schools anymore.”

The Bethune Park celebration (11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday; 1304 N. 10^th Ave., Minneapolis) is but one Juneteenth event planned around the state. Other Saturday events are the Twin Cities Juneteenth Celebration at North Mississippi Regional Park (5116 N. Mississippi Dr., Minneapolis); 2^nd Annual Juneteenth Celebration—Mankato at the Verizon Center (1 Civic Center Plaza); Rochesterfest/Juneteenth Celebration at Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park (1738 E. Center St., Rochester); Juneteenth Celebration 2019 at Central Hillside Community Center (12 E. 4^th St., Duluth). Festivities continue Tuesday (5-7 p.m.) at Webber Park Library (4440 Humboldt Ave. N., Minneapolis), and Wednesday (6-9 p.m.) with a Juneteenth BBQ at Highland Park Pool House (1313-1333 Montreal Ave., St. Paul).

If Juneteenth feels like an underground celebration, it’s likely because “slavery” is the great skeleton in this country’s closet and thus not easily talked about in any context. National holiday or not, Juneteenth deserves our attention, imagination, and support for its lifting up of ancestors and freedom fighters in these new days of old white racism. For, as Jason Soles told last Friday’s opening night audience of the Humanize My Hoodie art exhibit in Minneapolis, “slavery never ended.”

“Juneteenth is actually the oldest celebration within the African-American community, commemorating the end of slavery,” said Lee Jordan, state and Midwest regional director for the national Juneteenth celebration, on Monday at Bethune. “It celebrates our history here in the United States. It’s always been important, but we’re still not celebrated enough for the things that we’ve accomplished, and Juneteenth is a big part of that. It’s a platform to celebrate what we have contributed.”

According to the “history” section of the Juneteenth Minnesota website:

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery.

“Dating back into 1865, it was on June 19^th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, TX with news that the war had ended and that all slaves were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new executive order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

“Today, the Twin Cities Juneteenth Celebration, founded 30 years ago, is said to be one of the two largest Juneteenth Celebrations in the United States, surpassing even the Texas celebrations where Juneteenth is a state holiday.

Texas was the first state to declare Juneteenth a state holiday, and the national Juneteenth page and Facebook page are the best resources on the holiday’s history and current events — including its precarious roots. According to Mental Floss:

When freed slaves tried to celebrate the first anniversary of the announcement a year later, they were faced with a problem: Segregation laws were expanding rapidly, and there were no public places or parks they were permitted to use. So, in the 1870s, former slaves pooled together $800 and purchased 10 acres of land, which they deemed ‘Emancipation Park.’ It was the only public park and swimming pool in the Houston area that was open to African Americans until the 1950s.

Juneteenth celebrations waned for several decades. It wasn’t because people no longer wanted to celebrate freedom — but, as Slate so eloquently put it, “it’s difficult to celebrate freedom when your life is defined by oppression on all sides.” Juneteenth celebrations waned during the era of Jim Crow laws until the civil rights movement of the 1960s, when the Poor People’s March planned by Martin Luther King Jr. was purposely scheduled to coincide with the date. The march brought Juneteenth back to the forefront, and when march participants took the celebrations back to their home states, the holiday was reborn.”

And reborn again, and with a flourish, in Bethune Park this Saturday.

“This is our second year here doing the ‘Celebration of Freedom Day,’ and it’s an awesome event where people can come out to the park and play like I did as a child, and still learn,” said Pettis. “The older kids are learning, and some of the adults don’t even know what it’s about, or even its history. So it’s a learning experience for the community, and it’s a community event. It’s not geared solely to African-Americans, but it is African-American freedom day.”

The Minnesota Timberwolves have competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) since the 1989–90 season. The team is the second professional NBA franchise to represent Minnesota, which was home to the Minneapolis Lakers from 1949 to 1960.

After owner Bob Short moved the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles in 1960, it took almost thirty years for professional basketball to return to Minnesota. In October of 1986, a “Name the Team” contest was held to come up with a nickname for a potential expansion team for Minnesota. A total of 6,076 entries, featuring 1,284 different nicknames, was submitted, with “Timberwolves” and “Polars” being most popular. Minnesota’s 842 city councils selected the nickname “Timberwolves” as the winner.

The NBA’s four-team expansion in 1987 included the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Orlando Magic, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Miami Heat. Harvey Ratner and Marv Wolfenson, local Minnesotan businessmen, paid $32.5 million for the Timberwolves franchise in April of 1987. With a name and logo (designed by Austin, Minnesota, native Mark Thompson) the team prepared to make its NBA debut in the 1989–90 season.

The Timberwolves hired former University of Minnesota Golden Gophers men’s basketball coach Bill Musselman to lead the new franchise. In the 1989 NBA Draft, Musselman selected Jerome James “Pooh” Richardson from the University of California, Los Angeles, with the tenth overall pick. For their first game, held on November 3, 1989, the team traveled to Seattle and lost to the Seattle SuperSonics by a score of 106–94.

The Timberwolves held their home opener at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome on November 8, 1989. The Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan, defeated them by a score of 96–84. Their first victory came in their next home game on November 10, 1989, against the Philadelphia 76ers by a score of 125 to 118 with forward Tyrone Corbin and guard Tony Campbell each scoring over 30 points. The Timberwolves would finish the 1989-90 season with a final record of 22–60, good for a thirteenth place finish in the Western Conference. However along the way the team set the NBA’s all-time attendance record, with over one million fans attending home games at the Metrodome.

The following seasons saw the Timberwolves struggle as the team failed to finish higher than eleventh place in the Western Conference through the 1995–96 season. The team moved into the Minneapolis Target Center in October of 1990 and were sold to Mankato businessman and former State Senator Glen Taylor in 1994.

The selection of Kevin Garnett on June 28, 1995, was a turning point for the Timberwolves franchise. Garnett, along with Head Coach Flip Saunders and teammates Stephon Marbury, Tom Gugliotta, and Sam Mitchell, turned the team’s fortunes around. In the 1996–97 season, the Timberwolves reached the playoffs for the first time, despite having an overall record of 40–42.

The 2003–04 season stands as the most successful in franchise history. The team finished first in the Western Conference with a regular season record of 58–24. Kevin Garnett was awarded the NBA’s Most Valuable Player as he averaged 24.2 points, 13.9 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 2.2 blocks and 1.5 steals per game over the season. Head Coach Flip Saunders and General Manager Kevin McHale helped build and direct a solid supporting cast for Garnett’s MVP season with players like Fred Hoiberg, Wally Szczerbiak, Latrell Sprewell, Trenton Hassell, and Sam Cassell. The Timberwolves reached the 2003–04 Playoffs and advance to the franchise’s first Western Conference Finals.

The following years proved challenging for the franchise as the team went thirteen consecutive seasons without a playoff appearance. During this period the team traded star forward Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics in 2007, while failing to finish with an .500 or better win percentage from the 2005–06 season to the 2016–17 season. The Timberwolves returned to the NBA Playoffs at the end of the 2017–2018 season with a roster featuring Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Jimmy Butler, but lost in the first round. The following season head coach Tom Thibodeau was fired, Jimmy Butler was traded, and the team eleventh in the Western Conference with a record of 36–46.

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

Artscape is going to be on break and will return June 25.

Each year in June, Steve Heckler, the founding executive director of the Twin Cities Jazz Festival, turns “Jazz is dead” into “If you play it, they will come.” Some 40,000 people prove him right, overflowing Mears Park in St. Paul’s Lowertown, the festival’s center, into nearby streets, clubs, bars, and studios, which Heckler also fills with jazz. His message is clear: If you don’t want to hear jazz during Jazz Fest, you’ll just have to go somewhere else. And, by the way, it’s all free.

Now in its 21st year, Jazz Fest is always a good mix of out-of-towners and area musicians. One of this year’s headliners is both. José James grew up in Minneapolis and sang with his high-school music teacher, Denny Malmberg, at Fireside Pizza on Penn Ave. S. Today he’s an international star with five albums on Blue Note. He’s touring his latest, “Lean on Me,” a loving and personal tribute to Bill Withers. See him Friday at 8:30 in Mears Park.

These are the headliners, night-by-night.

Thursday: Grammy-winning Cuban salsa singer Mayito Rivera (backed by Twin Cities-based Charanga Tropical, led by Doug Little) and Cuban pianist Jorge Luis Pacheco.

Friday: Young alto saxophonist and singer Grace Kelly (who made her first recording at 12; she now has a dozen albums to her credit and appears regularly in the house band for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”); she’s followed by José James.

Along with Mears Park, jazz will be heard on 22 more stages, indoors and out. A few blocks from Mears, the Black Dog will pulse with jazz all weekend long. That’s trumpeter/flumpeter Steve Kenny’s home base, and he’ll fill it with music. Stop by to hear Babatunde Lea’s Rhythm’s Mama, the Zacc Harris Group, the Laura Caviani Quartet, the JT Bates Grain Trio and Rodney Ruckus, among others. A stage on 5th Street next to the park will keep the music going between the headliners with Salsa del Soul, the Jack Brass Band, the Gypsy Mania Hot Club Quartet and more.

The Larry Englund Memorial Youth Stage nearby – named in honor of lifelong music fan and booster Englund, who died earlier this year – will be filled with talented young jazz musicians. Studio Z will feature two Davu Seru-led bands, No Territory and the Motherless Dollar Quartet. TPT’s Street Space will host vocalists including Thomasina Petrus, Jana Nyberg, Bruce Henry (and his Evolution of African American Music), Rio Nido, Maud Hixson’s French 75 and Aurora Nealand. A hit at last year’s Jazz Fest, the New Orleans-based Nealand is also a clarinetist and saxophonist; she’ll appear with Tom McDermott.

Vieux Carré, which recently announced it will close its doors soon after Jazz Fest, will host the post-fest jam every night, with festival stalwart and piano genius Jon Weber at the keys.

Check the schedule, view the map, and join the crowd of happy, toe-tapping, head-bopping people who help make Jazz Fest a highlight of the summer.

“These 15 mind-blowing bike projects will make you hate your bike lane,” Fast Company

Given how completely people in the Twin Cities lose their … uh, minds, when even something as benign and useless as a “sharrow” is provided to bike riders, just imagine what the comments would look like if any governments around Minnesota proposed anything like these bike infrastructure projects detailed by Adele Peters in Fast Company. — Peter Callaghan, state government reporter

“The Night Climbers of Islamabad,” Deadspin

A fascinating look by journalist Salmaan Farooqui at the small and dedicated climbing community in Islamabad, Pakistan, which takes takes to rock faces in the dead of night during Ramadan to accommodate fasting — and hot weather. — Walker Orenstein, workforce and environment reporter
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“America’s Job Listings Have Gone Off the Deep End,” The Atlantic

Job titles have gotten really dumb. It’s not just the way they sound — who wants to be a code guru or a ninja with a keyboard — and anyway, what is that? It’s that they’ve become so convoluted and trendy-sounding as to really mean nothing, not even to search engines job seekers use to try to find them when they want to apply. From Amanda Mull at the Atlantic. — Greta Kaul, data reporter

“Where does your plastic go? Global investigation reveals America’s dirty secret,” The Guardian

We may feel like environmental stewards when we wheel out the blue bin filled with plastic bottles and other recyclables. But a new Guardian series documents what happens when America’s recycled plastic — the equivalent of 68,000 shipping containers each year — leaves the U.S. It has become “a global hot potato, ping-ponging from country to country, ” frequently ending up in toxic, stench-filled, makeshift workshops — or simply dumped on beaches or landfills. — Susan Albright, managing editor

You can call your cats whatever you want, but it’s likely they’ll only slink over on their terms.

Still, those registering their pets with the City of Minneapolis have put great thought into christening their kitties. Napping somewhere in Minneapolis is a cat named Steaknshake, according to a registry of 2,707 cats currently licensed with the city, while elsewhere in Minneapolis live the likes of Ted Meowsby, Jazzpurr and Winslowe Ladybird Neetenbeek.

Some owners opt to call a spade a spade. Eleven cats licensed by Minneapolis simply go by Kitty, three are dubbed Kitten, and a handful are named Meow Meow.

In a crowd of tabby titles, one name rose to the top, though. Perhaps influenced by the classic anime “Sailor Moon” or the celestial body itself, the most popular cat name in the city is Luna. But Luna isn’t just common in Minneapolis. According to user data from Rover.com, a pet-sitting business, Luna was the most popular female cat name nationwide in 2018 (Oliver took the crown for male cats).

Other common cat names in Minneapolis were Lucy, Oliver, Charlie, Smokey and Leo. Of the cats with known ages, a 30-year-old named Buster won seniority.

You can purr-use all the registered names in the table below.

One of the ‘most commonly unknown’ ordinances

City ordinance requires all pets be licensed with Minneapolis Animal Care and Control, but registered animals likely represent a fraction of how many pets actually live in Minneapolis. “It’s one of the most commonly unknown ordinances,” said Danielle Joreger, volunteer and engagement coordinator for animal care and control.

Joreger said the rule requiring pet registration originally came about to ensure proper rabies vaccination. But today animal identification is primarily used by Animal Control to give a lost Luna or Lucy a ride home when they’re found roaming the streets.

Cat naming 101

If you want your cat to at least pay attention to you, Uri Burstyn, a Vancouver veterinarian, advises calling them by names that end in a high pitch. Burstyn dispenses best naming practices and other pet care tips on his YouTube channel, Helpful Vancouver Vet.

“It’s an evidence-based finding, that cats will pay more attention to sounds in the same frequency range as their common prey,” said Burstyn.

“Maybe there are a lot of cats that ignore their owners in Minneapolis,” said Burstyn.

The vet’s failsafe tip? “Call while opening their food.”

Six workers were killed in accidents during the building of the Minnesota State Capitol between 1898 and 1903. The deaths resulted from unsafe working conditions that labor laws have greatly improved since that time. After being nearly forgotten, the six builders were honored in 2011, 2012, and 2017 by ceremonies and a plaque at the Capitol.

The Minnesota State Capitol came at a cost; six workers died building it. These builders were forgotten for more than 100 years after their deaths.

The first worker to lose his life on the construction project was Felix Arthur, who came north with the marble shipped to St. Paul from a quarry in Georgia. He was working on a stone-polishing machine when he got caught in the flywheel. He died in the hospital several hours later, on May 5, 1898, at the age of twenty-five.

Arthur’s family was prominent, so the Georgia Marble Company paid for his elaborate grave marker in Nelson, Georgia. The families of later Capitol accident victims did not receive such support.

All other statehouse deaths were caused by falls. John Biersack, the thirty-six-year-old son of Bavarian immigrants to Wisconsin, died in October 1898, a few days after he fell from a hoist. Like all of the other fatal accident victims, Biersack was unmarried and had no children.

A freak accident killed twenty-year-old Albert Swanson, a mold caster from Sweden. The St. Paul Globe’s headline for the story summarized the incident: “Passing Wagon Drives over Rope used to Hoist Materials and Scaffolding, on Which Men Stood, Falls.” Swanson and Frank Thiery fell forty feet; Swanson collided with scaffolding and died before hitting the ground. Thiery landed on a pile of sand and broke his leg but was able to go home from the hospital that night.

Another Swedish immigrant, twenty-year-old stonemason Alfred Magnuson, was the nephew of Capitol master stonemason Nils Nelson. Magnuson fell thirty feet on June 25, 1900. He died in St. Joseph’s Hospital four days later.

Florian Zauner was born in Germany forty years before he worked as a laborer on the Capitol, where he fell seventy feet and died immediately on August 3, 1900. Few details about the lives of Zauner and Magnuson survive. Even their exact burial locations are unknown.

On June 25, 1903, eighteen-year-old John Corrigan fell thirty-two feet to his death in the unfinished House Chamber. After less than two weeks on the job, Corrigan had lost his balance while carrying a heavily-loaded wheelbarrow across a narrow and unguarded gangway.

These accidents stirred controversy about unsafe conditions at the Capitol site. An 1899 St. Paul Globe headline read, “Railing Is Needed There—Safety Device Suggested By The Labor Bureau For Capitol Workers.”

By June 27, 1903, the outrage in the Minneapolis Journal headline was clear: “Deaths Due To Neglect.” The article noted that contractors had been ordered to widen high runways, but they were still too narrow “to protect a man from momentary dizziness.” The outcry over young Corrigan’s death may finally have changed worksite conditions. He was the last worker to die during construction of the Capitol, which opened to the public in 1905.

While inspectors visited worksites and issued safety orders, they did not have the power to make employers pay fines or face legal consequences. Attitudes about worksite hazards were also different then. HGA architect Ginny Lackovic, who supervised the 2010 Capitol dome repairs, said, “I think the level of safety when this building was built was based on everybody’s sense of their own judgment. Your safety was your own responsibility and if you made a mistake you paid dearly for it.”

Because worker’s compensation laws weren’t enacted in Minnesota until 1913, receiving compensation for workplace accidents required proving negligence by the employer and proper behavior by the employee—a difficult, expensive, and time-consuming process. Mutual benefit societies and unions provided some illness, accident, and death assistance.

Safety laws and technical innovations have greatly improved workplace safety in the 2000s. Insurance programs help those who are injured or killed.

The six builders were finally recognized publicly during Workers Memorial Day ceremonies in 2011 and 2012. They were honored by a plaque installed in the Capitol in 2017, thanks to a group of Owatonna middle school students who, after studying the Labor Education Service’s Capitol project website, successfully lobbied for a bill authorizing the memorial.

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

“Since the day President Trump took office, his administration has waged a nonstop onslaught against the rights of LGBTQ people,” detailed the National Center for Transgender Equality earlier this year. Given that ongoing malaise, along with the Catholic Church’s latest edict on how transgender people should live their lives, and the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots all made for especially meaningful Pride marches and events all over the world over the weekend. MinnPost took in the Minneapolis edition, the 2019 Ashley Rukes GLBT Pride parade, in photos and interviews:

Because of road construction on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis, the route of the 2019 Ashley Rukes GLBT Pride parade traveled along Third Street, Second Avenue and Grant Street to Loring Park Sunday afternoon.

Dave and Hildie Edwards, Minneapolis. “My oldest daughter Hildie is 8 and trans,” said Dave. “Hildie transitioned in kindergarten, and we had a really tough experience with her school, Nova Classical Academy. It was a battle for our family to get the support she needed in public school, so we ended up settling a human rights charge against her school for $120,000. Hildie has been in a great St. Paul public school with an amazing gender inclusion policy, and the last two years have been awesome.”

Stephanie and Carla Peck, Burnsville. “My church is Mayflower United Church of Christ in south Minneapolis,” said Stephanie. “I want the Pope to see this. I want the Pope to see I have an affirming church. I am a trans person, so it’s important that we show that we’re supported and loved. I’m here with my wife of 40 years; she’s been through this thick and thin with me, tough journey, but we’re better together now than we’ve ever been in our whole lives.”

Joe Strauss, Wheaton, Illinois, and Bill Baldus, Minneapolis. “We’re brother-in-laws,” said Strauss. “We’ve marched in the gay pride parade in Chicago, and this is my first time marching in Minneapolis. My son is a gay son; he’s a radiologist in Chicago. I don’t think anybody would wish their son is gay, because there’s a lot of challenges going through that, but once he kind of came out, we just showed him love. I have two boys. One is straight and one is gay, and we love ’em both the same.”

Monica Meyer, executive director, Outfront Minnesota, the oldest LGBTQ rights organization in Minnesota: “What I think about Pride always is we all remember our first Pride. You feel so isolated and you feel like something’s wrong with you, and then you come to a place where people see you and they affirm you and they celebrate about love. It’s always affirming. It’s an event that always moves me. We talk about it at Outfront, and we also talk about the seeds of the resistance: It started with looking at the injustices that LBGTQ people face, but particularly trans women of color, and saying, ‘No more.’ And resisting with grace, and glitter, and love, but resisting. I think that’s where we’re at now, with an administration that is attacking trans people in as many ways as they can, and who is really doing damage to some of the progress we’ve made around LGBTQ equity. So I feel like it’s a good spirit of celebration and having fun, but also about resistance and fighting for justice.”

Ellie Dawson-Moore (center, bright green outfit). “It’s Stonewall’s 50^th anniversary and these people are basically the people who paved the way for us, people we looked up to as queer icons as a community.”

Parker Janssen, Champlin. “This is my first Pride, so I’m very excited to be here. I identify as queer in both sexuality and gender. I picked Harvey Milk today because he was the first gay congressman, in San Francisco, and what he did is really inspiring. He was one of the first people I ever saw as a LGBTQ historical figure, and just knowing that there were people before this generation, before it became a quote-unquote trend is really great to see. With Stonewall, there were police raids on gay clubs and now today out here for the parade, to be here with all these people and feel so safe, it’s really amazing to see.”

Davis Senseman (center, green hat). “Every community of struggle is intertwined. If the queer community is oppressed, then everybody is oppressed. They come to divide us. The right wing comes to divide us. What Ilhan [Omar] is really good about is that even though she has many marginalized identities, she’s great at not only standing up for her identity, but for standing up for everyone who has a marginalized identity. She gets that — that none of us are free until all of us are free.”

A truck festooned with banners reading “Muslims For Pride,” “Some Muslims Are Gay, Get Over It” and “Love Embraces ALL” led a group of marchers/dancers who held the Iranian flag and signs proclaiming, “No War in Iran,” “Stop Iranian Sanctions,” “Trans Women of Color Started Pride,” and “Muslims Make America Great!”

“It’s important to support our brothers and sisters,” said Leila Ali of her “Muslims Make America Great!” sign. “A lot of Muslims are gay, and we are supporting them, and we want the world to know that we are at peace with everybody and that we love everybody.”

Members of the Minnesota Lynx — including WNBA/Olympic champion and former Pride parade grand marshal Seimone Augustus — waved to the crowd.

Danny Givens, Jr. (center, in Black Lives Matter shirt): “We’re here representing MUUSJA (Minnesota Universal Unitarian Social Justice Alliance), an organization designed to help faith-based organizations and churches to become more aligned with their mission of values around social justice, and lending our voice, our body, our institution, our social capital to any area of injustice that exists in the land. We have to stay in direct relationship with the marginalization and the oppression that exists within the Pride community. More specifically, MUUSJA has been very instrumental in the marriage equality work, and we’ve been doing some great things, and many of our ministers and lay leaders identify as LGBTQ, so we’re a very inclusive denomination as well.”

Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley  (center, red T-shirt): “We have to understand that there are people who lost their lives. There are people who fought against the machine to have the same rights as everyone else, and it doesn’t matter who you love, or how you identify. I’m here because I have been called an ally; I don’t believe we should be calling ourselves allies unless we show up for the work, so I’m here in support.”

Sarah Black, Excelsior United Methodist Church (center, in purple Inclusive Methodists shirt). “All in, baby. Everyone’s in. I want everyone to know that God loves everyone, and if you want to be in church, you can be there. We have a reconciling congregation, which means we have a mission statement that says, ‘Anyone who wants to be there, we want you to be there, and we’re sorry for any past ill will you felt from the church.’”

Because of road construction in downtown Minneapolis, the route of the 2019 Ashley Rukes GLBT Pride parade traveled along Third Street, Second Avenue and Grant Street to Loring Park Sunday afternoon.

Left-to-right: Marianne Graham, Kathleen Olsen, Cheryl Maloney. “This is my car. I’ve been with the Sisters Of Carondelet community as consociate for over 30 years,” said Maloney. “We’re consociates. We’re lay members of the Sisters Of Carondelet community,” said Graham. “We identify with the careism of the sisters; the love of God and neighbor without distinction. Jesus was always challenging the status quo. Some say Jesus wouldn’t be a Christian nowadays.” “Jesus was always with the neighbors that do not feel like they’re going to be enveloped by the primary dominant culture,” said Olsen. “There’s not a word about homosexuality in the Bible. Nothing. Silence. He loved without distinction.”

Until next year …

The SPCO is on summer break. The Minnesota Orchestra will take a break after Sommerfest ends in August. Don’t panic! There’s ample classical musical to be had (and heard) all summer long.

The Bach Roots Festival, formerly known as Oratory Bach Ensemble, ended last night at Imminent Brewing in Northfield with a Bach & Brews program that included Bach’s Coffee Cantata and baroque drinking songs. The festival also traveled to Minnetonka, Minneapolis, St. Paul and New Ulm. Look for its return next year.

The inaugural Saint Paul Chamber Music Institute (SPCMI) is taking place right now at the Summit Center for Arts and Innovation. Presented by the Saint Paul Conservatory of Music (SPCM) in its new home, the two-week program for student ensembles from across the United States includes three public concerts. The first took place last weekend, but two more remain. On June 28 at Macalester’s Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, the faculty – Minnesota Orchestra Associate Concertmaster Susie Park, violist Renee Skerik, cellist and SPCMI director Tom Rosenberg and guest pianist Timothy Lovelace – will perform. The closing concert on July 6 at Summit Center for Arts and Innovation will feature the award-winning Jasper String Quartet. FMI and tickets ($10).

Except for its post-Sommerfest holiday, the Minnesota Orchestra will keep a busy summer schedule, performing at Lakefront Park in Hudson on July 1 and Hilde Performance Center in Plymouth on July 2. Akiko Fujimoto will conduct both free Symphony for the Cities events. A colorful Sommerfest, “Música Juntos” (Music Together), will begin July 6-7 with Disney Pixar’s “Coco in Concert” led by Hicks. FMI and tickets. After a final Symphony for the Cities concert at Lake Harriet on Sept. 13, the orchestra will return a week later to launch its 2019-20 season, but that means fall, so let’s not go there now.

Each summer, St. Olaf College hosts an intensive program for serious young cellists called the International Cello Institute (ICI). The faculty includes top players from across the United States. Three years ago, someone decided to share the wealth in a handful of summer concerts in the cities. The CELLOici recital series was born, and it will return for another go at Hennepin Ave. United Methodist Church. This year’s performers will be Julie Albers, principal cellist of the SPCO; Colin Carr, internationally renowned cello soloist; and Brant Taylor, cellist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The dates: July 15, 21 and 26. Tickets are $25 for adults, $15 for seniors, free for students. FMI and tickets.

The Twin Cities Early Music Festival will move into the Summit Center for Arts and Innovation for 10 days starting Aug. 2, with brief forays into Sundin Hall and the Schubert Club Recital Room. For lovers of the lute, the gamba, the vielle, the harpsichord, the sackbut, the traverso, and the sound world of earlier times, this festival is a piece of heaven. The 15 concerts include familiar and rarely-heard works of the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical periods. Among the performers will be Jacques Ogg, Marc Levine, Tami Morse, Thomas Walker Jr., festival founder Donald Livingston, Cléa Galhano and Lyra Baroque Orchestra. FMI. Tickets are not available online, but you can buy them at the door for $20 (adult), $10 (student) and $5 (12 and under).

Lakes Area Music Festival will take place in Brainerd Aug. 2-25. This will be LAMF’s 11th year, and wow, how it’s grown since Scott Lykins returned home to Brainerd after graduating from the Eastman School of Music. With four visiting friends, he gave six free concerts, and with each concert, their audience increased. This summer, more than 160 musicians from top orchestras and opera companies around the world will perform seven concerts, a complete opera (this year it’s Offenbach’s “The Beautiful Helen of Troy”) and a symphony finale – all free. Its Prelude Series of concerts tours the state ahead of time and will land in Minneapolis on Thursday, July 18, at the Woman’s Club.

The Source Song Festival will return to Westminster Hall in August for its sixth season, with a focus on Walt Whitman. (This is the bicentennial of his birth.) Co-founded by Mark Bilyeu and Clara Osowski, Source is a combination of master classes, concerts and other events. The calendar online isn’t totally fleshed out yet, because one event not on it is a day devoted to Whitman that will include opportunities for local poets to meet composers, share ideas and material, and form professional relationships. That’s one way new song cycles start. Source is scheduled for Aug. 5-9. FMI and tickets (prices vary, with premium pricing available).

If classical sounds are what you crave, take a look at the Minneapolis Music in the Parks and St. Paul Music & Movies in the Parks schedules. Best bets: the Lake Harriet Bandshell and Como Pavilion.

First Minneapolis Comedy Festival

It works in Nashville, so why not here? Nashville-based concert and comedy promoters Outback Presents has kicked off the inaugural Minneapolis Comedy Festival, hoping to replicate the success it is having in its hometown. The annual Nashville Comedy Festival, originally called the Wild West Comedy Festival, was founded in 2013.

Events will take place at Target Center, the Woman’s Club, the Pantages, the State and the Orpheum. FMI including the complete line-up, venues, times and tickets.

Theater Mu has been going through some cataclysmic changes. In December, the theater fired its artistic director, Randy Reyes, after complaints about his conduct. Earlier this month, it announced that Lily Tung Crystal, co-founder and artistic director of Ferocious Lotus Theater Company in San Francisco, would be its new artistic director starting in September.

Between December and now, Mu had a play to put on with Penumbra, “The Brothers Paranormal.” It had another planned for August at the Mixed Blood, “Hot Asian Doctor Husband.” And what about the 2019-20 season? Without an artistic director, how would that even happen?

With an artistic advisory committee, whose members included Katie Bradley, Sheena Janson Kelley, Sara Ochs, Audrey Park, Eric Sharp, Eric “Pogi” Sumangil and Katie Ka Vang. All are experienced Theater Mu artists. Together they chose three plays by women artists, all regional premieres, and agreed on a theme for the season: “The World is Ours to Build.”

Here’s what we’ll see, where and when.

Carla Ching’s “Fast Company” in the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio. This will be Mu’s second play by Ching. The first was “The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up” in 2016-17. Brian Balcom will direct. Nov. 8-24.

Jiehae Park’s “Peerless” at the Gremlin Theatre. A comedic take on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” set in the world of high school during college admissions. Lily Tung Crystal will direct. Jan. 31-Feb. 16, 2020.

Lauren Yee’s “Cambodian Rock Band” at the Jungle Theater. Mu previously worked with Yee to produce the world premieres of “Ching Chong Chinaman” and “The Tiger Among Us.” In “Cambodian Rock Band,” a young Cambodian American has found evidence that could finally put away the Khmer Rouge’s chief henchman. It’s “part comedy, part mystery, part rock concert.” Joshua Kahan Brody, Yee’s longtime collaborator, will direct the co-production with the Jungle. June 24-Aug. 2.

Mu will also continue its annual New Eyes Festival of new works in staged readings. The latest New Eyes ended last week.

Tickets for “Peerless” will go on sale in September. “Fast Company” will go on sale July 8 through the Guthrie’s box office. “Cambodian Rock Band” will be available later through the Jungle.

Jazz at Studio Z season finale spotlights young artists

The annual Lowertown jazz series curated by guitarist Zacc Harris is seven years strong. Fueled by a grant from MRAC, it presents the finest jazz artists in the region in one of the Twin Cities’ best listening rooms.

The seventh season will end with a trio of young musicians – including two women saxophonists – leading their own ensembles.

Apple Valley teenager Sophia Kickhofel recently won a spot in this summer’s National Youth Orchestra – Jazz (NYO Jazz), a program created by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute to nurture and showcase exceptional young American jazz instrumentalists. Kickhofel will spend two weeks at SUNY Purchase studying with artistic advisor Sean Jones and other jazz greats, then play Carnegie Hall with Grammy winner Kurt Elling, then tour the Far East, all before starting her junior year at Apple Valley High. Led by her sax, her quartet will include Lasse Corson on piano, Jon Butler on bass and Carter Pearson on drums.

Another New England Conservatory grad, saxophonist Stephanie Wieseler once played with the Penguins. She has toured with Bon Iver. At studio Z, she’ll be joined by Harris on guitar, Charlie Lincoln on bass and Greg Schutte on drums.

Both Baldwin and Wieseler are alums of the Dakota Combo.

The music will start at 7 p.m. Studio Z is on the second floor of the Northwestern Building, 275 E. 4th St. Tickets $12 advance, $15 door.

The picks

Now at Norway House: Judy Olausen: “Mother.” Subtitled “a vision of the Eisenhower Era Mother: eager to please, ready to serve, and blissfully sweeping the unmentionable under the rug,” this new exhibit features Nordic American photographer Olausen’s mom as model. She patiently assumes various positions in colorful, theatrical scenes: as, for example, a mink-clad, hat-wearing, cart-pushing, cross-bearing supermarket shopper. The photographs in this show (which took four years to shoot) are from Olausen’s book “Mother,” a 1996 New York Times best-seller and tribute to Olausen’s lifelong inspiration, Marcel Duchamp. In the Gallery. Admission $5, under 12 and members free. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Closes Sept. 1.

Starts Friday at SteppingStone Theatre for Youth: “Junie B. Jones, the Musical Jr.” Steppingstone is wrapping its 2018-19 season in a sassy bow. Based on the New York Times best-selling “Junie B. Jones” series by Barbara Park, this musical follows our rambunctious heroine as she starts first grade with a journal and a yen for adventure. With Erin Schwab as director, this looks to be a family-friendly hit. Schwab is a musical theater star in her own right, last seen as Rosie in the Ordway’s “Mamma Mia” (and earlier as King Herod in “Jesus Christ Superstar”). She knows how to hold a stage. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($12-16). The performance on Sunday, June 30, at 3 p.m. is pay-as-able. Closes July 14.

Saturday at the Ordway: “Napoleon Dynamite”: A Conversation with Jon Heder, Efren Ramirez and Jon Gries. For fans of the quirky cult comedy about the awkward teen who runs for class president with help from his friend Pedro. This is the film that birthed the immortal line “Give me some of your tots!” Following a full screening, Miss Shannan Paul will lead a discussion with cast members Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite), Efren Ramirez (Pedro) and Jon Gries (Uncle Rico). FMI and tickets ($48-$141 for VIP with meet & greet). A Twin Cities Film Fest event.

Sunday at the A-Mill Artist Lofts: “Mystery of Cats: A Cat Art Festival.” Of course. Why not? There will be cat-themed art for show and sale by more than 50 local artists, cat nonprofits and rescues, cat music, cat videos, cat Tarot, live painting and face painting, an arts & crafts station and a silent auction, with proceeds benefiting Diabetic Cat Help. Noon-8 p.m. Free. Here’s a list of confirmed artists and vendors.

Tap and hip-hop, flamenco and ballet, new companies and pairings make the Cowles Center’s 2019-20 performance season one to mark your calendar for. And remind us that the Cowles was meant to be a flagship for dance since the old Shubert Theater was rolled from Block E to Hennepin Ave. on rubber tires. Joined to Hennepin Center for the Arts with a new lobby, the Cowles opened in 2011, an instant city landmark and premiere destination for dance.

The ninth performance season starts with the fifth annual Twin Cities Tap Festival (Oct. 16-20), where this year’s Festival Concert will include members of New York City’s Dorrance Dance in collaboration with Northrop. It ends with the fourth annual MIXTAPE (May 15-17, 2020), a celebration of urban and street dance styles that’s always a joyous evening, with young and seasoned dancers sharing the stage and the audience cheering everyone on.

In between, James Sewell Ballet will present two new works by Jennifer Hart and Eve Schulte and remount Sewell’s “Opera Moves” (Oct. 25-27). Contemporary dance company Crash Dance Productions will perform “Proxy” (Nov. 22-24), inspired by the “brain in a vat” thought experiment. Following sold-out shows last year at the Lab, Ricci Milan & Rhythm Street Movement will bring their holiday-themed “Who Brought the Humbug?” to Hennepin Ave. (Dec. 5-15).

Collide Theatrical will bring its reimagined “Romeo & Juliet” to the Goodale stage (Feb. 14-15, 21-23), with tap choreography by Kaleena Miller and music by Nirvana, the White Stripes, Lady Gaga and more, performed by vocalist Katy Gearty and members of the Minnesota Orchestra.

The Cowles’ MERGE performances, which pair two local dance companies/artists on the same bill, have now become a series. “MERGES in March” will feature Berit Ahlgren and Nathan Keepers (March 13-14), Penelope Freeh and Alanna Morris Van Tassel (March 20-21) and Hatch Dance (Helen Hatch) and STRONGmovement (Darrius Strong) presenting “Hybrid” (March 27-28).

Minnesota Dance Theatre will return with “The Enchantment,” based on the fairy tale “Twelve Dancing Princesses,” performed to live music (April 3-5). Ballet Co.Laboratory, which formed last fall when Zoé Emilie Henrot was fired as artistic director of St. Paul Ballet and all 10 company dancers followed her out the door, will present “Freddie – Break Free,” a contemporary ballet exploring Freddie Mercury’s life, set to music by Queen tribute band Ready Freddie with frontman Michael Hanna.

Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre will light up the stage with “Duende,” a program of live traditional flamenco music, song and dance (April 24-26). And TU Dance will bring its 16th season spring concert to the Cowles, with the world premiere of “Vanity Fare” by choreographer Marcus Jarrell Willis (May 1-3).

It’s a rich and varied season, diverse in many ways, and intriguing. Subscriptions are available now.

The picks

Tonight (Thursday, June 27) at Mia: Artist Talk: Julie Buffalohead. An enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, Minneapolis-based Buffalohead makes narrative works on paper about the Indian cultural experience, her own life, nature, animals, and the commercialization of Native culture. They’re tender and biting at the same time. One of her recent works, “The Garden,” a commentary on the Walker’s “Scaffold” snafu, is included in “Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists,” the life-changing show now at Mia. 6:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20/16/free to investor level members). Mia is open until 9 p.m. on Thursdays, and your ticket to the talk also gets you into the exhibit.

Friday at Studio Z: Scott L. Miller: Ecosystemic Music for Kyma. Hear something ulra-new. Kyma is a visual programming language for sound design. Taavi Kerikmäe is an Estonian pianist, improviser, composer and electroacoustic musician. During a weeklong residency at Studio Z, Miller worked with both to create a new work of environmental sound art – or ecosystemic music – to be performed on electromagnetically prepared piano. The Kyma processes the sounds coming from Taavi’s piano, then returns them to the piano, and that’s what we hear. Miller and Kerikmäe will start the evening with a hands-on demonstration of the Kyma and piano system, with time for a Q&A. 6 p.m. demonstration, 7:30 p.m. concert. FMI and tickets ($15/10 students and seniors). Listen to some sample tracks.

Saturday and Sunday at the Ordway: One Voice Mixed Chorus: “Resistance and Resilience: Voices of the People.” Pride month continues with voices raised in songs of the African-American movement and the LGBT movement, both key to human rights still being hard fought. The program will include spirituals, blues, hip hop and songs from the civil rights movement, along with the Midwest premiere of “Quiet No More,” which tells the story of Stonewall. The marvelous Tesfa Wondemagegnehu will lead one of North America’s largest LGBT and straight allies community choruses. Saturday at 7:30 pm., Sunday at 2 p.m. FMI and tickets ($30-50).