From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Songs and stories with Kao Kalia YangMelissa Meyer works at Way to Grow, which focuses on education for families, including literacy, music and the arts. She's excited to attend “An Evening of Child...
From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.
Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.
Songs and stories with Kao Kalia Yang
Melissa Meyer works at Way to Grow, which focuses on education for families, including literacy, music and the arts. She's excited to attend “An Evening of Children’s Literature with Kao Kalia Yang and Friends” this Friday at 7 p.m. at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul.
In an evening of songs and stories, Yang will read from all her picture books, and Leslie Damasco and T. Mychael Rambo will perform songs Yang wrote specifically for the evening. Jocelyn Hagen, who composed music for the event, will play piano.
Melissa says of Kao Kalia Yang: Let me tell you, she has a gift. She really wraps you into the story. Her stories about are about her own personal experience as well as her family's experience coming here to the United States.
[The subject matter in her stories] can be difficult to hear at times, as far as just some of the difficult experiences, but in the end, it really inspires you to love community and love one another.
— Melissa Meyer
A ceremony of renewal for the Winter Solstice
Melanie Shirley of St. Paul is looking forward to attending the 24th annual Winter Solstice Blessing. She went last year and says she emerged from this theatrical, shamanic ceremony feeling refreshed and ready for the year to come.
The event is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 7 – 9:30 p.m. at the Minnesota Opera Center in Minneapolis. This event is not recommended for young children.
Melanie describes the event: It's a blessing led by Jamie Meyer and Patricia Choate, and they lead the audience through a two-part ceremony about letting go of what's ready to die through the solstice and receiving blessings for new life.
So there's the Old Bone Mother who helps us to release what needs to go, kind of like a spiritual composting. And then in the second act, there are reindeer women who move through the audience with rattles and blessings, and they fill the space with new life.
There's storytelling and singing, and it ends with a wild drum jam. And so it is dealing with heavy themes, but there's a lot of lightness and humor. Jamie is hilarious, so there's hilarity and sacredness all at the same time.
— Melanie Shirley
Hanukkah Goblins in dance theater form
Shari Aronson of Z Puppets Rosenschnoz has taken part in many productions of Eric Kimmel’s beloved children’s book, “Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins,” but she says she’s never seen a dance theater production of the story.
Enter Little Tanz Theater, which was formed this year, led by Hannah MacKenzie-Margulies. Their family-friendly dance theater production of the classic story is Saturday at 2 and 5 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at Southwest High School in Minneapolis.
Shari says: I find [dance theater to be a] really a great way to express this story of bringing light to dark times and to really using your wits to overcome what seem like insurmountable forces against you.
The production incorporates klezmer music with some of my favorite local klezmer musicians, and that just adds such a feeling of being back in those small Eastern European villages — the shtetl.
— Shari Aronson
