Archive: Performances and Events

Floorwork: Conversations and Knowledge Sharing Potluck

Every first Saturday! Floorwork: a communal conversation and shared meal.

Floorwork was developed to hold conversations, knowledge-sharing, and a supportive space for dance artists and people who like to move.

The next Floorwork is:
Saturday, January 7 from 3:00-5:00pm
RSVP by Thursday, January 5 here.

This January Floorwork will be facilitated by Zoe Que and will focus on how we can create a root system of support that allows us to thrive and create art that is more inspired.

Zoe Que is a dancer, community organizer, and facilitator of sacred space. She uses empathetic listening, radical imagination, and intentionality to bring out collective intelligence in groups and spark magic. Her intention is to cultivate more support, joy, connection, and love within the Twin Cities dance community.

Conversation will be held over a communal meal – bring your own dish to share in our potluck! 

ARENA DANCES will supply beverages, plates, napkins, and utensils.

The Joffrey Ballet

Serenade
Of Mice and Men
The Times Are Racing

The Joffrey Ballet returns to Northrop with a dynamic program of three works: Serenade—the first ballet George Balanchine created in America in 1934, an electric “sneaker ballet” from Tony Award winner Justin Peck, and the Northrop Centennial Commission Of Mice and Men adapted by choreographer Cathy Marston. This new take on John Steinbeck’s tender tale of friendship, perseverance, and sacrifice features an original score by 14-time Academy Award nominee, Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption, Skyfall, Finding Nemo), played live by Northrop’s ballet orchestra.

Friday and Saturday, January 20-21, 7:30pm

ENCORE: The Joffrey Ballet Cast Party

Tickets: $55 – a $20 donation is included in your ticket price.

Friday, January 20 – Post-performance

Celebrate with the dancers of Joffrey Ballet after their performance! Join us for the ENCORE: Joffrey Ballet Cast Party, an insider event including drinks, live music, and delicious bites while meeting the dancers—plus remarks from The Joffrey Ballet’s MBG Artistic Director, Ashley Wheater.

These celebratory fundraising events support Northrop Centennial Commissions to create new dance works, elevate artists, and bring extraordinary presentations to our stage. You can be part of ensuring that artists’ creative works will be seen by audiences and youth in our community for years to come.

In this decade, leading up to Northrop’s 100-year anniversary in 2029, the Northrop Centennial Commissions project helps create new dance works to ensure that there will be amazing performances far into the future.

With your support, Northrop’s Centennial Commissions program provides:

  • The creation and presentation of exquisite new works
  • Opportunities for students, youth, and communities to experience transformative arts
  • Connections through art that will be shared for generations
  • Arts programming for youth arts and education programs
  • A deeper understanding and insight into art, self-expression, and communication through discussions with artists, inspiring the community and young people.

Au, The Film

Please join Hatch Dance and HoneyWorks on January 22 for the showing of Au, The Film. Directed by Berit Ahlgren (HoneyWorks) and Helen Hatch (Hatch Dance), this live performance was captured and edited by Arlo Myren (Endless Page Productions) at its August 2022 premiere in St. Paul. Refreshments will be available for donation. Please arrive early for socializing. The film will start at 5:30pm and run just over an hour. A discussion with the ensemble will follow the screening. Tickets: $10-15.

Au, a dance in two acts, brings 26 dancers together for a highly physical contemplation of learned and innate coping mechanisms. Through vulnerable acknowledgment of how each artist manages life in the face of adversity, Ahlgren, Hatch, and the ensemble look at how these behaviors transform and reform, shaping who we are, and how we show up for ourselves and others. Set to a collection of various and recognizable tunes, a multi-talented and multi-generational cast bring their energies and experiences together in this timely work.

Can’t make it in person? Au, The Film is available on demand starting on January 23, 2023. Select an on-demand ticket to see the film on your own device!

Ashwini Ramaswamy and Kevork Mourad: Invisible Cities

Bharatanatyam choreographer and dancer Ashwini Ramaswamy (Ragamala Dance Company) deepens a choreographic methodology she began in 2019 with Let the Crows Come—named a “Best of the Year” in The Washington Post and a critic’s pick in The New York Times.

This collaborative reimagining of Italo Calvino’s metaphysical novel interweaves cultural perspectives with a dynamic group of dance artists—Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy (Bharatanatyam), Berit Ahlgren (Gaga), Alanna Morris (Modern), Joseph Tran (Breaking)—and visual artist, Kevork Mourad, who creates Invisible Cities’ interactive, immersive projections in real time.

Ashwini Ramaswamy and Kevork Mourad: Invisible Cities is a Northrop Centennial Commission.

Friday and Saturday, January 27-28 at 7:30pm

Slo Dance Company at The Southern Theater

Slo Dance Company presents an evening of dance and live music considering the various duets we find ourselves existing in – with sound, with space, with time, and with each other. Two dance works on the program will invite performers and audience members alike to be curious about what new relationships might be revealed in the act of slowing down. Slo Dance Company is led by Artistic Director Laura Osterhaus Rosenstone, who works with a rotating group of collaborators. The program at the Southern Theater features dance artists Noelle Awadallah, Emilia Bruno, Alexandra Eady, Emma Marlar, Leslie O’Neill, Jamie Ryan-Karels, and Sarah Steichen Stiles with music collaborator Patrick Marschke.

January 6 and 7 at 7:30pm

$20 General Admission
$14 Students and Children

Floorwork: Conversations and Knowledge Sharing Potluck

Join Mathew Janczewski, Founder and Artistic Director of ARENA DANCES, every first Saturday for Floorwork: a communal conversation and shared meal while contemplating the culture and climate of dance today in the Twin Cities. Floorwork was developed to hold conversations and knowledge-sharing spaces for creatives.

The next Floorwork is:
Saturday, January 7 from 3:00-5:00pm
RSVP by Wednesday, January 4 here.

This January Floorwork will focus on Advancing Dance in Our Community.

Conversation will be held over a communal meal – bring your own dish to share in our potluck! ARENA DANCES will supply beverages, plates, napkins, and utensils.

Choreograph Your Classic: Reimagining Stories for the Stage – A Discussion

Thursday, January 19 at 7:30pm
Magers & Quinn Booksellers
Moderated by Will McGrath

Join Ashwini Ramaswamy, lead choreographer of Invisible Cities, and Will McGrath (author, Everything Lost is Found Again, Farewell Transmission) as they discuss her process of adapting Italo Calvino’s book as a multi-faceted dance performance premiering January 27 and 28, 2023.

Long an inspiration for artists of many disciplines, Calvino’s 1973 novel is a meditation on the environments all around us. The Invisible Cities performance will evoke the book’s themes through movement communicated via four dance traditions: Bharatanatyam (Classical Indian), Modern/African Diasporic, Breaking, and Gaga, as Syrian-American digital artist Kevork Mourad fills the space with live illustrations.

Hear from Ramaswamy and the other lead choreographers Alanna Morris, Berit Ahlgren, and Joseph ‘MN Joe’ Tran as they describe their process of finding cohesion and harmony among the myriad perspectives they bring to their work.

The Joffrey Ballet

Serenade
Of Mice and Men
The Times Are Racing

The Joffrey Ballet returns to Northrop with a dynamic program of three works: Serenade—the first ballet George Balanchine created in America in 1934, an electric “sneaker ballet” from Tony Award winner Justin Peck, and the Northrop Centennial Commission Of Mice and Men adapted by choreographer Cathy Marston. This new take on John Steinbeck’s tender tale of friendship, perseverance, and sacrifice features an original score by 14-time Academy Award nominee, Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption, Skyfall, Finding Nemo), played live by Northrop’s ballet orchestra.

Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21
7:30pm

ENCORE: The Joffrey Ballet Cast Party

Tickets: $55 – a $20 donation is included in your ticket price.
Post-show: Friday, January 20.

Celebrate with the dancers of Joffrey Ballet after their performance! Join us for the ENCORE: Joffrey Ballet Cast Party, an insider event including drinks, live music, and delicious bites while meeting the dancers—plus remarks from The Joffrey Ballet’s MBG Artistic Director, Ashley Wheater.

These celebratory fundraising events support Northrop Centennial Commissions to create new dance works, elevate artists, and bring extraordinary presentations to our stage. You can be part of ensuring that artists’ creative works will be seen by audiences and youth in our community for years to come.

In this decade, leading up to Northrop’s 100-year anniversary in 2029, the Northrop Centennial Commissions project helps create new dance works to ensure that there will be amazing performances far into the future.

With your support, Northrop’s Centennial Commissions program provides:

  • The creation and presentation of exquisite new works
  • Opportunities for students, youth, and communities to experience transformative arts
  • Connections through art that will be shared for generations
  • Arts programming for youth arts and education programs
  • A deeper understanding and insight into art, self-expression, and communication through discussions with artists, inspiring the community and young people