State of the Arts

State of the Arts: May 12, 2010 Archive

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Sidewalk Poetry winners announced

Posted at 9:47 AM on May 12, 2010 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Poetry

Poetry is alive and well on the streets of St. Paul.

The Sidewalk Poetry Project, now in its third year, invites community members to submit their poetry. Those poems selected by a judging panel are then stamped into new sidewalks around the city.

This year more than 800 poems were submitted. St. Paul City Artist in Residence Marcus Young said they included "poems about the weather, baseball, memories, love of Saint Paul, squirrels and dogs, family, everything under the sun it seems, intrigued, stirred, amused, and charmed us."

This year's winning poems were penned by: Dallas Crow, Rachel Kowarski, Pat Owen, Jeri Reilly, and Kevin Walker. Honorable mentions include: Jefforee Davis, Sharon DeMark, Collin Dobie and William Reichard.

Here are a couple of the winning poems:


A dog on a walk
is like a person in love −
You can't tell them
it's the same old world.

by Pat Owen

A puddle,
where a moth
can shake the sky.

by Kevin Walker

To date 26 different poems have been embedded in 260 different locations.


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Minnesota Opera Pres Kevin Smith retires

Posted at 6:00 PM on May 12, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Music

Sometimes it's hard to remember that the Minnesota Opera is actually the offspring of the Walker Art Center. Since its early days as "The Center Opera" in the mid-60s, the company has flourished, growing from an edgy modern ensemble into the 15th largest opera company in the nation. And President and CEO Kevin Smith has been at the helm for much of that growth.

I think the thing that has been the challenge for us is to create a balance of repertoire, where we do standard rep, we're still adventurous and do modern and interesting things, and we do it at a level of artistic consistency, and that is the thing I'm most proud of.

Smith announced today that he's decided to retire from the company, inspired by the onset of both his 60th birthday and his 30th season with the Minnesota Opera. He's got a lot to be proud of; since he joined the opera in 1981 (first as production stage manager - he rose to the position of president five years later), the opera's budget has grown six-fold, and its net assets have risen from a deficit of 36 thousand dollars to a surplus of 28.75 million. Even though the opera's 50th anniversary season is just two years away, Smith says now is the time to leave.

This really has been a great decade for the opera and I really see a bright future for the Minnesota Opera moving forward. I think it will continue to enhance its position here in the community and on a national/international basis it really has carved out a unique artistic profile which I think it can build on.

Smith oversaw the opera's creation of the Minensota Opera Center, its artistic partnership with the SPCO, the Schubert Club and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. Smith takes particular pride in the opera's commitment to developing new works.

In a down economy, when there's a retrenchment happening: people cutting back on productions, number of performances, becoming more conservative in what they do in terms of repertoire we've been in a position where we could actually assert ourselves and as a result we have attracted significant national funding that we would have never gotten otherwise.

Smith says he'll stay on as president until a replacement is found, something he expects to be accomplished by the first of the year.

Listen to the complete interview with Kevin Smith in which he talks about the challenges operas face across the country.

Your Weekend Outlook: A Whirlwind

Posted at 8:24 PM on May 12, 2010 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Events

Why go see one artist when you can see the work of 500? Art-a-Whirl, billed as the largest open studio and gallery tour in the United States, is back this Friday through Sunday in Northeast Minneapolis. No matter what your interest - pottery, painting, posters, music, rugs, whatever - you're bound to find something you like at this event.

What if you could visit yourself in the past? What advice would you give yourself? Or would it be better to not know the future? Walking Shadow Theater Company presents The Transdimensional Couriers Union, a science fiction adventure of love, technology, and betrayal in which Sophie must choose whether to repair her relationship, or time itself. At the Peoples Center Theatre in Minneapolis through May 29.

Marinetti and Mayakovsky were both futurist poets, and they both thought industry and fast cars were pretty much the heights of human achievement. Theatre Novi Most, inspired by a meeting of the two men, have taken their life stories and their letters to create a theatrical tale filled with physical poetry. At Open Eye Figure Theatre through May 23.

Artist Sonja Peterson finds similarities between explorers of old, with their borderline insane passions for discovery, and the financial wizards of today, creating new revenue streams out of seeming thin-air. Peterson explores the intersection between the wilds of undiscovered territories, and the wilds of the modern economic engine, with detailed, intricate works in paper and glass. At the Burnet Gallery in the Le Meridien Chambers art hotel in Minneapolis, starting Friday Saturday.

Urban Samurai Productions presents "Bright Ideas," a darkly comic look at just what parents are willing to do to get their kid into the right... preschool. Billed as an exploration of "the impact that our hyper-competitive cutthroat culture has on the modern family." At Sabes Jewish Community Center through May 23.

Stevens Square Center for the Arts presents a tribute to the golden age of American vaudeville and amusement parks with "Escape from Coney Island." The birthplace of the hot dog and the rollercoaster, Coney Island holds an important place in American history, and some credit it with the birth of popular culture (and really, how far flung is reality television from a good old freak show?). Eight artists present work inspired by the bizarre peninsula/playground, through June 6.

So what are you doing this weekend?

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