In this month’s feature highlights arts, entertainment and culture not to be missed in MSP by focusing on makers of all sorts — of art, crafts, dance and beer.
Boom Days & Cuvée Release
Friday-Sunday, July 17-19
Boom Island Brewing Company, Minneapolis
Free
Need another excuse to sample beer? Here’s one! This year’s
Boom Days, which will also kick off the
Boom Island Brewing Company’s second-annual Belgian Independence Celebration and 2015 Cuvée bottle release.
The festivities begin with Belgian-themed games, food provided Undead Franks and other food trucks, and the release of a new Cuvée sold in limited edition during the weekend celebration. On Saturday is the 5k MN Brewery Running, which has partnered with People For Parks, Brewing a Better Forest and Bolder Options to ensure the festival can give back to the community. Sunday’s celebrations include a workshop on brewing homemade Belgian-style beer and an awards ceremony for amateur brewers.
Great Maker’s Exchange
Saturday, July 18, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis
Free - $9
The American Swedish Institute (ASI) joins creative forces with the North House Folk School to host one of The North’s largest local maker fairs, billed as “1 Day – 30 Ways To Create. Make. Take.” The
Great Maker’s Exchange showcases the work of makers (from weavers and painters to metal workers from throughout the area), while participants are invited to try their own hands during more than 20 workshops led by some of the region’s best artisans. Learn how to spin yarn from fiber artist Judy Goebel. Or attempt old-fashioned barn construction by creating an 8x8 timber structure with Clark Bremer and other workshop participants.
ASI also provides guests with behind-the-scenes tours of the museum’s textiles, glass art, woodcarvings, porcelain tile and painted plaster ceilings. The historic Turnblad Mansion has a reputation for housing eye candy galore: The tours give participants the chance to see these sumptuous works up close and personal.
The Great Maker’s Exchange also includes a Maker’s Market —a platform for meeting local artists and purchasing their originals. Twin Cities-based artisans are joined by such local organizations as the Textile Center and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, to give participants a peek into the creative process and opportunities to take home amazing local art.
21st Annual ArtCars + ArtBikes Parade
Saturday, July 25, 6 p.m.
Around Lake Harriet, Minneapolis
Free
If you’ve ever seen a car festooned with clamshells, shark fins, corks, dolls or other psychedelic decorations, chances are you came across an ArtCar. This year’s gathering of such phenomena, the
21st Annual ArtCars + ArtBikes Parade, takes place along the parkway around Lake Harriet. For more than 20 years, the parade — which now also includes ArtBikes — has displayed the industry and artistry of local creatives who have turned their wheels into mobile works of art. This year’s parade begins at the Lyndale Park Rose Gardens and concludes with a community picnic for artists and community members.
ArtCar organizer Jan Elftmann brought this celebration to the Twin Cities in 1995 after experiencing a similar parade in Houston, TX. Since then, her ArtCar initiative has become a must-see event, and has grown to include ArtBikes and even ArtCouches. Last year’s parade included more than 50 works of art on wheels, and attracted artists from other arts organizations like In The Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, and BareBones Productions.
Lost Voices In Jazz: The Choreographers of The Minnesota Jazz Dance Company
Friday- Saturday, July 24 and 25, 7:30 p.m.
The O’Shaughnessy, St. Paul
$22- $26
The Twin Cities dance community has deep roots in jazz dance, which will be celebrated during
this vivacious and historic program sure to resonant throughout MSP. Minneapolis dance maker Karla Grotting (who was a member of the Minnesota Jazz Dance Company, founded by Zoe Sealy, and currently performs with The Flying Foot Forum) has partnered with Eclectic Edge Ensemble to honor the lives of four male choreographers who lost their lives to AIDS by restaging their work on new groups of performers.
William Harren, Jeffrey Mildenstein, Clarence Teeters and David Voss contributed enormously to the Twin Cities arts community with the works they choreographed for the Minnesota Jazz Dance Company during between 1975 and 1988. Other program collaborators include Open Arms MN and The Aliveness Project to increase HIV/AIDS awareness while simultaneously celebrating the work of talented artists lost too soon.
“Lost Voices In Jazz” will be a reunion and homecoming for jazz artists throughout the area, but also a memorable opportunity for others to explore Minnesota’s jazz-dance heritage. The concert will also include work by Sealy, as well a guest performance by jazz-dance icon Danny Buraczeski.
David Rue is a dance artist and writer infatuated with the companionship of arts and academia.