Tuesday news and reviews
Paul Simon performed well, "I Wish You Love" will return to the Penumbra in the fall, and a former Jeune Lune board member has bought the theater company's old home. Plus lots of reviews...
Art
'Art?' Altered Esthetics explores the definition of art
Regardless of art's ever-changing meaning, it's still a fun question to ask and to try to answer. This is the playful premise of Altered Esthetics' latest show, "Art?"
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- Jessica Armbruster, City Pages
'ars domestica: a mending of the soul' at Susan Hensel Gallery
Through old-school visions of domesticity, Libbie Soffer invites us to reflect on our own memories
- Coco Mault, City Pages
The news, the web, and the urge to create: Artistic first responses to bin Laden's death
This is the sort of moment that can leave an art critic, and, by extension, the arts community, seeming woefully out of touch with the rest of the world. How do you start your column the day after Osama bin Laden was killed by helicopter-borne Navy SEALS?
- Max Sparber, MinnPost.com
Books
Books & Bars selection "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan: Time tells
The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction this year. Clearly, the people have spoken.
- Courtney Algeo, TC Daily Planet
Movies
Talking with Brady Kiernan, director of "Stuck Between Stations"
While taking its title from a song by The Hold Steady (a New York band fronted by native Minnesotan Craig Finn), the soundtrack features mostly Twin-Cities-based artists and bands including Leisure Birds, Thunder in the Valley, Dillinger Four, Atmosphere, and P.O.S.; all the contributed music really hits home.
- Jim Brunzell III, TC Daily Planet
The kitchen sink and the favela: 'White Irish Drinkers' and 'Fast Five'
Titling a film "White Irish Drinkers" is catnip to people like me. I am, after all, likewise white, Irish, and a drinker, and Irish-Americans have a history of being fascinated with themselves. And why wouldn't we be? Have you seen how interesting we are?
- Max Sparber, MinnPost.com
Music
Minnesota Twins phase out local music programming, amp up Top 40 hits
Longtime music director Kevin Dutcher, who was with the team from 2000 up until last year's inaugeral season in the new stadium, has been removed from his post and replaced by 96.3 NOW programming assistant Dan Edwards.
- Andrea Swensson, City Pages
Paul Simon at the Minneapolis Convention Center, 5/2/11For fans of Paul Simon, Monday night's show at the Minneapolis Convention Center couldn't have been more satiating. The man knows how to put on a show, and delivered a two-hour set that expertly wove new songs alongside old for the near-capacity auditorium.
- Andrea Swensson, City Pages
A relaxed Paul Simon delivers moody, moving musical travelogue
REVIEW: Smiling and swaying to his own songs, the singer-songwriter was low-key, artful.
- JON BREAM , Star Tribune
Review: Vital Simon is no nostalgia trip
He may be 69, but the man who made his first record back in the 1950s is still bursting with musical ideas and having a great time making music if Monday night's concert at the Minneapolis Convention Center is any indication.
- Rob Hubbard, Pioneer Press
No Bird Sing CD-release at the Cedar, 4/29/11
No Bird Sing have always been big on collaboration, but that spirit of togetherness was off the charts on Friday night as the group invited a wide array of friends to the stage to take part in an emotionally charged, raw, and cathartic performance.
- Andrea Swensson, City Pages
Chris Pureka at Aster Cafe, 5/2/11
Stylistically, she is Patti Smith meets Joe Purdy; she has a voice like grain and dust, like wind whipping around sand dunes, quiet but expansive and powerful, with a Lucinda Williams-esque approach to her lyrics.
- Natalie Gallagher, City Pages
Stage
The musical about singer Nat King Cole's struggles on the set of his pioneering 1957 TV will be back for a special engagement in the fall.
- Rohan Preston, Star Tribune
Penumbra adds 'I Wish You Love' shows - next season
- Kathy Berdan, Pioneer Press
Former Theatre de la Jeune Lune board member plans new cultural venue in the company's past home
Former Theatre de la Jeune Lune board member Peter Remes has bought the former home of the theater at 100 First Avenue North in downtown Minneapolis and is on the verge of launching the space as a new cultural and music venue that he says will transform the arts scene in Minneapolis.
- Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet
Judy, Coco, soldiers and gangsters
History Theatre season takes audiences back to Civil War, gangster St. Paul, jazz age and tumultuous 1968.
- Pioneer Press
A writer sifts the details of loss
Barbra Berlovitz finds the cool method of a woman investigating her own grief, in Joan Didion's memoir
- Graydon Royce, Star Tribune
'The Whiz: Moneyapolis' at Intermedia Arts
The Whiz isn't a remake of 1978's The Wiz starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson; it doesn't have a narrative.
- Sheila Regan, City Pages
"Now Eye See You, Now Eye Don't" falls short of Off-Leash Area's high bar
Even when Off-Leash Area is, well, a little off, they're still working at a level of originality and theatricality that beats half the other theaters in town.
- Matthew A. Everett, TC Daily Planet
Chris Hardwick promises his nerdiest comedy show ever this Friday
As host of the uber-popular Nerdist podcast (www.nerdist.com) and G4's Web Soup, he has attracted legions of fans over the past 20 years with his signature sarcasm and self-deprecating sense of humor.
- Patrick Strait, City Pages