Art Hounds: 2012 Highlights, part two

We've asked our Art Hounds to tell us about their Minnesota arts and culture highlights of 2011. Here is the second on-air installment (listen to part one here, see additional theater highlights here and look for more music and visual art highlights tomorrow):

"Mantrap" at the Heights Theatre

Leave it to Tom Letness, owner of the Heights Theatre, to program a totally amazing silent film which was virtually unheard of amongst members of the local film community. "Mantrap" is a marvel, a strange drama mixed with riotous comedy, and featuring Clara Bow, the famous "It" girl, who might've been the sexiest actress ever to grace the silver screen (and perhaps its most gifted comedienne). "Mantrap" was one of several obscure silent films the Heights screened last spring, each accompanied by their Wurlitzer Organ, and each one a revelation.

-Peter Schilling, writer, projectionist and board member at Take-Up Productions

Jim Denomie's "Off the Reservation (or Minnesota Nice)" Imagine being called upon to create art reflecting a horrific history that resulted in the deaths, forced internment, and dislocation of members of your ethnic group and then to present that work to the public in the context of a 150th anniversary of the largest mass execution in U.S. History. Now imagine Jim Denomie's enormous and vivid canvas titled "Off the Reservation (or Minnesota Nice)" depicting with sardonic humor, the events (starvation, swindling,encroachment) that triggered Dakota attacks and the persons responsible for U.S. retaliation. Denomie shows all on an enormous map-like landscape that remains the most remarkable art I experienced in 2012. Denomie's painting, part of "Ded Ungk'ungpi--We Are Here" originated All My Relations Arts in Minneapolis and is on view until January 13 at James J. Hill House Gallery. -Heid Erdrich, writer, teacher, editor, curator

Legacy: A Tribute to the King of Pop at Theatre L'Homme Dieu in Alexandria The best thing I saw all year was Legacy. It is the brainchild of the amazing choregrapher and dancer Luis Castillo. Everything about this show surprised and delighted me. He embodies Jackson in a way that will catch you so off guard. Each of the numbers in the show recreated famous videos or moments in Jackson's career perfectly. Castillo's choreography and performance itself as Michael Jackson was mesmerizing and breathtaking. The best thing is they're bringing it back again to L'Homme Dieu next summer and you can bet I'm driving back up to Alexandria to see it again. -Zach Curtis, director and actor

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