Arts organizations are feeling the impacts of ICE enforcement
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Children’s Theatre is one of many arts organizations and spaces, in the vicinity of where Alex Pretti was shot as well as across the Twin Cities, that have been impacted by the actions of federal immigration enforcement.
On Jan. 24, Minneapolis Institute of Art, which shares a building with Children’s Theatre, also announced a sudden closure for the weekend.
By noon that day, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, which is on the same block as Mia, announced the school would shelter in place. The shelter-in-place order was lifted later that day, but MCAD announced the cancellation of all classes for the following week, and that classes for Feb. 2-13 would be virtual.
The Icehouse music club is one block north on Nicollet Avenue from the Pretti killing. Owner Brian Liebeck says they decided immediately to cancel the weekend shows.
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“It was just a no-brainer — just fearing for the worst, thinking about everyone’s safety,” Liebeck says. “It would just be disingenuous to be trying to throw any kind of an event with what was going on.”
Arts in a time of crisis
Arts organizations beyond the Whittier neighborhood have also been affected. The Guthrie Theater, First Avenue and the Walker Art Center all canceled events.
The weekend of the Pretti killing, Theater Mu, an Asian American theater organization in St. Paul, canceled the remainder of its annual New Eyes Festival with the Playwrights’ Center.
That Sunday, the festival was set to feature a world premiere reading of “Hmong Futures” by Twin Cities playwright Katie Ka Vang, a play celebrating the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Hmong communities in Minnesota, as well as the next 50 years.
“Knowing that there are these agents going around saying, ‘Where are the Asians? Where are the Hmong?’ — it did not feel like it was responsible for us to wave a flag saying, ‘Over here,’” says Fran de Leon, artistic director for Theater Mu.
The Pillsbury House + Theatre is about three blocks away from where an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Macklin Good on Jan. 7.
“The impacts are real and multi-faceted and layered, and many of the impacts are hard to even necessarily quantify,” says Signe Harriday, senior artistic producing director for Pillsbury House + Theatre. “Trauma is showing up in every corner of our work, whether it’s with our participants, our families, our artists, our kids, our staff, everyone is touched and impacted in some way.”
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