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From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art.

A twilight circus takes over Raspberry Island 

Erinn Liebhard, artistic and executive director of Rhythmically Speaking, is looking forward to a one-night-only circus and cabaret performance Sunday, Aug. 23. 

Insomnia Salon Vol. 3: The River Night Circus

 takes place from 7 to 9 p.m. at Raspberry Island in St. Paul. The free event begins at twilight and is staged by Deeper Water Arts & Jackson Street Arts in partnership with St. Paul Parks. Liebhard notes that there's abundant free parking a short walk from the performance site. 

 "This show has brought together more than 45 performers to build an amazing twilight river circus, including fire dancers, aerialists, installation artists, giant puppets, food trucks, all manner of dancers and singers and musicians, tarot card readers, and a mysterious woman who tells your fortune by creating a custom fragrance for you. I'm so excited to bring my whole family to this. The show is going to be a totally delightful end-of-summer treat." 

Opera, drag and burlesque share the stage in St. Paul 

Isa Condo-Olvera is an actor and singer and St. Paul. She's a fan of both opera and drag, and she says these two high-drama performance styles combine to form "an absolute blast" in An Opera Theatre's 

.  Now in its fifth year, An Opera Theatre has partnered with the Bach Society of Minnesota, which will provide the musical accompaniment to opera, drag, and burlesque performers. The show takes place at the Historic Mounds Theatre in St. Paul, Aug. 21 – 24. 

Condo-Olvera says the combination "makes for really diverse audiences. There's the opera fans and there's the drag fans, and there's people that love both, like me. It makes for introducing new forms of art to both of those audience members, which is just so exciting and fun. It's also really fun to witness people discovering those new art forms, because the audience is such a huge part of drag." 

An upcycled quilt collects memories of Lake Superior 

Kristen McCoy creates designs from used clothes and textiles in Minneapolis under the brand 

 and she wants to highlight two interactive, upcycled art opportunities at the 

 taking place Aug. 21 and 22 at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth. Resource Renew is hosting a Free Store where people can take gently used art supplies that were locally donated. Visitors can also contribute to Minneapolis-based artist Sadie Ward's Lake Superior memories quilt project by writing their memories of Lake Superior on denim from upcycled jeans. Ward will sew the pieces into a quilt in the shape of the lake.  

The choice of denim is intentional, McCoy says, not just for its shades of blue, but because cotton is a very water-thirsty crop. According to reporting from the 

, making a single pair of jeans can take 800 to 1,000 gallons of water, with less efficient jeans soaking up as much as 2,600 gallons.  

"I like... everything coming together on this art project for Sadie. Having that parallel of using the denim to tell the stories of water, and also [having] a place where we can hold our memories close to us as climate change is making changes to our waterways and also with human impact changing our waterways too." 

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Emily Bright

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A twilight river circus, a fusion of opera and drag and a collaborative Lake Superior quilt are among this week’s Art Hounds recommendations.

Art Hounds: A twilight river circus, opera with drag and an upcycled Lake Superior quilt

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