Sparking it up, dance poems, food trucks, and more 6.12.2012

Howdy Readers- -------- Guys, according to the Hennepin Theatre Trust people there’s about to be a whole lot of food trucks in downtown Minneapolis.                                                                                                                                      “Hennepin Theatre Trust has invited a selection of food trucks to occupy the parking lot adjacent to the Orpheum Theatre throughout the run of Blue Man Group, showing June 15-24, 2012. With Taste-It Hennepin, a new summer event to further revitalize Hennepin Avenue, show patrons and other downtown diners can sample anything from Vietnamese-style banh-mi sandwiches from YumMi to Ethiopian cuisine from She Royal and cupcakes from the award-winning Minneapolis bakers at Cupcake. Other local vendors include A Cupcake Social, Sandy’s Italian Ice, House of Hunger, Taqueria La Hacienda, Barrio, Simply Steve’s, Stanley’s, Vellee Truck and Tollefson Family Grill.   About 1 ½ hours before each show until approximately one hour after each show, between two and four food and dessert trucks will be parked west of the National Camera Exchange building north of Hennepin Avenue on 10th Street.” I don’t know if you are food truck appreciators or if you’re into what the Blue Man Group has to offer. I have had good and bad food truck experiences but more importantly I think a place rich with food trucks is a place rich with good culture in general. I know Minneapolis, and to a lessor degree St Paul (burn), is culturally rich and generally awesome so I want more food truck success anywhere possible. Also, anytime businesses benefit in connection with an arts or cultural event it makes people more willing and able to view the arts as economic drivers, which ultimately means more support for all the work we care about. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you don’t go eat at these food trucks in the next two weeks you’ll be murdering the Twin Cities arts community. You don’t want to be a murderer, do you?   -------- While the Minnesota Fringe Festival is nearly two months away the official ramp up to the main event has begun. Yesterday, the Fringe Festival folks (not sorry for the triple fs) officially announced this year’s fringe central - The Crooked Pint Does that name mean anything to you? Me neither, but I’m the kind of guy who orders lemonade in pubs all across the Metro area so my lack of familiarity is essentially meaningless. I’ve already heard some grumblings from theater folk about the Crooked Pint being named Fringe central. Located at 501 Washington Ave, near the Guthrie, the Crooked Pint is pretty far off the beaten Fringe festival path so I assume there are some great intagibles that make it the right place to designate as a communal gathering place. It’s important to keep in mind that if you want to make theater folk complain about something all you have to do is try and make them happy. There’s some talk of the Republic becoming the unofficial Fringe Central so we’ll see how the theater booze and salty things destination dilemma shakes out in August. -------- Speaking of Fringe Festivals. There’s this tiny thing called the Edinburgh Festival Fringethat also happens in August. Have you ever considered bringing your theatrical wares to Edinburgh? This Thursday Christabel Anderson, head of participant services at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, will be at the Theatre Garage in Minneapolis offering a how-to guide on bringing your show to Edinburgh. He’ll offer advice on marketing as well as how to use the festival to develop your work. And there’s a Q and A so you can really take advantage and maybe pretend your asking a questions while really just making a statement about your work. The event is this Thursday, June 14th, at the Theatre Garage on Franklin avenue at 7pm. It’s free to all and there’s no registration needed so feel free to just show up. If you have questions you’re encouraged to contact the Minnesota Fringe Festival’s Robin Gillette by dialing [email protected] -------- Hey, wanna know about something cool and new? Sandbox Theatre is seeking poetry submissions for a Fall 2012 poetry and dance collaboration. In October 2012, Sandbox will present its newest ensemble collaboration, Beatnik Giselle, a play combining Beat poetry with the classical ballet Giselle. In conjunction, they’re facilitating a collaborative performance project, bringing together Minnesota writers and dancers. Sandbox is seeking poetry submissions that can be given to volunteers from the Twin Cities dance community, who will use the poetry as their “music” in creating original dance pieces. All pieces will be performed in a showcase on October 20 at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Submissions must be able to be read aloud in under five minutes. There is no limit to style or subject. Writers may make submit up to 3 different works. All submissions must be received by Friday, July 20, 2012. 
To enter or for your weirdly specific questions contact Sandbox Theatre representative Derek Lee Miller at [email protected]. -------- I was lucky enough to spend a few years taking in Northern Spark activities on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I’m not in my 20s and I already mentioned I order lemonade in bars above so the fact that I stayed out engaging with various arts things without being involved in any of them is a testament to how much cool stuff was going on for this years Northern Spark. Last I heard the attendance overall was in the neighborhood of 30,000 people, which I think is pretty phenomenal for a overnight arts festival. Aside from the great performance art, installations, things projected on the sides of buildings, tiny film festivals, random intersection dance parties, and in generally head-spinning surround-sound of wonders one of the most wonderful aspects of Northern Spark is just seeing so many people out in the community at a time when they wouldn’t normally be out. There’s a level of engagement with the city and with the people this is wholly different than if I had been walking along the stone arch bridge at any other time or for any other reason than just to be immersed in art. Sometimes I feel isolated as an artist who makes a lot of his work in my head, and sometimes I want to feel isolated, but it’s events like Northern Spark that remind me how glad and lucky I am to be surrounded by so many various arts communities and that I can find an inspiring weirdo without really looking very hard. -------- A lot of other stuff happened in the past week and a whole lot of stuff is coming up in the next several days but I can’t do everything for you. Give a man a theater fish and he’ll eat for a day or something. If you’ve got something more people should know about don’t hesitate to send messages my way. [email protected] or just send a tweet to @minnesotaplays I hope you have a week full of creative isolation and communal artistry. -Levi