Walker Art Center and Southern Theater Announce Complete Out There 17 Schedule
The Walker Art Center and Southern Theater will present playwright Lisa D’Amour’s OBIE-winning biography of “international dancers” Nita and Zita January 20-23, 2005, completing the schedule of this annual series of boundary-crossing performances. Cynthia Hopkins’ Accidental Nostalgia, originally scheduled January 20-23, will be presented January 27-30. Now in its 17th season, Out There features new works by an array of today’s most innovative artists. Copresented with the Southern Theater. A complete listing of Out There 17 performances follows.
All performances take place at the Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis. Copresented with the Southern Theater.
OUT THERE 17
Richard Maxwell
Joe
Thursday-Sunday, January 6-9
Thursday-Saturday, 8 pm; Sunday, 2 pm
$20 ($16 Walker members)
One of the most gratifyingly original talents in experimental theater.
—The New York Times
Launching Out There with a Walker-commissioned work, Richard Maxwell (Boxing 2000, Out There 2000) presents a touching look at one man’s life told by five actors representing six stages of life—from childhood to old age. Maxwell’s pathologically circular dialogue is boosted by quizzical monologues and off-kilter, Maxwell-penned pop tunes sung by the Joes in a surreal lounge set, complete with white piano and a ceiling of twinkling stars. With Maxwell’s poetically deadpan technique, Joe offers a glimpse into the one man’s engagingly ordinary life while encouraging audience members to locate the magic in their own.
The Universes
S’language
Thursday-Sunday, January 13-16
Thursday-Saturday, 8 pm; Sunday, 2 pm
$20 ($16 Walker members)
Exuberant, insightful . . . a work of heart and soul that distills the essence of [New York] city. —The New York Times
In this Minnesota debut, NYC’s Universes bring their unclassifiable mix of spoken-word, hip-hop, jazz, down-home blues, theater, and street politics to the stage. Assembled as 30 vignettes, S’language conjures New York City’s multiethnic culture at its finest—and most joyous—moments. Composed of five eclectic personalities, Universes’ brand of street theater finds it heroes in “Chinese shoes at a Latin house party/Playing spoons to disco toons/With a knish in my left hand/And the blues in my heart.”
Lisa D’Amour
Nita and Zita
Thursday-Sunday, January 20-23
Thursday-Saturday, 8 pm; Sunday, 2 pm
$20 ($16 Walker members)
Mr. Interviewer, what do you want? A moldy story filled with boring facts, or a show? —Nita
The Southern will transform into a vaudeville-style theater as playwright Lisa D’Amour presents her OBIE-winning biography of “International Dancers” Nita and Zita. Real-life sisters, the pair emigrated from Romania in the 1920s and became legend among the eccentrics and outsiders that make up New Orleans’ mystique. This enchanting evening captures the spirit of their performances, combining burlesque, contortionism, and pure visual fantasy, all set against a backdrop of meticulously handmade sets and costumes. Questioning what is real and what is myth, this surreal cabaret searches for what matters in the personal quest for artistic freedom.
Cynthia Hopkins
Accidental Nostalgia
Thursday-Sunday, January 27-30
Thursday-Saturday, 8 pm; Sunday, 2 pm
$20 ($16 Walker members)
Part alt-country, part Lou Reed, part Patti Smith, part performance artist. —The Washington Post
Tragicomic alt-country music-theater? Of course. This wry tale of intrigue and memories lost and found (and perhaps better suppressed) is by OBIE and Bessie Award–winning singer Cynthia Hopkins and her six-member band Gloria Deluxe. Charming yet disturbing, this piece of personal storytelling revolves around the travels and travails of a woman suffering from severe memory loss and cleverly unfolds through live music, movement, and ingenious videos and sets designed by the Wooster Group’s Jim Findlay and Jeff Sugg.