Walker Art Center announces 2010-11 season

By Quinton Skinner Fri., May 21 2010 at 8:00 AM

Categories: Theater

Ralph Lemon at the Walker in September: a lonely road

I'm on the phone with Walker Art Center curator for performing arts Philip Bither; the topic is the 2010-11 season, and the man is clearly jazzed. "One of the major threads of this season is even further erosions between disciplinary lines," says Bither. "People have said that for years, but we're really following artists' leads in refusing to be narrowly pinned down." For the next twenty minutes, Bither lays out the new season at the Walker, and it is little short of dizzying in variety and scope. The operative word here is interdisciplinary: a major puppetry initiative, dance, music, and performance that more often than not transcend easy description and narrow categorization.

"People are willing to integrate new types of techniques and disciplines," Bither adds. "With aspects of performance that create something that isn't quite theater but doesn't have a label yet--even performance art is too narrow."

As an example, Bither cities an "installation performance of Japanese American dance theater artists." He adds, "They'll perform six hours a day in the permanent gallery space at the Walker."

A few things to investigate online: that puppetry initiative, a jazz-film fusion, a theater-film mash-up, a dance-theater collision, and a European-themed Out There series. For a full sense of the scope of what's to come, check out the Walker's upcoming offerings in dance, theater, music, and film. And as a final note, Walker performing arts tickets remain one of the better entertainment values--not counting the time you spend sorting through all the offerings and settling on which ones you're going to attend.