Photo: Playatta - Hal and Kara Lovemelt

Nick LeMere in He & Him / She & Her, part of Works-In-Progress 2012, May 31-June 3

Next week, The Red Eye Theater kicks off its annual New Works 4 Weeks Festival featuring new and developing projects by theater, dance, and performance artists. The event begins this weekend with Works-In-Progress, a showing of four pieces by emerging artists who have been workshopping under the guidance and support of the Red Eye staff for the last six months.

This year's Works-In-Progress promises bare chested men in cut-off wedding gowns, a performance-art piece inspired by sculptor Eva Hesse, live dance with simultaneous video projection, and a piece about obsessive love. The New Works 4 Weeks continues through July 1 with new works from SuperGroup, Deborah Jinza Thayer, and Stephen Peabody, as well as Jenny Pennaz and Blake Nellis, two artists featured in last year's Works-In-Progress.  More >>

Photo courtesy of the artist

Laurie Anderson

Yesterday, the Walker Art Center announced its 2012-2013 performing arts season. It looks like it's going to be a fantastic year filled with a number of powerhouse women performers, political work, a number of festivals, and, as usual, a continued search for new forms. Icons such as performance artist Laurie Anderson and Judson Dance Theater founder Deborah Hay are scheduled to perform, and there will also be a festival of contemporary dance featuring African women choreographers. There is much to be excited about.   More >>

Photo by Hilary Stein

Jaime Carrera

If you feel like you just don't have enough style in your life, you may want to head over to the Bryant-Lake Bowl this Sunday for a healthy dose of '80s glitz served up by performance artist Jaime Carrera and his crew of wildly sexy and sassy performers. The always clever Carrera will present a second performance of Sensation: Performance Inspired by the 80's TV Show Solid Gold, a nostalgic binge on '80s glamor with an extra layer of subversion. More >>

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Photo courtesy Patrick's Cabaret

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Photo by JC Carbonne

Jean Paul Gaultier with Angelin Preljocaj and a dancer

When one thinks of ballet, Russian tutus (the ones that look like pancakes), pointe shoes, and tightly wound buns topping the heads of poised dancers most likely spring to mind. But there's a new ballet in town, hailing all the way from France, that's going to shatter those stuffy notions of what it is all about. World-renowned choreographer Angelin Preljocaj's Snow White breaks dance barriers unlike any other show to come through Minneapolis in recent memory.

This isn't the Disney version of Snow White; quite the opposite. Preljocaj's ballet zeros in on the darker aspects of the Grimm brothers tale of a princess doomed to eat her step-mother's poisoned apple. Ripe with sadistic sexual tension, the production brings ballet to the edge of eroticism and circles back around with intensely practiced choreography.

To give the show more visual depth, Preljocaj enlisted renowned fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier to create the looks for the ballet, from the Evil Queen to all of the fairytale folk.

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Photo by V. Paul Virtucio

Megan McClellan and Eddie Oroyan in "Family"

"Family" is a dance centered on an impossibly large armchair. It gets moved around the stage as Shapiro & Smith dancers pose, flip, and balance around it in a swirl of changing relationships. The piece was created in the company's second year. It was the first dance founders Joanie Smith and Danny Shapiro created that wasn't a duet, says Smith, who has been the sole artistic director since Shapiro's death in 2006.

This weekend, the company will be celebrating its 25th anniversary.

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​This weekend, the place to be is Bryant-Lake Bowl, where Wheel Sexy Cabaret will be celebrating the bicycling body -- which comes in all shapes and sizes -- in an evening of arty, alternative, bike-themed entertainment. Bikes, burlesque, comedy, and live music -- what's not to like?More >>

Photo by William Cameron courtesy Black Label Movement

John Bohannon (top), Lauren Baker, Renee Copeland, Natalie Bucey, Eddie Oroyan, Jose Bueno & Carl Flink (left to right)

​In Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal the 18th-century satirist famously suggested that poor children in Ireland be eaten, rather than become a burden to their parents and country. Nearly 300 years later, science journalist John Bohannon made his own modest proposal, espousing that instead of forcing workers to watch endless PowerPoint presentations at the cost of millions of dollars in productivity per year, they instead employ dancers -- who otherwise would be homeless and/or prostitutes because of today's economy -- to demonstrate concepts that would normally be shown on an overhead projector.  More >>

Photo by V. Paul Virtucio

​Meet Kats D. Fukasawa, a performance artist, dancer, and Butoh practitioner and teacher. Born in the Japanese town of Rokugo in the Yamanashi prefecture, Fukasawa came to the U.S. in 1989. He moved to Minnesota a couple of years later to attend the University of Minnesota, where he studied aerospace engineering. He has performed with Ragamala, as well as at the Soap Factory's Artery Festival, the Southern Theater, Patrick's Cabaret, and more.

Next week, Fukasawa will begin his Subbutoh workshop, which he's done since 2008. The class, based on the subbody Butoh method developed by Rhizome Lee, a Japanese Butoh practitioner, teaches how to create movements through exploration of the subconscious realm. Fukasawa recently took a moment to chat about Butoh, and how he uses the art form in his own practice.  More >>