Minnesota's Identity and The Arts

One of the most awesome organizations in the Twin Cities, Works Progress, hosted a night at Intermedia Arts called "Minnesota's Identity and The Arts." It was a really informative and inspiring program hosted by my buddy Andy Sturdevant.

Andy devised an interactive audience game: "Six Degrees of Minnesota Arts." The game went like this: everyone in the room had a name tag that included their favorite MN Arts experience. Mine was, of course, Fringe. Two people were chosen and the audience had to find the degrees of separation! We started with Art-A-Whirl and 1419.

In the video of the evening, below, we are trying to find a link between Walker Open Field, a summer of arts and performance at the Walker Arts Center, and 1419, an alternative arts collective of University of Minnesota arts punks.

I am the seemingly silent person in black that makes that "slam dunk" connection!

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I love Andy's reaction! It made me feel SO SMART AND CULTURED! So, of course, the connection was Fringe! How? Well, Rockstar Storytellers is made up of Fringe performers and we just performed at Walker Open Field this year. Four Humors are also frequent Fringe favorites and they have a relationship with 1419 (the least of which is that we've rehearsed in their cold, cold basement).

BOO YAH.

The evening featured the intimidatingly stoic Wing Young Huie (an artist clearly and admirably comfortable in his own skin), Chuck Olsen of MN Original, Ananya Chatterjea of Ananya Dance Theatre, and longtime Minneapolis musician, Adam Levy. Good shit, man.