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MN Shortlist is your weekly curated roundup of recommended events from MPR News, highlighting standout performances, exhibits and gatherings around the region.

 — Calling all BBQ lovers and history nerds: Before Memorial Day got its name, it was called “Decoration Day,” after the tradition of decorating the graves of Civil War soldiers. Over time, it became “Memorial Day” to honor all American military members who have died in service. 

But in St. Paul, one brewery dives back into the past to remember this historic holiday. 

Waldmann Brewery is hosting a reenactment

 on Saturday of scenes from its archive that date back before the day was even recognized. 

The brewery is housed in the oldest surviving commercial building in the city, built in 1857, and the reenactments will even include the mustering of a stonemason-builder from the relic’s past. This time capsule performance will be accompanied by music of the era performed by the St. Paul-based quintet Century Brass, which specializes in 19th-century American brass band music. 

‘Shelter From The Storm: Bob Dylan Tribute Concert’

 Minnesota calls tater tot hotdish, Paige Bueckers, long goodbyes and Bob Dylan its own — and embracing the latter’s legacy is Duluth-based band Shelter From The Storm. 

Catch them live at the Sacred Heart Music Center on Saturday,

 where they will cover hits from Dylan’s repertoire on the legend's 84th birthday. The band has had many iterations since it was founded in 1993 to celebrate Dylan, and these performances became an annual tradition for his birthday. This event is part of the Duluth Dylan Fest. 

 — If you came face to face with God, how would you react? What if God had chosen a local theater to impart some new wisdom to the masses? 

“An Act of God” at Six Points Theater

 in St. Paul. The show is by David Javerbaum, a comedian and prolific Twitter commentator. In it, the God of Abraham has come down to address humanity and deliver some new and improved testaments. 

In this production, God takes the form of Sally Wingert, a Twin Cities theater legend with 30 years in the industry. Six Points’ production has extended its original run, and now plays through May 24. 

 — The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra is producing an hour-long “express concert" based on adapting a novel into a musical performance. 

, it features Leoš Janáček’s The “Kreutzer Sonata,”

 which borrows its name and themes from Leo Tolstoy’s novella, which itself is named after a work by Ludwig van Beethoven. 

The concert will also feature the Midwest premiere of a piece written by jazz pianist Billy Childs. Performances run through May 25. 

‘Timmon Wallis Presents Nuclear Abolition’

 — Can you really blame anyone for an underlying sense of existential dread? It’s part of being human. Timmon Wallis’ new book, “Nuclear Abolition,” offers a checklist and procedure on how to quell one potential existential threat: nuclear weapons. 

Wallis describes a scenario that leads to eliminating these weapons — and doing so before it’s too late. Wallis is a former executive director of Nonviolent Peaceforce, founded in the Twin Cities. He currently works to protect civilians caught up in violence and armed conflict in 10 countries around the world. He was directly involved in negotiations at the UN that led to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which won his colleagues the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. 

He will be sharing his procedure for nuclear abolition

 and discussing possibilities for a reimagined future at Magers & Quinn. 

 — Minnesota puppeteer Bart Buch performed “Ode to Walt Whitman” — based on the poem by Federico García Lorca — in 2009 in New York. 

, puppeteer Jane Henson (wife of Jim Henson) saw it twice because “The show is a good poem and good poems need to be read twice.” Buch has performed it several times since and is back again with the “poetic puppetry-infused adventure honoring two queer icons” 

The premise? Whitman and Lorca meet online in “a gay chat room and have a string of surreal adventures.” The performance includes hand and grass bunraku puppets, masks, shadows, video projections and a butterfly marionette — all set to an electronica score composed by Martin Chavez Dosh. 

 — “Travois” is a bright and defiant solo show of work by artist Julie Buffalohead 

at the Dreamsong gallery in Northeast Minneapolis.

 Curated by Jill Ahlberg-Yohe (formerly an associate curator of Native American art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art), the show features five new paintings and seven sculptures.

The heart of the exhibition is “Ancestral,” a red, white and blue trade cloth dress made using wool, leather, mirror and bead cones that “memorialize each member of the Ponca tribe illegally removed from Nebraska to Oklahoma by the federal government in 1877.” 

Also on view are Buffalohead’s expressive rose-tinted paintings featuring women and animal spirits. 

Jacob Aloi

Author

Anika Besst

Alex V. Cipolle

MN Shortlist is your weekly curated roundup of recommended events from MPR News, highlighting standout performances, exhibits and gatherings around the region.


MN Shortlist: May 23-29

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