“The irony is not lost on me,” writes photo mag editor Melissa Harris, “that I should be equally consumed by another medium, one that defies any notion of ‘capture,’ that I am seduced by dance’s very impermanence, especially in the case of Merce Cunningham.”

Activist, artist, and performer Marc Bamuthi Joseph can add another title to his CV: director of performing arts at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Bamuthi brings his red, black and GREEN: a blues to the Walker in March.

The Twin Cities’ “dance ecology unites buoyant individualism with an ardent sense of community, echoing the populist streak that runs through Minnesota’s history, from its socialist Scandinavian roots to its current multicultural profile,” writes Linda Shapiro.

For its final performances ever, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will dance this weekend underneath “pixel clouds” created by Daniel Arsham—a constellation of orbs showing iPhone photos he took from airplane windows while on tour with the company.

“Approachable and avant-garde,” performing artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph is one of the year’s best artists, writes hip hop artist Guante, who praises Bamuthi’s skill in using “art as an entry point to engage in real, sustainable community activism.”

Asked to name a song that best evokes winter, choreographer Bill T. Jones selected a song from Franz Schubert’s “Winterreise (Winter Journey),” which sparked a childhood memory of his father, “broke and sick” and walking through the snow to his factory job.

Wim Wenders, in an interview on his new film on the dance works of the late Pina Bausch, on how 3-D technology has changed how filmmakers approach dance: “I have a feeling it will be difficult to shoot dance any other way.”

Among artists named USA Fellows for 2011—which comes with a $50,000 check from USA Artists—are many with Walker ties, but a special congratulations to locals making the cut, including choreographer Morgan Thorson and composer Mary Ellen Childs.