The best performance of 2012 was Nadia Beugré’s Quartiers Libres (performed at the Walker as part of Voices of Strength), writes Wendy Perron. Mixing “pleasure and pain, freedom and oppression,” the Cote d’Ivoire artist “shook me to my roots.”

Two works to be performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music late next month will be choregrapher Trisha Brown’s last. Brown, 76, last performed at the Walker in 2008 as part of a yearlong series of exhibitions and events in her honor.

The Vancouver-based Native Arts & Cultures Foundation has named its 12 fellows for 2013. Among them are Minneapolis dancer Rosy Simas (Momentum 2001, Choreographers’ Evening 2012) and St. Paul–based musician Brent Michael Davids.

Alastair Macauley says rhythm is why Deborah Hay’s As Holy Sites Go (to be performed here Dec. 8) “seems never to be just a formal dance but to be a larger image of life. Tempo, meter, dynamics constantly change, giving the sense always of an inner spirit.”

Northrop Auditorium’s director of concerts and lectures is leaving for LA to oversee the USA Fellows program. At the United States Artists Foundation, Ben Johnson will administer annual grantmaking to 50 artists in all disciplines.

Due out March 19, Low’s new album The Invisible Way is being produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. The Minnesota trio last played the Walker during Morgan Thorson’s 2010 dance work Heaven, while Wilco headlined Rock the Garden 2003.

Neo-hip-hop choreographer/dancer Kyle Abraham has just won a two-year residency and commission with New York Live Arts. The invite-only residency will result in a new work, to debut in September 2014. Abraham performs at the Walker in March.

“This is an exhibition as Gesamkunstwerk,” writes Andrea Kirsh of the Philadelphia Museum’s Philippe Parreno–designed show Dancing Around the Bride, which explores the interconnected lives of Duchamp, Cunningham, Cage, and others.

Students in Wesleyan’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance are adding context to the RoseLee Goldberg–curated Performance Now show. Online reflections include the Walker’s Michèle Steinwald on Jérôme Bel and Abigail Sebaly on Jesper Just.