by Jaime Kleiman   February 9, 2007 One of Teatro del Pueblo�s highest profile events is their annual Political Theatre Festival; here�s theatre critic Jaime Kleiman�s introduction to it. Read more in a&E, our email newsletter; see this month�s Collections for a sampling. Teatro del Pueblo was founded in 1992 by a group of Latino artists and community members on the West Side of St. Paul, in the…

by Chris Olwell   January 24, 2007Designing concert posters is a tough job. Most people will pay no mind to the silent screams of these posters as they go about their work, their shopping, their errands, whatever it is that has them walking the streets of Duluth in the first place. Despite nagging questions about the effectiveness of their work, poster designers keep trying to create the image…

by Jaime Kleiman   January 15, 2007When Philip Bither, 48, became the Walker Art Center�s senior performing arts curator in 1997, he announced no less than five new programming initiatives, all of which focused on expanding the role of contemporary performance. This month, the Walker presents the 19th annual Out There series, a month-long event devoted to showcasing an international array of…

by Aaron Lundstrom   January 11, 2007 The beauty of the world�s resources comes not only from their contribution to sustaining life, but also from the lessons that are learned by working with them. Artists can learn a lot from the materials they use and how these materials are exchanged throughout the world. But how much appreciation is there for the human resource? Are we fresh water to be preserved…

by Paul Schmelzer   January 8, 2007The Walker Art Center’s two-year-old blog Off Center, one of six we run, just ran an experiment: we asked bloggers, artists, and critics to help us create at Top 10 post for the best art and culture of 2006. The results were amazing, from photographer Alec Soth’s pick of best photo of the year to Film/Video assistant Joe Beres’ top picks of grungecore and rock…

by Chris Godsey   January 2, 2007Barrett Chase has both a fictional character’s name and mundane-yet-surreal existence. He’s a 34-year-old Duluth Denfeld graduate, West Duluth ex-pat (somewhat recently relocated to the city’s East Hillside, which culturally is not unlike moving from 1991 to 2001, all in the space of about 20 or 30 blocks). He works at a post office, often for 12 or 14 hours at a time, six…