Out There 2023 Opens with Ontroerend Goed, Features Most Expansive and Breathtaking Work in 35-year History
Ontroerend Goed, Are we not drawn onward to new erA. Photo: Mirjam Devriendt.
New performance and radical theater return to the Walker for Out There 2023. This year’s programming begins with Ontroerend Goed’s Are we not drawn onward to new erA, a palindromic piece that asks the viewer to contemplate humanity’s downfall – or salvation. The Belgian company is followed by Sarah Michelson’s / March 2020 (4pb), a new performance/dance-rooted installation. Then, Andrew Schneider returns to the Walker with the immersive and awe-inspiring N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars), and Cécile McLorin Salvant’s Walker commissioned Ogresse: Envisioned premieres worldwide from the McGuire Theater. In conversation, the pieces explore our place on the planet, in the universe, and within ourselves.
Out There 2023 features some of the most expansive and breathtaking works in the festival’s 35-year history.
Out There 2023
January 12–February 25
Ontroerend Goed, Are we not drawn onward to new erA
Thursday–Saturday, January 12–14, 8 pm
$31.50 ($25 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
“An admonitory piece about climate change that has a palindromic title and structure to match. … After seeing this, you may never want to hold a plastic bag again.” —New York Times
Both palindrome and sly metaphor, this absurdist theater work by Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed is an endearingly clever and surprisingly hopeful comment on the climate crisis. Bleak yet beautiful, with a startlingly fresh mix of live film and ingenious stagecraft, Are we not drawn onward to new erA questions how we got here and why. You won’t want to miss this rare US performance by a leading force in European experimental theater.
“When I saw the fantastic work in Scotland, a hit at the Edinburgh Festival, I thought it was as ingenious technically and inventive artistically as it was important in its surprisingly hopeful climate themes,” said Philip Bither, the McGuire Director and Senior Curator, Performing Arts. “Playful, smart and by the end, mind-blowing, I immediately knew it would be a perfect Out There opener. While it took four years to finally get it here, I think Minnesota audiences will be knocked out by this theatrical and environmental tour de force.”
Program length: 70 minutes
Sensory note: This performance will contain smoke.
Program support provided by Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David & Leni Moore Family Foundation.
Sarah Michelson: / March 2020 (4pb)
January 19–April 23
Gallery 7/Medtronic
For nearly 20 years, the Walker has sustained a close relationship with the New York–based choreographer Sarah Michelson (UK, b. 1964), whose performances have been presented here onstage and at sites across the campus, in indoor and outdoor locations. Michelson has been creating dances since the early 1990s, which she has referred to as “‘studio work,’ to look at and be with, constructed in this time for this time—an attempt to stay fresh and work hard, but invite no celebration, no opinion, no success.” Her performances have attempted to explore the nature of dance itself, both as an art form and as physical, intellectual, and emotional labor.
Michelson’s previous presentations at the Walker have included the commissioned performances Daylight (for Minneapolis) (2005), Devotion (2011), and tournamento (2015) as well as October2018/ (2018), which focused on themes of aging, pleasure, and sacrifice and also informed the creation of her new work featured in this exhibition. Built for a gallery space and made specifically for the Walker, / March 2020 (4pb) (2020) is the artist’s first object-based work. This exhibition marks the premiere of the new installation, now part of the Walker’s collection, and represents Michelson’s first museum acquisition to date. Contains mature content.
Curatorial Team
Pavel Pyś, curator, Visual Arts; and Philip Bither, McGuire Director and Senior Curator, Performing Arts
Opening Reception with Sarah Michelson
Thursday, January 19, 6–8 pm
Gallery 7/Medtronic
Free
Join us in celebration of the opening of the new exhibition Sarah Michelson: / March 2020 (4pb).
The exhibition gallery will open at 6 pm, then head upstairs to the Garden Terrace Room to enjoy light snacks and a cash bar. At 7 pm, hear from the artist, who will be in conversation with Twin Cities–based choreographic duo HIJACK (Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder). On opening night, the exhibition is open until 9 pm. Contains mature content.
Andrew Schneider, N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars)
January 26–February 5
McGuire Theater
Open Universe: $30 ($24 Walker members)
Guided Experience: $80 per timeslot ($64 Walker members)
“Inventive … astounding … continually finds new ways to challenge and engage its viewers, to surprise and mystify us.” —New York Times (on Schneider’s YOUARENOWHERE)
This new, one-of-a-kind, immersive experience comes from the mind of theater/technology pioneer Andrew Schneider (whose YOUARENOWHERE dazzled Out There audiences in 2017). N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars) draws on inspirations as broad as seeing the Milky Way for the first time to installations such as Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room and Random International’s Rain Room. Walking in total darkness to immersion in a theatrical cosmos of nearly 4000 reactive points of light with an enveloping 496-channel sound design, viewers explore traces of themselves in starlight, the universe, and those who have been here before us.
This is a non-seated, interactive environment set up on a transformed McGuire stage. Audience members are free to move around the space. Recommended for ages 12 and up.
Copresented by The Great Northern.
There are two ways to experience (the stars):
Open Universe
A self-guided experience through an open installation. You’ll have an entry time and can explore the space at your own pace.
Guided Experience
Designed for one group at a time, every performance is a unique, 45-minute experience. Each ticket includes admission for a group of up to eight people.
(the stars) is currently at capacity. To receive a notification if additional tickets become available, please email orders@walkerart.org.
Cécile McLorin Salvant, Ogresse: Envisioned
Friday–Saturday, February 24–25, 8 pm
$45 ($36 Walker members)
McGuire Theater
Walker Commission/World Premiere
“A story at once epic and intimate … virtually everything about it is staggeringly original.” —Wall Street Journal (on the song cycle Ogresse)
Ogresse: Envisioned is a sumptuous journey of myth and song by multiple Grammy Award–winning jazz vocalist, composer, and visual artist Cécile McLorin Salvant. Playful yet poignant, this darkly humorous fairy tale explores themes of power, gender, race, body diversity, and love. The new multimedia work is driven by an enthralling, genre-defying score composed and performed by Salvant and a 13-piece chamber orchestra, arranged and conducted by Darcy James Argue. The Ogresse and her forest home are conjured with striking, large-scale projected imagery, co-created by Salvant and Belgian animator Lia Bertels, in this special world premiere performance.
Program length: 80 minutes
The presentation of Ogresse: Envisioned was commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Ogresse song-cycle was co-commissioned by Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Program support provided by Nor Hall and Roger Hale and Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David & Leni Moore Family Foundation.
Tickets
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Accessibility
Assistive-listening devices are available at the box office. Please contact us at least two weeks in advance for ASL interpretation, audio description, and CART captioning to allow time to schedule these services.
For more information about accessibility or to request additional accommodations, call 612-375-7564 or email access@walkerart.org.
For more information about accessibility at the Walker, visit our Access page.
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