State of the Arts Blog

Your weekend outlook: panoramic

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Some of the landscape photographs on display at the Minneapolis Photo Center

The Minneapolis Photo Center is following up on the success of its "Portrait Show," with a new juried exhibition titled "Landscapes: Unfeigned or Illusory." The show features the work of 64 photographers, and opens Friday night with a reception from 7-9pm.

The St. Paul Arts Crawl celebrates spring this weekend by showing off the work of hundreds of artists all over Lowertown. The fun gets started Friday at 6pm, and continues Saturday from noon 12 - 8pm and Sunday from 12 - 5pm.

The Guthrie Theater presents "M. Butterfly" by David Henry Hwang. Assigned to Beijing in the 1960s, French Diplomat Rene Gallimard encounters Song in a performance of Madame Butterfly. Dazzled by her beauty, he believes he has found "the perfect woman," and uses his Western influence to ensnare the exotic butterfly. Note - this is not the opera by Puccini!

Starting Gate Productions presents its final show before shutting its doors. "Our Country's Good" takes place in June of 1789 in the penal colony that was later to become the city of Sydney. A marine lieutenant decides to put on a play to celebrate the king's birthday, and casts the play with the English convicts.

Interested in fashion? You're in luck! It's Minnesota Fashion Week, and as part of the festivities, Ballet of the Dolls is hosting a "cabaret catwalk" featuring four runways and BOTD's own avante-garde style.

More the bookish type? No worries. Theo Dorgan will read some of his poetry at the University of St. Thomas on Friday. And Doug Row will be at Town Park Tavern by Target Field on Saturday to talk about his book "We're Gonna Win, Twins!"

Looking to see some of the most innovative dance from around the country, but aren't in the mood to travel? That's what SCUBA Touring Network is for, and this weekend it brings three dance companies to the Southern Theater for your viewing pleasure. Check out the works of BodyCartography Project of Minneapolis, locust of Seattle, and Megan Mazarick of Philadelphia.

Finally, while television is not usually on the list of things to do in the local cultural scene, we should make note of a new program that premieres Thursday night at 7:30pm. TPT2's show mnOriginal promises to bring Minnesota artists to a new level of prominence with weekly profiles, featuring dancers, sculptors and musicians of all stripes talking about their work and showing how it's done.

So, what are you doing with your weekend?