Theatre and dance use languages of movement, light, darkness, spoken word and deep quiet to communicate with audiences. 

2012 - 2013 Season Theme: Youth Cultures
Dependent/consumer? Rebel/activist? Worker/artist? The arts are the political and cultural battlegrounds for global youth and youth movements, from the utopic to “teenage wastelands.” Independence, rights, pleasures, powers, debt, and work: How do global/local youth cultures contend and protest in everyday life? The season will feature four Main Stage theatre productions and two dance concerts. 

Fall 2012 Productions 

Sing Protest, Sing Peace 

October 12 and 13 at 7:00 p.m.
October 14 at 2:00 p.m.

Directed by award-winning Minneapolis Fringe Festival Director Isabel Nelson ’04, this piece will kick off a season of new and devised work. A cast of first-year students brings to life a story steeped in not-so-recent history, when the youth lived out the rumblings of a great social unrest. Developed by the ensemble using physical theater techniques and the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq, this 30-minute piece investigates questions of love, duty, and honor in a time of war.

Shakespeare's romeo & Juliet 

November 9, 10, 15-17 at 7:30 p.m. 

 November 11 at 2:00 p.m.

Directed by guest artist Matt Sciple, professional actor and director with Ten Thousand Things Theatre Company, Park Square, and many other companies.

 This is a reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy of star-crossed young lovers defying the authorities of their time. 

FALL DANCE CONCERT

December 7-8 at 7:30 p.m 

December 8 at 2:00 p.m.

The Macalester dance faculty will present an evening of original choreography including the powerful, West African-inspired dances of Patricia Brown and the edgy, never predictable work of Krista Langberg. Becky Heist will present a women’s quintet inspired by Gertrude Degenhardt's drawings: "Vagabondage - Women in Music”, and Luke Olsen-Elm, this year’s Visiting Choreographer, will share his introspective sensibility in an ensemble work. This year’s student-choreographers will join Luke and the faculty to complete the evening of dances exploring the season’s theme “Youth Cultures”.

Spring 2013 Productions

What's Going On? Hip Hop Hopes

February 15, 16, 22, 23 at 7:00 and 10:00 P.M.
February 17 at 2:00 P.M.
February 21 at 7:00 P.M.

Conceived and presented by Macalester students in collaboration with and direction by Harry Waters Jr. What in the world are the new voices of youth? What stories are being heard, told or ignored? Who is going to answer the questions?  In this created performance, come and explore the difficult journey of several students who find that the answers they seek bring up more questions and challenges than they expected.  Watch the struggle through the lens of Hip Hop writing, dance, music and art.  And maybe you will get to help them find the next stages.

RATIONS:  A Performance of Hunger and the Body

April 12, & 13 at 7:30 P.M.

April 14 at 2:00 P.M.

April 18 & 19 at 7:30 p.m.

RATIONS is a performance assemblage of many interrelated histories.  It juxtaposes original writing about a range of local topics – table-settings, family foods, cooking, eating disorders – with global concerns and statistics about food production, labor conditions, and war rations.  Its materials are poems, assembly-line images, research into tallgrass prairie restoration, breadbaking.  The piece is concerned with the human as well as the non-human, asserting that we are always assemblages of both, as we take in and digest the material world. All performances are free. Donations will be gratefully accepted for a local food bank. Site specific performances will begin at 6:30 p.m. and move to the Mainstage at 7:30 on April 12, 13, 18, and 19, and begin at 1 and move to the Mainstage at 2:00 on April 14. For ticket reservations, call 651-696-6359.

See details about the performances their locations

SPRING DANCE CONCERT

may 3 AND 4 AT 7:30 
may 4 AT 2:00 

This concert is imagined, created, and organized by student-choreographers. Fueled by reflection and risk-taking, the evening presents a range of passionate voices. Students experience, in their unique dance-making processes, how life experience, trial and error, and craft come together. The concert will highlight an original piece by the world-renown Pilobolus Dance Company who, through the support of the Ordway Theatre, will be in residency this spring.