Editors’ Letter

Julia Gavin Bither & Eben Kowler

We have been thinking about S P A C E.

The sense of space changes in the spring in Minnesota. The roads packed with ice and snow and parked cars begin to melt, open up, start to fill with bikes and people and grass and budding everything. That openness can be jarring, even when you’re expecting it. It takes a moment to remember how to fill it, how to be in it. Biking, bussing, walking, and driving through our city changes as we find new ways to relate to space.

We are trying to find new ways to think about our performance spaces in the Twin Cities right now too. With so many of our beloved spaces closing, or shifting their mode of operation, we have questions about what our future will look like. We are holding on desperately to those spaces we still have, as we figure out to repurpose and shift into using what is available to us.  Many of us are deeply mourning the loss of important and nurturing venues we have lost, recognizing all these changes that feel so specific…and at the same time wondering (hoping) this is a cyclical change, something that has happened before and will happen again and we will survive.

There are very real things shifting in the landscape of the spaces available to see and make work in, this is true. The scarcity makes finding something that works feel like a true miracle. There are pockets and moments that feel fertile. Future Interstates* is back. Presenting improvisational dance at the Cedar to a full house during a -50°F polar vortex? The thing that feels hopeful in this moment to us, the thing that feels important about making a zine about space right now, is the realization of how many brilliant, creative, conscious folks in our community are thinking about these things and figuring out how to continue making and presenting work.

We are excited to continue making this zine, and publishing words from all of you about the past, present and future of the Minneapolis dance world. If you have performances, experiences you want to write about, or ideas for upcoming issues, let us know. We want to build this thing together.

– Julia GB & Eben K

*Dance Improvisation Performance series curated by HIJACK, initiated by HIJACK and Body Cartography in 2015