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Kari Tauring and Friends at Winter Solstice has been a twenty year journey. I began hosting community "performance rituals" in December 1999 with the release of my recording "A Yuletide Celebration." I have been blessed to sing and dance and play with some of the most brilliant artists, poets, and musicians in Minneapolis, and in some beautiful theaters!
The Bryant Lake Bowl Theater has been a happy home base for me this past decade and I am proud to be joining with my friends again this most auspicious twenty-year mark. These performances are done in the style of ritual with intentions set at the beginning and community participation opportunities at the end. Poetry, songs, and dances take the audience on a transformative journey through the darkness and danger of winter to the illumination of winter's lessons and the joy of community.
Poets Lynette Reini-Grandel and William Morrey Nellis give us their deeply Finnish perceptions of the Nordic Winter. Norwegian folk dancers Carol Sersland and Lexi Herman will dance the bear's creation from the Kalevala (the Finnish National Epic) perform the pantomime play to appease the Nisse, watcher of the winter barns. We will sing around the juniper, the protection tree. Volva Stav Guild sisters will collect your winter wishes and sing them through the nine worlds. Everyone in attendance will have the opportunity to sing and participate in a long dance as we create the love and warmth of community experience.
Performer Bios:
Kari Tauring is a Nordic culture bearer, educator, and spiritual leader from Minneapolis. She grew up in a Norwegian-centric family spread between Minneapolis and Lindstrom, Minnesota and Frederic, Wisconsin. She leapt from the womb singing with family and church choirs and began studying violin at the age of five. Tauring pioneered a unique Nordic spiritual technology called Volva Stav (the staff carrying woman's staff) which she teaches along with a guild of eight women who carry the tradition forward. (VolvaStavGuild.com). http://KariTauring.com
In 2011 Tauring received a Legacy and Heritage Folk Arts Grant to develop Nordic Root Dance, a system of teaching traditional folk dances in a new way along with Carol Sersland. She continues to perform with Carol and Sersland's Det Norske Folkedanslaget (adult group) and Fjell og Fjord (children's group).
Carol Sersland is the artistic director of the above dance groups and a performer in the song and dance traditions of her Norwegian heritage. She learned these dances in the womb as her parents were dancing and has continued to expand, deepen, and share her heritage through performance and teaching. Kari and Carol met in 2006 and have created many programs together in the past ten years.
Lexi Herman began Norwegian folk dancing as one of Sersland's Fjell og Fjord dancers. She studies esoteric astrology, parapsyhcology, and other modes of spirituality and mysticism. We are looking forward to working with Lexi as we develop the characters in Otso Created from the Kalevala (on Kari's album, Ljos) as a dance performance for this year's show!
Morrey Nellis is a Finnish American poet and story teller (and Carol Sersland's husband). Growing up in Finnish community in Minnesota has given Morrey a strong tradition of Winter Coping Mechanisms. Besides word smithing, coaches skiing, skies himself, and is a sauna advocate.
Lynette Reini-Grandell is a most lauded Minnesota poet drawing inspiration from her Finnish heritage, decades-long queer marriage, and deep nature spirituality. She is a professor of English at Normandale Community College and has published two poetry books: Wild Verge and Approaching the Gate. Kari was a guest on Lynette's radio program "Write on Radio" in 2008 and the two began exploring the intersectionality of Nordic runes and Finnish runos. They have created many memorable multi-media performances together about ancestors, connection to nature, and the place of the bear in the Nordic imagination. Lynette sings and chants on Kari's latest recordings: Ljos and Svart. http://www.reini-grandell.com/
Come and join us! Whether you are Nordic in heritage or just wound up here in the Northlands, it is important to gather and learn how to survive and thrive in the Winter in Minnesota!
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LocationBryant Lake Bowl Cabaret Theater (View)
810 W Lake St., MPLS 55408
Minneapolis, MN 55408
United States
Categories
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