Art Hounds: City Mouse, gravediggers and songs about food

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.

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WideSpot Performing Arts Center

Shaun Duvall of Wabasha recommends a great opportunity for live music in her town: the monthly concerts from WideSpot Performing Arts Center.

During the school year (September through May) WideSpot hosts concerts at the Broadway Theater — the old middle school auditorium on Broadway Ave. — in Wabasha. The series ends for the year on Saturday, May 9, with a concert by Americana band City Mouse. The Mankato band has been performing for more than 50 years.

Shaun says: I think it'll just be fun! More than anything, it's just a place for local people to get together and visit and connect. And that's one of the great things about small towns, is when you can just spend time with each other.

— Shaun Duvall

Shaun says there are regular chances to hear live music in the summer, too: the Meet Me Under the Bridge concert series happens every Friday at 7 p.m. from June 12 – Aug. 28 at Heritage Park.

‘Los Profanadores de La Calle Arenas’

Actor, theater maker, and retired Macalester professor Harry Waters Jr. recommends that everyone see Teatro del Pueblo's “Los Profanadores de La Calle Arenas.” Set 50 years in a hotter, drier future, the play centers on a family of gravediggers in the Caribbean.

The play was written by Lelis Brito and co-directed with Alondra Alamilla Benitez, with music by Carlisle Evans Peck.

The show is performed entirely in Spanish, with English subtitles, at Park Square Theatre in St. Paul, May 8 – 17.

Harry says: What's interesting about this piece, which is why I recommend going to see it, is that Lelis has brought us to a place where we're re-experiencing how to tell stories. There's a moment in the show that the audience will actually get to leave and visit the space differently.

I think it's really important for people now to broaden our perspectives when we're talking about performance now, that we're looking at decolonizing the way performance is presented. And I think this is an opportunity where Lelis Brito and Teatro are shifting the needle.

— Harry Waters Jr.

‘The Bountiful Table’

Mark Hiemenz of St. Louis Park is a singer and church choir director. He recommends a delicious concert: Caritas Vocal Ensemb