Northrop Presents
BRKFST Dance Company
Past event
Jun 08, 2024
Jun 09, 2024
Captioning
BRKFST Dance Company presents two wildly different works of art in celebration of their 10-year anniversary. BRKFST continues to “show us the future of dance” (Star Tribune) with STORMCLUTTER, a world premiere co-commissioned by The Cowles Center and Northrop, with composition by company member Renée Copeland. Their unique style of breaking and storytelling shines through in a restaging of Dancers, Dreamers, and Presidents by composer Daniel Bernard Roumain.
STORMCLUTTER is an exploration of relationships and ongoing efforts to resolve opposing states of interpersonal tension. Misunderstanding, compassion, resentment, egoism, love, loss, betrayal—moving through or attempting to compartmentalize complex dynamics between family and friends and the emotional baggage collected over time becomes an overwhelming task, while maturation requires people to accept that which they cannot change. BRKFST members illustrate the efforts individuals may take when working to resolve the inner chaos that triggers feelings of dissociation, paralysis, and isolation.
BRKFST interprets Dancers, Dreamers, and Presidents as a commentary on American life that is filled with a mix of ambition, passion, blame, justice, hope, and love. And while this country is deemed the “land of the free,” it is riddled with systemic problems that seem impossible to overcome. For many, the “American Dream” remains just that—a dream.
Rescheduled from Apr 27-28 at The Cowles Center.
Know Before You Go
Event Information
- Performance Location: Walker Art Center
725 Vineland Place, Minneapolis, MN 55403 - Sat, Jun 8
Doors: 7:00 pm
Performance: 7:30 pm - Sun, Jun 9
Doors: 1:30
Performance: 2:00 pm - Duration: Approximately 60 mins
- Accessibility: This event will be captioned, with other accessibility services available upon request. Some services require advanced notice.
- Detailed Event Information: Find Your Event Info link on your order confirmation or check your email within 48 hours for detailed information.
If you need assistance with your tickets, please call the Box Office at 612-624-2345, email umntix@umn.edu. Northrop staff will be available at Walker Art Center Sat, Jun 8 from 6:30-8:00 pm and Sun, Jun 9 from 1:00-2:30 pm.
Parking at the Walker Art Center
- The Walker Art Center is located at 725 Vineland Place, Minneapolis, MN 55403
- Paid underground parking is available on-site. Enter the ramp on Vineland Place at Bryant Avenue.
- Accessible parking in the underground ramp is designated near the elevator and entrance.
- Metered on-street parking is available on the surrounding streets.
Reviews and More
Related Links
Learn More - Explore These Themes
The content below derives from the Northrop Across Campus Program that supports Northrop's mission towards intersections between performing arts and education for the benefit of all participants now and for generations to come.
Find ways to make thematic connections to these suggested topics:
- Dance: Urban & Street Dance, Modern/Contemporary
- Music: Composition, Orchestra, Modern
Take a deeper dive with these resources that provide additional information about the performers, the history of the artform, and the artistic process.
Links:
- BRKFST Dance Company—Artist Website
- Minnesota Orchestra Youtube - Meet BRKFST Dance Company
- MinnesotaOrchestra - Breaking and Beethoven
- Star Tribune - BRKFST Dance Company resists conformity with hip hop infused show Find in U of M Library
- Vox - How the Bronx brought breaking to the world
- Bboy Network Youtube - MN Joe (Gold Medal Winner) Midwest Open
- Dance Magazine – What Happens When You Bring Street Dance on Stage?
- Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) website
- Star Tribune - Minnesota Orchestra and BRKFST Dance Company prove a winning combination in exciting night of music Find in U of M Library
Start a conversation about the performance, or encourage reflection, using these questions as inspiration.
In April, Northrop and the Cowles Center will be copresenting Twin Cities-based BRKFST dance company. The program includes the premiere of a Northrop Centennial Commission and a proscenium adaptation of a National Dance Project-funded work set to Daniel Bernard Roumain’s Dancers, Dreamers, and Presidents, an orchestral tone poem inspired by Ellen DeGeneres and then-senator Barack Obama dancing on the Ellen Show in 2007.
- Why do you think a dance company known for breaking would choose to set their work to a classically-based form of music?
- Do you believe that collaborating across forms will introduce new audiences to breaking and to classical music? Why or why not?
Breaking, the original hip-hop dance form, was pioneered by Black and Brown communities in the Bronx, New York in 1973. It emerged as a way of reclaiming power and identity through movement in response to widespread disregard by the government for the livelihoods and prosperity of BIPOC individuals.
- How do you take a street style and put it on the stage, without losing the essence of the dance form?
- Would you say that seeing breaking or other street dance forms on proscenium stages–traditionally Eurocentric spaces–could be a form of activism? Why or why not?
In July 2023, BRKFST collaborated with the Minnesota Orchestra for a special interpretation of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge–the first time BRKFST choreographed a piece to classical music. Igor Stravinsky once called Grosse Fuge “an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever.”
- What makes a piece of art contemporary?
- How do you imagine combining two distinct art forms–classical music and breaking–might breathe new life into an almost 200-year-old piece like Grosse Fuge?
- What challenges might a collaborative ensemble like BRKFST face when choreographing to Grosse Fuge?
Acknowledgments
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
The creation of Dancers, Dreamers and Presidents by Daniel Bernard Roumain was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Mellon Foundation and commissioned by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra of Hartford, CT and Minnesota Orchestra of Minneapolis, MN.
STORMCLUTTER is originally commissioned by The Cowles Center, Northrop, Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts’ Caroline Hearst Choreographer-In-Residence Program and is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation and Development Fund Project co-commissioned by John Michael Kohler Arts Center, National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron, Bates Dance Festival and NPN. The Creation and Development Fund is supported by The Doris Duke Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). BRKFST Dance Company is the recipient of a creative residency at The National Center for Choreography-Akron. The development of STORMCLUTTER was made possible in part by The National Center for Choreography-Akron.
Northrop and BRKFST wish to thank the Walker Art Center for providing its McGuire Theater and staff management support at a time of pressing need due to the unexpected closure of Cowles Center for the Arts.
