Northrop Open House

12:00-1:00 pm: Concert & “Combat” on Northrop Plaza!

12:00 pm: The UMN Marching Band Quintet

12:15 pm: Stage Combat Demo
Broadsword fight in between bands, baby! Annie Enneking and U of M student Adam Iverson will demonstrate a short broadsword fight, describing the actions and how and why the fight is built in the way that it is, and how actors bring fights up to speed.

12:30-1:00 pm: The Gated Community is an Americana band for the 99%. Formed in 2006 in Minneapolis's storied West Bank neighborhood, the band is known for its gripping original songs, beautiful vocal harmonies, and multiple lead singers. They released their fifth album, The Honor and Glory of The Gated Community, in 2023.

1:00-2:00 pm: grooving with jess pretty
Northrop Rehearsal Room (Ground level, East)

From the artist: “this workshop is about grooving together. grooving is a repetitive, durational, social dance practice that can be found individually and collectively. grooving can lead to transformation within the body. grooving can lead to liberation. grooving can build discernment in how collective energy is built and cared for at times, it might feel like line dancing. at other times it might feel like the middle of a house party. joy is encouraged either way.”

1:00-2:00 pm: Backstage tour: Join Northrop staff for backstage access to Northrop's Carlson Family Stage! Look out at Northrop's 2,672 seats from behind the footlights, visit the studio where famous dance companies rehearse, take selfies framed by dressing room lights, and hear Northrop's historic pipe organ. 

1:00-4:00 pm: Make ‘n Take Puppet Activity with Heart of the Beast Theatre (West Lounge, Level 1)

Visit with artists from In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, create your own shadow puppets to take home, and try on puppets and masks from their Puppet Library!

1:00-4:00 pm: Bracelet Making with University Honors Program (West Lounge, Level 2)

Build a bracelet for you or for a friend while chatting with UHP staff about what the honors program can offer you!

1:00-7:00 pm UMN Theatre Arts & Dance Costume Display (East Lounge, Level 1)

Discover our diverse programs, explore the season's upcoming performances, and admire the creative works of our Design & Technology students. Don't miss your chance to enter a raffle for a pair of tickets to see the fall's main stage production of Cabaret.

1:30-4:00 pm: Art & Ecology in the Northrop Gallery (Level 4)

Observe or participate in a project titled "Take Me to the River" with Christine Baumler's Art & Ecology class! Students will be using recycled fabrics to create a "river " and asking people to reflect on a body of water that is important to them.

2:15-3:00 pm: Black Label Movement: Battleground & Discussion
West lawn (outside West Entrance)

Black Label Movement's site-specific new work, Battleground, premiering at American Dance Festival in October, abstractly explores energies and consequences surrounding the U.S.'s ongoing armed conflicts since World War II. Join the company for a demonstration and discussion at their rehearsal site, a dirt pit on the lawn outside Northrop.

2:30-3:30 pm: Stage Combat Workshop With Annie Enneking
Northrop Rehearsal Room (Ground level, East)

Use your body to tell a violent story that is both safe and repeatable. Come learn how to use angles, proper distance, and action/reaction to believably slap and punch. Come inflict and/or receive some fake pain!

3:00-4:00 pm: Backstage tour: Join Northrop staff for backstage access to Northrop's Carlson Family Stage! Look out at Northrop's 2,672 seats from behind the footlights, visit the studio where famous dance companies rehearse, take selfies framed by dressing room lights, and hear Northrop's historic pipe organ.

3:30-4:30 pm: Brutal Utopias Film Screening + Q&A
Best Buy Theater (Level 4)

In 1968, architect Ralph Rapson designed one of the largest urban renewal projects in U.S. history, a utopia constructed entirely of concrete—but the neighborhood planned for demolition housed a counterculture with its own utopian vision. Brutal Utopias explores this conflict and its aftermath through archival material, interviews, and motion graphics. Engaging current residents of Rapson’s brutalist buildings, including the East African refugee community, the film revisits this history to grapple with questions we face today: how do we design cities and for whom? The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker Morgan Adamson, professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Macalester College, and UMN Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature Maggie Hennefeld.

4:00-5:00 pm: Organ tour: Northrop Organist Greg Zelek demonstrates our Aeolian-Skinner organ while you visit the nearly 7,000 pipes in the organ loft! After viewing the pipes, you'll meet Zelek at the console for an overview of the elements of organ performance from stops to pedals, followed by a short excerpt from the evening concert program. Organ loft experience is available to the first 20 people who sign up for each tour and requires steep stair-climbing and low-heeled shoes.

4:00-7:00 pm:  Art & Healing Relationships with Plants (West Lounge, Level 1)

Explore the ways that we can be in relationship with plants and land through art, history, and introspection. Join Plant/People and the Wangensteen Historical Library as we print woodblocks, examine historical botanical texts, drink tea, and get connected to local resources.

4:30-5:00 pm: Liquid Music/Terminal Habitat Collapse
Northrop Rehearsal Room (Ground level, East)

Terminal Habitat Collapse, created by composer-performer-writer Trever Hagen and producer and engineer Josh Berg, sonically narrates the Anthropocene through quadraphonic sound. From bucolic beginnings to a poisoned present and into a disparate future of engineered destruction, the three-act composition presents an immersive soundscape of ecological change.  A culmination of a Northrop x Liquid Music artist residency, the piece will be performed in quadraphonic sound, each act representing an epoch of this story, an entropic journey from melody to mechanical rhythms driving into a startling finale. Featuring live performance and electronic mixing, this work-in-development showing creates a multisensorial environment that activates a collective psycho-somatic response to the complete collapse of human habitat by renovating the aesthetic framework of pastoralism and escalating the rhetoric of ecological change.

5:30-6:30 pm: Open Jam
Best Buy Theater (Level 4)

Calling all musicians! Northrop's Best Buy Theater is the perfect place to jam with friends. Make new connections, develop new ideas, and collaboratively improvise. This session will feature performances from Eli Awada, Beck on the Bass, and U of M Jazz Ensemble I. Sign up here!  

6:00-6:45 pm: Architecture tour: Learn about Northrop's iconic 95-year-old building as well as the secrets of its 21st Century renovation. This tour of Northrop's public spaces shares insights into the architecture, acoustics, and history of one of the most recognizable buildings in Minnesota.

6:00-7:00 pm: Movement Architecture: All Hail the Queen
Northrop Atrium (Level 1)

Contemporary dance company Movement Architecture’s All Hail the Queen celebrates the voice and the vagina. The vocal apparatus and pelvic floor show anatomical similarities that suffer from cultural restrictions due to the censoring of womens’ voices and sexuality. All Hail the Queen uses somatic practices to unearth movement, sounds, and emotional states generated by these organs resulting in an expressive and empowering choreography.

7:00 pm: Northrop Organist Greg Zelek in Concert (ticket required)
Carlson Family Stage
Join us for an entertaining evening of virtuosity as we welcome the newly appointed Northrop Organist Greg Zelek to his first concert in this role. This performance will be Zelek’s first opportunity to thrill the audience with his wide-ranging and exciting repertoire on Northrop’s spectacular historic Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ.

Sign-up for all tours will be available via QR code posted throughout Northrop beginning at 12:00 pm on the day of the Open House, Sep 12. 

1:00-2:00 pm: Backstage tour: Join Northrop staff for backstage access to Northrop's Carlson Family Stage! Look out at Northrop's 2,672 seats from behind the footlights, visit the studio where famous dance companies rehearse, take selfies framed by dressing room lights, and hear Northrop's historic pipe organ. 

3:00-4:00 pm: Backstage tour: Join Northrop staff for backstage access to Northrop's Carlson Family Stage! Look out at Northrop's 2,672 seats from behind the footlights, visit the studio where famous dance companies rehearse, take selfies framed by dressing room lights, and hear Northrop's historic pipe organ.

4:00-5:00 pm: Organ tour: Northrop Organist Greg Zelek demonstrates our Aeolian-Skinner organ while you visit the nearly 7,000 pipes in the organ loft! After viewing the pipes, you'll meet Zelek at the console for an overview of the elements of organ performance from stops to pedals, followed by a short excerpt from the evening concert program. Organ loft experience is available to the first 20 people who sign up for each tour and requires steep stair-climbing and low-heeled shoes.

6:00-6:45 pm: Architecture tour: Learn about Northrop's iconic 95-year-old building as well as the secrets of its 21st Century renovation. This tour of Northrop's public spaces shares insights into the architecture, acoustics, and history of one of the most recognizable buildings in Minnesota.

1:00-7:00 pm Community Arts Expo & Lounge Activities: Northrop's lobby and lounge areas will buzz with activity with tables and activities hosted by our campus and community partners. Learn about the creative experiences offered at Northrop and across the University of Minnesota campus all year long. Community tables will provide information about cultural organizations and events, and Northrop's lounges will host all-ages arts activities.

1:00-4:00 pm: Make ‘n Take Puppet Activity with Heart of the Beast Theatre (West Lounge, Level 1)

Visit with artists from In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, create your own shadow puppets to take home, and try on puppets and masks from their Puppet Library!

1:00-4:00 pm: Bracelet Making with University Honors Program (West Lounge, Level 2)

Build a bracelet for you or for a friend while chatting with UHP staff about what the honors program can offer you!

1:00-6:00 pm: Visit with AuSM at Northrop’s Sensory Friendly Lounge (East Lounge, Level 2)

In partnership with the Autism Society of Minnesota (AuSM), Northrop is offering Sensory Friendly Lounges during select Northrop season events. The lounge allows guests who are experiencing hyper (too much) or hyper (not enough) sensitivities to watch the performance from a monitor, or take a break all together.

1:00-7:00 pm UMN Theatre Arts & Dance Costume Display (East Lounge, Level 1)

Discover our diverse programs, explore the season's upcoming performances, and admire the creative works of our Design & Technology students. Don't miss your chance to enter a raffle for a pair of tickets to see the fall's main stage production of Cabaret.

4:00-7:00 pm:  Art & Healing Relationships with Plants (West Lounge, Level 1)

Explore the ways that we can be in relationship with plants and land through art, history, and introspection. Join Plant/People and the Wangensteen Historical Library as we print woodblocks, examine historical botanical texts, drink tea, and get connected to local resources.