Aszure Barton & Ambrose Akinmusire: A a | a B : B E N D
In today’s world, Walker Art Center’s commitment to connecting community with world-class creative innovators has never been more vital. Vanguard dance, music, and adventurous theater artists offer fresh ideas and energy, while bringing us together for moments of shared reflection and joy. Experience the essential, empowering nature of live art throughout the 2026–27 Performing Arts Season.
Laurie Anderson, Republic of Love (Solo). Photo: Ebru Yildiz. Courtesy of the artist.
Laurie Anderson: Republic of Love (Solo)
September 9–10, 2026
“For half a century, [Laurie Anderson] has taken the things we know best—our bodies, our rituals, our nation—and shown us how strange they really are.” —New York Times
Creative luminary Laurie Anderson presents a collection of songs and stories about contemporary life in America. Inspired by the Twin Cities’ historic demonstrations of resistance, she reshapes her touring show, Republic of Love, into a space for solidarity and healing. Drawing on her 2010 album Homeland, she observes:
“Some say our empire is passing as all empires do. Ah, America, we saw it, we tipped it over and then we sold it. I’m standing here in dawn’s early late in a country made of stories. / What war is this? What time is it?”
Nels Cline & Yuka Honda, River Mouth, Unseen Green. Photo: Chiiho Tanaka. Courtesy of the artist
Nels Cline & Yuka Honda: River Mouth, Unseen Green
September 24–25, 2026
“Nels Cline is one of the most influential guitarists and composers working today.” —NPR
“This is the unique beauty of Yuka [Honda]’s art: a Pop art that mocks the intangible unnaturalness of the contrived Pop of our times.” —DeBaser
Daring experimentalists Nels Cline and Yuka Honda present an exclusive two-night Walker collaboration. Perhaps best known for their ensemble work—Cline with indie rock band Wilco and Honda with ’90s art-pop duo Cibo Matto—they innovate continually as solo artists. For River Mouth, Unseen Green, they bring a stacked lineup of friends and collaborators for a one-of-a-kind musical blowout.
On Thursday night, Cline is joined by leading musicians, including guitar virtuoso Julian Lage, vocalist Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond), drummer Glenn Kotche, and more. Rotating through varied configurations, they produce a kaleidoscope of sounds and textures, spanning punk, jazz, electronica, and pop.
On Friday night, producer and multi-instrumentalist Honda presents a two-part performance dedicated to longtime friend and collaborator Yoko Ono. Accompanied by a full band, Honda performs excerpts from her and Glenn Kaino’s forthcoming I Am Yoko opera. She also invites notable collaborators, including Theo Bleckmann and Jason Lindner, onstage to perform an improvised live score to Ono and John Lennon’s 1970 avant-garde film Fly.
HUG. Photo: Christian Stavros. Courtesy of the artist.
HUG featuring Devendra Banhart, Gyan Riley, and Noah Georgeson
October 14, 2026
“Pain and dissatisfaction are often the catalysts for some kind of spiritual awakening. . . . If you live long enough, a reason to practice will emerge. Practice what? Being present, being grateful, being compassionate; practice turning towards your heart again and again.” —Devendra Banhart
HUG is a collaboration between three longtime friends: indie folk innovator Devendra Banhart, multifaceted guitarist Gyan Riley, and musician/record producer Noah Georgeson. In Minneapolis, they bring to life their self-titled debut album, transforming the McGuire Theater into an ambient-folk dreamscape. Here, simple metallophone melodies shimmer over soft washes of synth, and wooden rasps punctuate lilting guitar lines. It is music intended as much for a Sunday morning as it is for a starry night.
Copresented with Liquid Music.
Dorothée Munyaneza, Toi, moi, Tituba… Photo: Dajana Lothert. Courtesy of the artist.
Dorothée Munyaneza: Toi, moi, Tituba…
October 28–30, 2026
“One of the most impressive voices of contemporary performing art in Europe today.” —Zürcher Theater Spektakel
In Toi, moi, Tituba…, Rwandan French dancer/singer Dorothée Munyaneza revives the troubled spirit of Tituba, an enslaved woman who was one of the first accused in the Salem witch trials. Surrounded by neon beams of light, Munyaneza slowly activates the space between audience and performer, employing deft movement, shadow play, and emotive vocals. The work investigates not just the archives that Tituba inhabits but also the archives that inhabit Tituba herself.
This show has limited capacity, with audience members seated onstage.
Part of Embodying Lost Histories.
Faye Driscoll, Chimera (Walker Art Center). Photo: Francesca Beltran. Courtesy of the artist.
Faye Driscoll: Chimera (Walker Art Center)
January 21–23, 2027
Tickets for this performance are currently available as part of the Out There package. Single tickets go on sale at a later date.
“Ms. Driscoll is fascinating in that she makes such utterly original work. It doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen before, nor can you imagine thinking it up.” —New York Times
Chimeras contain multitudes. They exist across monstrosity, biology, and metaphor, combining disparate creatures, DNA, and ideas. Using choreography, objects, and sound to investigate perception, choreographer Faye Driscoll decentralizes our usual understanding of the body, expanding her dancers’ physical forms through objects, light, and prolonged touch. Chimera (Walker Art Center) sifts through the layers of what is seen, sensed, implied, and inarguable, attempting to answer its central question: When we project ourselves onto the world, does the world project itself back onto us?
Part of Out There 2027.
Philippe Quesne, Le Paradoxe de John. Photo: Martin Argyroglo. Courtesy of the artist.
Philippe Quesne: Le Paradoxe de John
February 4–6, 2027
Tickets for this performance are currently available as part of the Out There package. Single tickets go on sale at a later date.
“A piece of wild, melancholic poetry, served by Laura Vazquez’s sumptuous texts, a flawless troupe, and an impeccable visual sense … flowing tranquilly along the path of tender absurdity.” —Cult.News
French theater-maker Philippe Quesne’s work occupies the tender space between humor and melancholy. As a sequel to his beloved play L’Effet de Serge (Out There 2011), Le Paradoxe de John (John’s Paradox) examines the role of art and community in everyday life. The piece follows a group of friends whose attempt to build an art gallery leads to a strange series of experiments. There is insulation-foam headwear, a prolonged exchange with linoleum flooring, and an oddly serene sense of dissociation. Accompanied by writer Laura Vazquez’s poetry across several digital ticker displays, Quesne demonstrates the quiet power of small creative acts.
Part of Out There 2027.
Kimberly Bartosik, bLUr. Photo: Maria Baranova. Courtesy of the artist.
Kimberly Bartosik: bLUr
March 5–6, 2027
“bLUr offers a collective dream state, as the dancers’ bodies navigate alarm, intimacy, and rescue.” —Brooklyn Rail
Some experiences never leave the body. Recognizing the long shadow of trauma, dancer/choreographer Kimberly Bartosik brings bLUr to the Twin Cities as a space for communal processing. Set to a haunting score by Sivan Jacobovitz (Shamel Pitts | TRIBE), the piece features five dancers navigating the unforgiving topography of grief. Their bodies shake, snake, stumble, and slide, as they oscillate between cycles of anguish and hope. With intense physicality, they explore what it means to co-create meaningful systems of community care.
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5, Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione (Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”). Photo: Anne Van Aerschot. Courtesy of the artist
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5: Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione (Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons)
April 16–17, 2027
“Vivaldi like you’ve never seen before.” —L’Echo
Belgian formalist Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker—one of the world’s most celebrated contemporary choreographers—ignites the stage with her ecstatic collaboration with rising Moroccan Belgian star Radouan Mriziga. Together, the artists breathe new life into one of Western classical music’s most iconic compositions, Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The performance showcases four male dancers in a dazzling work that embraces the many associations and emotions that Vivaldi’s masterpiece has long evoked, while offering a choreographic counterpoint to it.
Copresented with Northrop.
Alessandro Sciarroni, U. (un canto). Photo: Andrea Macchia. Courtesy of the artist.
Alessandro Sciarroni: U. (un canto)
June 2, 2027
“An unmissable work. … Sciarroni’s vision, as always, is one step ahead, calling us to follow, to explore, and to be surprised.” —Dance Art Journal
In a hypnotic exploration of voice, rhythm, and human connection, cross-disciplinary artist Alessandro Sciarroni transforms the typical choral experience into something between concert and rite. For this exclusive US performance of U. (un canto), seven brilliant vocalists enliven a range of Italian choral songs from the past 70 years. The a cappella ensemble creates ancient polyphonic harmonies that move in purposeful juxtaposition to Sciarroni’s exactingly static choreography. The result is an immersive sonic ceremony that echoes long after the performance ends.
Copresented with Cantus.
The Walker Art Center’s Performing Arts programs and commissions are made possible by donors and Producers’ Council members: AJT Fund; Constance and Fuller Cowles Foundation; Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; Doris Duke Performing Arts Endowment Fund; Christina Evans and Weston Hoard; Martha Gabbert Women Artists Fund; Nor Hall and Roger Hale; Judith Brin Ingber and Jerome Ingber; Neal Jahren; the Jerome Foundation; Jay Kim and Ann Ruhr Pifer; King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury; Knox Foundation: Susanne Lilly Hutcheson, Zenas Hutcheson IV, Henry Hutcheson, and Perrin Hutcheson; Sarah Lutman; Emily Maltz; Jennifer Melin Miller and David Miller; the David and Leni Moore Family Foundation; National Performance Network; the Serendipitous Leverage Fund; Therese Sexe and David Hage; Elizabeth and Mike Sweeney; Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation; Sue and Jim Westerman; and Frances and Frank Wilkinson.
Performing Arts Season
2026–2027 / Walker Art Center
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