TQH is proud to sponsor the Closing Performance of MERGE with Mathew Janczewski's ARENA DANCES & Taja Will. Come experience the dance-theater-magic along with a Post-Show Experience/Conversation. After the show, we will gather for: (1) a low-impact movement exploration led by local artist Erika Thorne, (2) stories from Taja, Mathew, and Erika on how their LGBTQ+ identity influences their work and artistic practices, and (3) a community Q&A session.

*ASL Interpretation. Food & N/A Beverages, & Childcare Provided.

WHEN: Sunday, March 24, 2024 at 2PM.
WHERE: The Cowles Center's Goodale Theater.

RSVP to the post show intergenerational conversation: Tickets to the show are required for the conversation after.

Twin Cities based modern dance company Mathew Janczewski’s ARENA DANCES and choreographer Taja Will pair up for the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts “Merge” program for the final sunsetting production of the Goodale Theater as Twin Cities artists and audience know it now. The evening includes three world premieres on Saturday, March 23 at 7:30pm and Sunday, March 24 at 2:00pm

Janczewski and Will's collaboration Here, Dear Life, offers A club-like atmosphere of daring ecstasy, collective revolt, and personal reclamations. Twin Cities beloved queer DJ Queen Duin joins a powerhouse ensemble of movers; Leila Awadallah, D Hunter, Imagine Joy (Demetrius McClendon), Sarah McCullough, Leslie O’Neal and apprentices Kendall Edstrom, Annika Johansson, Kae McMahon and Río Saúl García Ramírez.

The evening also includes Taja Will’s new solo Soft Sediment, a haunting vocal and movement meditation on the impact and struggle of Earth’s ecosystem. Will offers a sonic salve both ethereal and guttural, the voices of many ancestors simultaneously. Mathew Janczewski takes to the stage for the first time since 2017 for a new duet. Semipermeable fluid set of ideas highlights this specific and present relationship of the two, allowing for each to move through together from a certain known history of ideas shared.