Ann Wolff Last Look: Laurie Van Wieren and the Art of Living

Live performance of My Face, My Feet and the Bird by Laurie Van Wieren and ensemble explores Identity, Art, and Connection featuring original works by cellist-composer, Michelle Kinney.

On Saturday, May 24, the American Swedish Institute presents two performances of My Face, My Feet and the Bird at 8:00 pm and 8:40 pm in the third-floor ballroom. Created and performed by Laurie Van Wieren alongside dancers Alys Ayumi Ogura, Jinza Thayer, Margaret Ogas, and Dexter Carlson, this intimate and immersive dance experience features live music by cellist-composer Michelle Kinney.

This is the ensemble’s second performance at ASI. The first, created for the opening of Ann Wolff’s exhibition, unfolded across two floors of the Turnblad Mansion. All seven dancers—Judith Howard, Alys Ayumi Ogura, Jinza Thayer, Marggie Ogas, Dexter Carlson, and Van Wieren—performed simultaneously with musicians Michelle Kinney and Nick Gaudette. With the mansion full to capacity, audience members each encountered a unique experience depending on where they moved and what they witnessed.

This new iteration brings the audience into one space. Performed in the round in the third-floor ballroom, the work invites intimate connection. Five dancers and Kinney will present self-portraits, dueling duets, and idiosyncratic ensemble work.

My Face, My Feet and the Bird draws from the sculptures and drawings of artist Ann Wolff and was developed through Van Wieren’s residency at ASI. The movement vocabulary emerged from improvisations centered on Wolff’s work, public interactions, and reflections on the chaos of the current world. The result is a personal and poetic work that invites recognition, curiosity, and quiet transformation. Don’t miss the chance to witness this unique and thought-provoking collaboration at the close of Ann Wolff: The Art of Living!

Event Schedule

7 pm – Doors to ASI & Exhibits Open, The Tamarack Stylites performance in Mansion Salon
8 pm – My Face, My Feet and the Bird  first performance in Mansion Ballroom (L3)
8:40 pm – My Face, My Feet and the Bird second performance in Mansion Ballroom (L3)
9 pm – The Tamarack Stylites performance in Mansion Salon
10 pm – Doors to ASI & Exhibits Close

About the Dancers

Laurie Van Wieren, choreographer and ensemble director:

Laurie Van Wieren, a Chicago native with Swedish roots, moved to Minneapolis and became a prominent figure in the local dance and art scene. For this exhibition, Laurie choreographed and directed a dynamic, movement-based interpretation of Ann Wolff’s works and themes through performances by a local dance ensemble.

Responding to Ann Wolff’s sculptures and drawings, as well as the concept of self-identity, Laurie’s choreography begins with what seems deceptively simple—steps, stillness, and gestures. These elements gradually unravel into something deeply intimate and questioning. For this residency, Laurie Van Wieren has brought together a cast of local, intergenerational dancers: Dexter Carlson, Judith Howard, Margaret Ogas, Alys Ayumi Ogura, Judee Shui Xian, and Jinza Thayer.

Through Laurie’s creative vision and direction, this exceptional collective of artists has created solo and ensemble dances inspired by themes of self-portraiture, aging, personal history, and the current world. Through weeks of rehearsals and micro-performances within the Turnblad Mansion—a space layered with time, stories, and presence—they have explored the intersections of identity and time.

Alys Ayumi Ogura, ensemble member:

Alys Ayumi Ogura (オグラ　アリス　ア有美) (she/her) is a storyteller and a performance maker through her movements, voice, and quirky humor. After trading Japanese rice fields for Iowa corn fields, Ogura saw that dance and movement would be the best outlets to share her ever-percolating stories. Ogura’s movement and choreography are most influenced by her first two mentors, the late Mika Kurosawa, godmother of Japanese contemporary dance, and Rob Scoggins, her former college dance professor. Ogura has worked since 2010 in the Twin Cities with more than 40 artists, both near and far, and she has created more than 20 original works performed in numerous Twin Cities venues and several U.S. cities. Ogura is a current steering-committee member for DanceMN.

Jinza Thayer, ensemble member

Genetically and experientially, Jinza Thayer (she/her), is a hybrid of both Japanese and American cultures which might explain her curiosities of worlds, both internal and external.  After spending her first six years in Japan, Jinza grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

As a somatic movement therapist and educator, she works with deep internal somatic processes to source the body’s wisdom and instigate movement.  Those ideas are then housed in immersive installations — altered metaphorical spaces that inspire awareness of, and reflections on, how we express being in the world.  She presents her work as Movement Architecture (MA). As MA, Jinza has created over sixty original works including eight full-evening-length works at over twenty venues in the Twin Cities. MA has also toured to New York City, Washington DC, Austin TX, and Montreal.

Margaret Ogas, ensemble member:

Margaret Ogas (she/her) is a choreographer, performer, teaching artist, and arts administrator based in the Twin Cities. Her choreography explores identity, politics, and the caverns of human emotion through a collage of dance, text, and sound.

Margaret is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and was a 2021 Naked Stages Fellow at Pillsbury House + Theatre.  She recently established Margaret Ogas Performance Project, a dance company emphasizing artistic experimentation with a commitment to highlighting artists of color and queer artists.

Margaret is a core collaborator and performer with the Taja Will Ensemble. She is a teaching artist and associate company director at Young Dance. She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.

Dexter Carlson, ensemble member:

Dexter Carlson (she/her) received her BFA in Dance from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and trained with Metropolitan Ballet of Tacoma. She has studied with The Houston Ballet, American Ballet Theater, The Joffrey Ballet, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Czech Republic). She has had the honor of learning from and performing works by Renee Redding-Jones, Deborah Jowitt, Robert Moses, Kendra Porteir, and Maurya Kerr and has been a collaborator and performer with Eros Movement Company, Chris Ferris and Dancers, and Ellis Wood Dance, Jagged Moves, and Laurie Van Wieren Projects. Dexter’s work has been presented at Green Space, Actors Fund Arts Center, Jack Crystal Theater, and Arts on Site in New York City and Norton Clapp Theatre in Tacoma, Washington.

About the Tamarack Stylites

Michelle Kinney, cello:

Cellist and composer Michelle Kinney is most inspired when working in cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary contexts. Recent collaborations with dance include Ananya Dance Theater, Black Label Movement, BRKFST, Laurie Van Wieren; and for theater, Kevin Kling, Michael Sommers, and Theater Latté Da.

Michelle is a regular contributor to the work of some of the Twin Cities’ most interesting musical artists such as Zeitgeist, Mary Ellen Childs, Douglas Ewart, Aby Wolf, Nirmala Rajasekar and Dylan Hicks.

While living in NYC for 13 years, she recorded and performed with creative jazz artists Butch Morris, Henry Threadgill, Brandon Ross and pop artists Sheryl Crow, Natalie Merchant, Lou Reed, to name a few.

Michelle has been recognized for her work by The McKnight Foundation (Composer Fellowship), Two Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step Fund grants, The Bush Foundation (Bush Artists Fellowship), The Jerome Foundation, MN State Arts Board, NEA/Rockefeller, Harvestworks/Studio Pass, and American Composers Forum.

Chris Cunningham, guitars:

Chris Cunningham has collaborated on stages and in studios with Marianne Faithfull, The Contortions, John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards, Jeff Buckley, Hal Wilner, Haiti’s Boukman Eksperyans, Turkey’s Omar Farouk, Ireland’s Katell Keineg, Susan McKeown, and Gavin Friday, Anton Fier, John Zorn, Marshall Crenshaw, Joan Osborne, John Medeski, Richie Havens, and many others. He has released two critically acclaimed solo albums, and his recent Twin Cities groups include Superbus Maximus, Creatures of Prometheus, Fall of the House of Usher, Mississippi Peace, Coloring Time, Improvestra, and Improvised Explosive Device, to name just a few. His main repository of recorded musical content is at the-stylites.bandcamp.com and he dutifully serves the people as a professor and confessor of Sound Arts at Minneapolis College.

Nick Gaudette, bass:

Renegade bassist Nick Gaudette is a seasoned performer, educator, creator, and arts collaborator. His unique individualized sound is rooted in the classical conservatory training but also embraces jazz, rock, folk, tango, and contemporary new sounds for the upright bass. Nick is a founding member and bassist with the Orange Mighty Trio (hybrid chamber-fiddle music), the Cherry Spoon Collective (multi-generational group of composer/musicians) and is a frequent collaborator/composer for modern dance. During the school year, Nick directs the advanced orchestras at Edina High School and is an active member in the field of music education. Nick is a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative recipient, a Cedar Commission Artist, an EdFund grant recipient, outdoors person, motorcyclist, and dad.

Joe Strachan, piano:

Joe Strachan, a versatile pianist based in Saint Paul, brings a decade of musical prowess to national and international stages. Joe’s dynamic career includes accompanying dance, performing on synths and electronics, and composing for a diverse range of collaborations in dance and theater. Recent work includes touring with Craig Finn, and Mixed Blood Theater, as well as performing locally with ThoughtCast, Little Boat, the Interstellar Cowboy band, Wheel Eternal, HatchDance and Superbus Maximus. Joe’s work has been recognized with awards such as the Next Step Fund (2020).