Berit Ahlgren/HoneyWorks – Featured Artist

Native to St. Paul, MN, Berit Ahlgren trained at Minnesota Dance Theater with Loyce and Lise Houlton, and was a founding company member of TU Dance, performing between the years of 2006—2016. Receiving Metropolitan Regional Art Council’s Next Step Grant in 2011, Ahlgren studied the Gaga Movement Language in Tel Aviv, and shortly thereafter moved to Israel to pursue an intensive, yearlong teacher certification. Ahlgren transitioned to New York City in 2014 to obtain her MFA in Dance from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, developing ties in the community while teaching Gaga at both Gibney and Mark Morris Dance Centers. Returning to Minnesota late 2016, Ahlgren has been working as dance educator, performer, choreographer, and collaborator across the U.S. and abroad, using her relationship with Gaga as a lens to define her artistic process. Ahlgren established the organization HoneyWorks in 2019 to house her creative work, and most notably co-created “Live at the Shed” in 2020 with Helen Hatch (Hatch Dance), an annual, summer, outdoor dance production with a rotating cast of 25+ dancers from the community.

DESCRIPTION OF WORK:

HoneyWorks presents Cedarbacke, a dance project in 3 phases which considers the history of Minneapolis’s Southern Theater and its diverse neighboring community. As a trilogy work, this first segment considers the Southern Theater in the 1920-30’s as a central location for immigrants and first generation Americans to gather, sharing in entertainment and cultural exchange. Nine dance-artists collaborate and share with violinist Sara Pajunen, a playful homage to the Southern Theater and a recognition of the waves of cultures the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has been home to.

IF YOU WERE A TYPE OF CANDY, WHAT CANDY WOULD YOU BE AND WHY?

COMING SOON!