Art Hounds: Improv Fest, woodturning and Dali’s cookbook inspires dance

Chicagoans "TJ and Dave" are one of the many groups that will be here for this weekend's Twin Cities Improv Fest

A festival of improvisational comedy Twin Cities style, American woodturners uniting in St. Paul, and two dance companies preparing a feast of movement are on the hounds' agenda this week.

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Scotty Reynolds, an actor with Interact Theater and a food performance artist with "Mixed Precipitation," finds a lot of inspiration in the culinary arts. No wonder he's drawn to "Dali's Cookbook: A Gastronomical Inquisition," a joint production of Ballet of the Dolls and Zorongo Dance Theatre in Minneapolis. It's based on a cookbook surrealist Salvador Dali wrote and dedicated to his lover. It's on stage at the Ritz Theater through Sunday, June 26.

Love free form improv comedy? Want to see the Twin Cities' best improv artists matched up with stars from other parts of the country? Shad Petosky, owner of Pink Hobo Gallery and Puny Entertainment in Minneapolis suggests you go directly to Huge Theater for the fifth annual Twin Cities Improv Festival. Shows start tonight and go through Sunday.

Maybe your only exposure to woodturning was in woodshop in junior high. Or maybe woodturning is a completely foreign concept. Amanda Birnstengel says it doesn't matter. Amanda, director of the Hopkins Center for the Arts, predicts you'll be amazed by the progression of the art form and the prowess of the nation's finest woodturners as they converge for the 25th American Association of Woodturners Symposium at St. Paul's River Centre.

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And you can get an early sneak peek at the Art Hounds' picks every week by texting the word ART to 677-677.

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