Saturday news and reviews

Here's what made the headlines in the past 24 hours...

Architecture

Oslund firm picked for Peavey Plaza renovation

Mary Abbe, Star Tribune

Create a More Connected Minnesota

MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.

Minneapolis firm that did Target Field plaza will renovate public space on south Nicollet Mall.

Art

Final art show this weekend for art co-op in St. Paul that's losing its building to LRT projects

- Joe Kimball, MinnPost.com

The coming light rail line connecting the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul will bring many improvements along its University Avenue route, but it also means the end of the line for an informal artists' cooperative that has thrived for many years in a building there, says the Pioneer Press.

It's alive! 'Painting Zombies' challenges the death of painting

- Sheila Regan, City Pages

​Painting Zombies: Permanence/Impermanence," the new exhibit now up at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota, doesn't actually have any zombies in it. Instead, a press release for the show states that the title nods satirically at the notion of resurrecting a supposedly dead art form.

Dance

Zenon Dance Company falls into fall

- Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet

There's nothing more riveting than watching someone almost fall onstage. It's the ultimate gesture of risk-taking: a chicken fight that the performer has with him- or herself, a moment of reckless abandon, of complete vulnerability, followed by the landing, and a sigh of relief.

Stopping for a think at the 'Thank-You Bar'

- Caroline Palmer, Star Tribune

Dancer Emily Johnson ponders questions of home, heritage and identity in a poetic performance.

Movies

Mark Wojahn's "Trampoline" is a raw portrait of a Twin Cities family

- Colleen Powers, TC Daily Planet

In Mark Wojahn's new documentary Trampoline, which screened Wednesday at the Heights Theatre, husband (and stepfather of four) Nathaniel muses to the camera that maybe the world is divided into two types of people: those who have teenagers, and those who don't.

15 documentary features advance in 2010 Oscar race

- Barb Teed, TC Daily Planet

Barb Teed has the list, with tips as to which are currently playing in the Twin Cities.

Music

Eyedea's family responds to cause of death

- Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press

The family of St. Paul rapper Michael "Eyedea" Larsen released a statement in response to how he died.

Eyedea's mom speaks out on son's death

- Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune

"Mikey was at no time a habitual drug user," Kathy Averill said in a statement that called his death an accident.

Whitey Morgan takes his honky tonk music to honky-tonking Lee's Liquor Lounge

- Britt Robson, MinnPost.com

Matching a musical act with the right venue would seem to be a no-brainer. If you're a dance band, you want as few bolted seats in the place as possible. If your music requires acute acoustics, you don't perform in an echo chamber.

Theater

BNW tackles seasonal madness with Brett Favre's Christmas Spectacular II

- Brad Richason, Examiner.com

When Brave New Workshop premiered Brett Favre's Christmas Spectacular: The Immaculate Interception in 2009, the everlasting quarterback was achieving a feat just shy of miraculous; leading the Minnesota Vikings through a winning season. What a difference a year makes.