g-Rock Does Lazy Sundays Yoga

Stephanie Kinney will lead two yoga classes on Sunday's at TORCH starting May 4th. Stephanie's approach centers on the idea of, “our amazing ability to adapt. Through physical practice we can overcome any of our physical limitations.” Stephanie started her yoga studies after dealing with a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis in her teenage years. Daily movement and finding balance between too little and too much is so important to her personally and provides great lessons to her students.

As her physical practice of yoga has had to adapt to her own changing physical requirements, she has come to realize far more changes have strengthened her mentally. “Yoga gives me the tools to cope with chronic pain in its many layers, and the strength to share my story in the hopes of inspiring others.” She has found that teaching from her personal experience is her greatest asset.

Stephanie started her primary Yoga Training for teaching at the Yoga Center of Minneapolis. While attending YCM, she also completed Level 1 Adaptive Yoga Training at Mind Body Solutions followed by Yin Yoga Training at the Yoga Center and Unnata® Aerial Yoga Training with Becky Stella. She is a certified teacher in each.

Stephanie is the owner of g-Rock Yoga Arts, a small business she created to celebrate yoga in many forms. For more info please visit her website at g-RockYogaArts.com.

Gentle Yoga 9:30-10:30am

Take it easy with this slow moving, chilled out class. Find ‘sthira sukam asanam’ or ‘the steadiness and comfort of the pose’ while tuning into the wisdom of your body … a class for all ability levels. Especially suited to those living with chronic pain, injury, or dealing with major life transitions.

Yoga A-Go-Go 11am - Noon

Crank it up a notch as we practice to some upbeat tunes from the past! More of a vinyasa style class will have us moving and breathing to the music. Feel free to wear your headbands, leos, and leg warmers and get ready to dance!

• Do one or Do Both!
• Single Pass $12
• Six Pack $60
• Both in One Day $22

Order Class Passes at Event Brite

Poetry & Song Close Month of Jazz at TORCH

Seniz Yargici Lennes opened the last Sunday in the Month of Jazz at TORCH

The Jazz Residency of Sean Roderick came to a close Sunday night at TORCH with two very talented ladies performing a perfect note for a cold, rainy Minneapolis evening. There was a set of mid-Twentieth Century Jazz vocalizations by Seniz Yargici Lennes and a set of poetry with jazz by Leslie Sedivy, poetess extraordinaire at Le Cirque Rouge Cabaret and Burlesque Show as Lulu Blue. There was no lack of comfort and no want of a beautiful diversion.

Seniz made her vocal debut to a full house performing her “Jazz Singer Lady.” Seniz is a seasoned performer here in Minneapolis, mostly as an actress and comedienne specializing in improvisation.

She serenaded us with the likes of Gershwin’s Someone to Watch Over Me, and old favorites like How High the Moon and Cry Me A River. Dotted through the set were some improvised songs that called to the audience for words and inspiration. That treated us to a song about a minivan and how boring it was to drive. Nicely done, Sinez! Nicely done.

You remember the beat poets, right? Jack Kerouac, maybe a muted coronet or a brushed snare drum? My first introduction to the beatnik was Maynard G. Crebs. Remember him from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis … no? Bob Denver pre-Gilligan? How about a more contemporary example; an only slightly popular Mike Myers movie, So I Married an Axe Murderer … no? Steve Bushemi in Hudsucker Proxy? Never mind.

In those cases the poet was more of a cartoon and the poetry so damn-the-electric-fence over the top you couldn’t imagine how to cut through all the pretensions let alone see the form ever be taken seriously.

However, Ms. Sedivy and Mr. Roderick completely ripped it up! They so expertly wove a fabric of jazz and verse together that one could only park a collective jaw on the floor and listen with a smile on your face.

Sedivy’s verse was poignant, witty, clever … sans cliché and delivered with a meter that perfectly embraced Roderick’s unassuming accompaniment. It was warm and personal, engaging and truthful. You’ve got to see Leslie perform her poetry at your earliest convenience. Until then, make sure you listen to her offerings at Sound Cloud and keep chanting, "gotta see her live, gotta see her live."

As far as I’m concerned, she’s single-handedly keeping the English language alive.

Leslie Sedivy takes a bow at the end her set at TORCH.

My hat's off to Sean Roderick. He put together a full month of excellent music and entertainment at TORCH in his curatory debut. Brava! We'll be back.

Davu Seru — Just That Moment

Davu Seru, Nelson Devereaux & Devon Gray

I've been working on this quite a while now and I'm still not sure if I've got it right: "improvisation being the sincerest form of expression." Hmm ... got a nice beat, easy to dance to. I really don't know squat about jazz. Oh, sure, I've gotten the cursory introduction to Miles, Monk, even Klemmer, Walcott, Corea and Jarrett; but never live improvised jazz. Jazz improvisation has always been a reservation for me, an enigma that was far more than I wanted to think about.

Back when I'd geek out about the Guthrie and doing theatuhhh, I once read an interesting observation from Garland Wright which might be appropriate. Essentially, Garland was pointing out that going to the theater was a conscious decision made by audience and actors to engage in the event. An event that is precious and will never happen again. He meant that the people, once in that place, for that happening, in that moment can never be truly replicated. This is what made a night with Davu Seru, Nelson Devereaux, and Devon Gray an exception.

Davu Seru

Nelson Devereaux

Devon Gray

I confronted the band after their set and asked, "is that repeatable?" in my most admittedly novice manner. All three welcomed my question and were very accommodating; appreciative that I asked and willing to assure me that at least the form was repeatable. All three instructed me they had just gotten together for the evening ... they knew each other. I'm not even sure they had actually played together before. It didn't matter. I was there at that moment.

Piano + Poetry + A Sultry Night at TORCH = Lulu Blue

Lulu Blue — the Burlesque Poet of Minnesota

Allow me to introduce Leslie Sedivy better known as Lulu Blue; the Burlesque Poet of Minnesota.* She's a blithe spirit with a sharp clip and a confidence that belies all other English Majors I've ever met. But, can I say something? She's giving life back to a deeply rooted aural tradition that is decidedly lacking in mainstream entertainment. She's doesn't tell stories but paints them with her voice, with great insights into the phrasing and texture which is our spoken word. Lulu Blue at Sound Cloud.

She received her BA in English from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities and specializes in incorporating her passion for Marxist and Feminist theory into her work.

Since 2010, she has performed as the poet laureate of the Le Cirque Rouge Cabaret and Burlesque Show, directed by Amy Buchanan, where she recites her verse accompanied by the Le Cirque Rouge House Band, an accomplished jazz quartet. Leslie heads the experimental jazz duo "Stanzic," in which she collaborates with the very talented pianist and TORCH Jazz Curator, Sean Roderick.

Joining Lulu Blue will be Seniz Yargici Lennes who will be performing her "Jazz Singer Lady" accompanied by Mr. Roderick on the piano. Seniz is a well known Twin Cities actor/improvisor, arts and family educator and international songstress. Partial to themes of jazzy love and loss, she has graced the prestigious stages of local venues such as Vegas Lounge, the Uptown VFW, Nye's Polonaise, and her car. She will be performing styles of the 30's through the 50's and oh yeah ... the TORCH series will be her professional singing debut.

Tickets for this event are available at Event Brite: Ladies Night with Seniz Yargici Lennes and Leslie Sedivy

* There might be an oxymoron of some kind there … being the "Burlesque Poet of Minnesota." Burlesque suggests a certain lack of attire which is something you can't afford a lack of in Minnesota. Food for thought.

Alan Tilson One-Man King Lear: Poor Lear

I’ve known Alan for a long time. Albeit, our paths don’t cross much since his is through Kansas City and mine through Minneapolis. None-the-less, we spent a summer together doing Merry Wives of Windsor for the Minnesota Shakespeare Company back in the early nineties.

Recently I sat down with my friend over some coffee and we chatted about his exploits and in particular, Poor Lear. Now, I’ve got some intimate familiarity with Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, King Lear and wanted to know how the “Poor” version came about.

Alan had been working in the Kansas City theater scene for quite some time coming to the realization it was not offering him enough opportunity to perform Shakespeare; unless of course he could get cast at Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. For the most part, Kansas City theater only has the one place producing Shakespeare … thee place to produce Shakespeare. Other theaters don’t even allow Shakespeare monologs for audition pieces!

Armed with 50 monologues from Shakespeare’s text, Alan had no place to showcase his arsenal. He started performing what he coined as “Shitty Shakespeare” which took the form of Shakespeare roulette. The first line of each monolog was written on a piece of paper and the audience would draw them from a hat. Randomly, he’d perform the result. As amazing as that was, after the first four or five passages, the audience was over it and ready to move on.

“I needed a story for the audience to engage and stay engaged,” mused Alan. “I had always been disturbed by the recurring theme of misogyny in Lear and that anxiety just gnawed at me begging to be explored. So, I started memorizing King Lear.”

Alan found himself rehearsing Lear by the river front, a quiet, less traveled sanctuary, as he went about learning the story. He struggled to find a context in which to give Shakespeare’s tragedy and admits he hadn’t noticed the homeless whose retreat he found himself invading … “then it struck me like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist. The Homeless! There’s my context!”

“My goal has always been to strip the pretensions from Shakespeare and make something the audience can relate to. I worked with a director through nine drafts of the text whittling the story and its language down to the bare essentials,” Alan continued.

“I had heard that Alan Cumming was re-staging his one man adaptation of MacBeth. I hightailed it to New York and caught a performance. That answered a lot of questions on the how’s and why’s for Poor Lear.”

Poor Lear is a one-man re-imagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear from a military veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A prop filled grocery cart holds all the surprises that lead to his homelessness. Producer/actor Alan Tilson, in association with Escape2Create, will present four performances of Poor Lear in the TORCH Courtyard June 5 - 8.

Poor Lear was originally produced in partnership with the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre as a benefit for the Homeless Services Coalition of Greater Kansas City in association with Kansas City Episcopal Community Services. Tilson and Poor Lear were selected from national application for an Artist-In-Residency with Escape2Create in Seaside, Florida for the month of February, 2014. Internationally acclaimed E2C’s month long residencies have advanced the role of the artist and the experience of art as a valued component of community life for 21 years.

Tilson is a member of the Acting Core Ensemble with Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, in Kansas City, MO. He has acted in 18 MET productions including Main Stage, the Library Script-In-Hand series, and has toured with MET’s The Hindu & the Cowboy for seven years.

He has performed in the Kansas City area with the Missouri/Kansas City Repertory Theater, Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, Theatre for Young America, in Titus Andronicus, The Accidental Waiter & Accidental Holiday at the Living Room Theater, The Country of the Blind Coterie Theater tour of Kansas, and in the title role of Moliere’s The Miser at Union Station City Stage.

Tilson has worked regionally with the Oregon and Colorado Shakespeare Festivals, four years with the Minnesota Shakespeare Company in Minneapolis, and with the Black Hills Playhouse in Custer, SD.

By the way … did I mention he is also a retired Episcopal priest!?! Just thought I’d let you know.

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