Winter Bluegrass Weekend
photo by Joe Flannigan
3/1 Pink Floyd’s The Wall: A Rock Ballet
The Twin Cities Ballet of Minnesota debuts a dance version of Pink Floyd’s Orwellian 1979 concept album The Wall, translating the rock opera’s anti-establishment angst into today’s social fears at Minneapolis’ Cowles Center.
3/1 (Mid)West of Somalia
Part of a monthly documentary series, (Mid)West of Somalia shows at the new St. Peter High School, featuring the freshly Minnesotan stories of Somali-American millennials figuring out careers, navigating everyday discrimination, and speaking to their reasons for wearing a hijab.
3/2–4 Winter Bluegrass Weekend
This three-day, three-stage show of 40-some local bands at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Plymouth features a big-name Saturday headliner, plus jam sessions for those learning how to pick.
3/3–4 Minnesota Monthly’s Food & Wine Show
Big-name chefs, winemakers, and brewers take over Target Field in Minneapolis for a weekend of the Cities’ best bites and sips—plus a huge cheese display and wine seminars for aficionados.
3/4 Trout Derby and Picnic
Winter trout fishing ends the first of April, making this contest on Gunflint Lake in Grand Marais a good-natured embrace of the mid-season, featuring an afternoon of fish burgers, hot dogs, brats, and anything else you can barbecue.
3/6–13 Corduroy
A teddy bear’s lost button compromises his commercial desirability—and that kicks off the department-store adventure of Corduroy, coming to the Children’s Theatre Company Stage in Minneapolis.
3/10 Bedrace for Bridging
Riding inflatable mattresses down Buck Hill in Burnsville raises money for the largest non-profit furniture bank in the country—so don’t feel bad treating these would-be-beds as toboggans for this 20-year-old event.
3/10–18 Twin Cities Auto Show
On the Minneapolis Convention Center first floor, Luxury Lane shines with upscale models—Mercedes, Cadillacs, Aston Matins. A driving simulator virtually puts you behind the wheel, while a real-life “off-road adrenaline rush” takes those raring to go through Jeep’s indoor obstacle course.
3/11 Dog Days of Winter
Winter isn’t over—though it is warming away. Send it off with a snowman contest, skijoring races, and dogsled derbies on the Gunflint Trail, the scenic Grand Marais byway along the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
3/16–18 NCAA Women’s Frozen Four
Minneapolis’ Ridder Arena hosts the semi-finals and finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Women’s Ice Hockey Championships—hopefully with our Duluth team in tow.
3/17–31 Rigoletto
The melody Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi wrote for “La donne è mobile” is as iconic as any pop song—but do you know the tragic three-act story surrounding it? The Minnesota Opera has fitted its production, at the Ordway in St. Paul, with the tagline “A Fool’s Revenge.”
3/23 Art Crawl St. Cloud
In 2016, St. Cloud was named among the “Top 20 Most Vibrant Arts Communities in America” for small cities by the National Center for Arts Research. No wonder: It holds four art crawls a year. For spring, local artists fill 30-some shops and exhibit on the historic downtown streets.
3/25 A Woman’s Role
The Bemidji Symphony Orchestra celebrates 80 years of quality classical music in northern Minnesota with New York City Ballet Orchestra cellist Hannah Holman, who debuts a concert highlighting famous women cellists.
3/25 First Contact Through Each Other’s Eyes
Daphie Pooyak Yeoman, a Nakota-Cree teacher of Native American traditions, collaborates with Shane Orthmann Gothi, an artist inspired by Norse mythology, to tell of the first contact between Cree and Nordic cultures, at Minneapolis’ American Swedish Institute.
