Ice shanties return Jan. 21-Feb. 12

After a successful festival with pandemic and climate change adaptations last winter, Art Shanty Projects is returning to the frozen water of Bdé Umán/ Lake Harriet in South Minneapolis Jan. 21 through Feb. 12, 2023. Public hours are 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday.
The program offerings this year include 18 shanties (15 of them new) and more than 20 rotating performance groups. Lavelle explains, “While every shanty is open during all public hours, we also feature a rotating lineup of artists doing a variety of time-based, activist, interactive, wacky, sweet, experimental, climate-conscious, DIY, totally shantastic activities throughout the in-between spaces.”
Many projects are movement-based, which helps keep both audiences and artists warm outside. The opening weekend features a new contemporary skating performance from American Ice Theatre (ICE. COLD. JAZZ!). Their performance last year drew cheering crowds on the festival’s first-ever official rink and skating performance. Between their sets they will host an open skate; BYO-skates or borrow some from the artists. Don’t miss weekly yoga in your snowsuits on Saturdays (fro-gahhh: yoga for the planet and the people) or the weekly dance parties on Sundays (Pollinator Frenzy). The festival closes out with community games from Twin Cities Native Lacrosse (Thakápsicapi).
As visitors roam the village they may be greeted by an opera ensemble (Frigid Airs), feel their body resonate to the sound of taiko drums (Taiko on Ice), join in a klezmer party (Klezmer on Ice), or harmonize with one another at weekly singalongs from Good Trouble and Sarina Partridge (Subzero Singalong: Community Sing on Ice). Nick Knutson (of past shanties -7° Entry Danceteria and Rock Box) is teaming up with Jei Herald-Zamora (AKA DJ Gwiingwans) to create Booom Box, a project that hosts live bands, performers, and DJs in a boom box shaped structure that includes a cassette-tape drawbridge door. Techno from the Sun will be a solar-powered, interactive, electronic music project where visitors can manipulate light to add to what the resident DJ is doing. Archive of Collective Memory (also solar powered) is using heat sensors to observe movement and translate it into a record of corresponding sounds.
There will also be plein air painting, puppets, theatrical shows, a climate action, and some roving surprises, among other offerings. For more information, visit www.artshantyprojects.org.