Nordic Roots Dance

I have been working with Kari Tauring for a few years now; playing music together (voices, stick percussion, bass, dulcimer, laptop) and various tech projects. About five years ago, she began making pieces (a book and iOS app) based in her Norwegian heritage. Her latest is the Nordic Roots Dance Project, integrating traditional dance forms from Norway with the runic alphabets and traditional songs. For the winter and spring seasons, a series of four workshops designed for all ages teaches dance, songs and seasonal traditions, culminating in a holiday party (coming up in Minneapolis on December 18th, 2011 and highlighted by Minnesota Public Radio’s Art Hounds). Karin Odell of Venus Designs created the logo and initial look-and-feel; I spun it out to a very simple website using the Blueprint CSS framework, with links to PDFs of the course curriculum and some associated print pieces. When the project is complete, the site will be expanded to include video of all the course material. This entire project was made possible by a Folk and Traditional Arts grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, funded in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment. Thank you, Minnesota! … Continue reading

Record Show Saturday

Tomorrow is the Minnesota Record Show at the VFW Hall on Lyndale Avenue in South Minneapolis. For the past couple years, I’ve been dragging myself out of bed way too early, filling the car with records, and hanging out all day with a roomful of vinyl fans. The show was started in 1992 by the late James “Hymie” Peterson (whose name lives on) and Rich Shelton; it’s currently run by Tom Novak, with sponsorship from community radio station KFAI where I was a DJ many years ago. Encouraged by vinyl guru John Kass, I started selling at the show around two years ago. Once day I tried to look up the date of the next show on my iPhone — but I could not get the information because the old website was all Flash. This sounded like a project…   Today, Tom’s running the whole thing himself, streaming rare Midwest 45s from his collection, and setting up the countdown clock for the next record show.   To help get the word out, I redesigned the show postcard, keeping the original hand-drawn graphics, adding the Eatwell Chubby and Eatwell Skinny fonts by Chank.   Made with wordpress.com (Benevolence theme), Quark Xpress, Adobe CS.  … Continue reading