Fall Arts Preview

On the cover of City Pages this week you'll find a fanciful summer-like scene created by internationally famous artist Peter Max exclusively for this issue. Take a good, long look, because it may be the last image of summer you'll see for a while. Fall is on the way, and you can say goodbye to green grass and short-sleeve weather. But you can also say hello to a jam-packed season for the arts.

It is no accident of the calendar that Minnesota's theaters, art galleries, and performance halls come alive about the time that nature is dying. Summer is a time for physical pleasures—for trips to the lake, walks in the park, working the yard. But as days grow short, our thoughts venture inward, and our activities turn contemplative and creative. Every year we celebrate this artistic resurgence with our Fall Arts Preview. On the following pages you'll find a comprehensive guide to the coming season in theater, dance, visual arts, music, film, and more. You'll also find profiles of several local artists—slam poets, a choreographer, a literary journal editor, and two theater directors—doggedly pursuing their unique artistic visions against long odds.

We should be grateful for those creative visions—and the visionaries behind them. In their absence, it would be a long, cold winter indeed.

FALL ARTS FEATURETTES:

• Slam poetry, rowdy and growing

• Copperhead: Brutal Beauty

• Catching the Red Eye to theater innovation

• Hailing Rain Taxi for years of service