Graphic: MinneCulture Podcast, Season 5: Minnesota History

MinneCulture Podcast on KFAI

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Ep. 28: When the Gay 90’s Came Out

Season 5 is OUT! Listen at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, PodMN and at Soundcloud below:

This summer on the MinneCulture Podcast, it’s all about Minnesota History. As we kick-off Season 5 during Pride month, we celebrate one of the first well-known venues in the Twin Cities exuberantly claimed by gay men, a nightclub called The Gay 90’s in downtown Minneapolis

The Gay 90’s hasn’t always been gay. The bar began as a supper club for a straight crowd. It opened in the 1950s and the name was a reference to an earlier decade, the 1890s.

Then, in 1975, the vibe changed in a big way. The owners of the Gay 90s bought a disco ball, hired DJs, and turned the 90s into a club catering to gay men.

In this episode, we share an original KFAI documentary, “Fly Robin Fly: The Story of that Disco-Crazed Moment when the Gay 90s Came Out of the Closet and Embraced Its Name,” by KFAI’s Todd Melby. You’ll hear a history of the bar featuring some of the people who worked, danced and connected at the Gay 90s.

For the rest of Season 5, hear Minnesota history stories about gay bars, activism, Black architecture, polka, murder, cartoons, the BWCA and more.

Connect with KFAI’s MinneCulture editorial team at legacy[at]kfai.org. Arts press releases, underwriting opportunities and story ideas are always welcome.

Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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MinneCulture | ‘Dear Neighbor,’ This Poster Is for You

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University Avenue in St. Paul has become the canvas for a new public art project called “Dear Neighbor.” Spearheading the project is the gallery XIAART, run by the Asian Economic Development Association. Located in the heart of Frogtown, the gallery is uniquely positioned to use art as a way to make sense of the deep problems faced by the Twin Cities.

The project pairs together Black, Indigenous, Asian, Desi, and Latinx artists and writers.  They’ve created a series of posters displayed on businesses, homes, and libraries along University Avenue and the Green Line Light Rail. Writer Adlyn Carreras was paired with visual artist Gita Ghei. For their poster, Carreras wanted to create a message for unity.

“…I felt that here in St. Paul, not a lot of attention was given to the destruction and what was happening,” says Carreras. “And to me, this felt kind of like a little way to tell my neighborhood to unify and to come together after all this has happened and to just be together and move forward together.”

Listen to our story by KFAI’s Sheila Regan.

Images courtesy of XIAART and Sheila Regan. To see the posters, visit dear-neighbor.com. Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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Emily Michaels King rolls on her back in the dark, holding a microphone, lit by one single light on the floor

MinneCulture | Emily Michaels King and Her Digital Detritus for the Zoom Era

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Performance artist Emily Michaels King has a new production called Digital, which invites the audience into the bedroom, into the computer screen, and into the body for an immersive virtual experience fit for the zoom era. King’s Digital is inspired by nostalgia, family history, and something she calls “bloodline.”

“You just get these flavors of movies or songs that really influenced me as a kid,” says King. “There’s also created soundscapes of mine that use some body sounds, so like stomach digesting. And then also digital sounds typing and internal processing of computers.”

Listen here:

Photos courtesy of Emily Michaels King. Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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MinneCulture | Can You Dig It? Shaft Turns 50

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Before Shaft, badass movie detectives were white. Shaft starred Richard Roundtree as a black detective, prowling New York City’s tough streets, saving lives and taking no guff, especially from ‘The Man.’ Directed by Gordon Parks, who spent part of his youth in Minnesota, Shaft was a huge hit in 1971. This seminal film turns 50 this year. KFAI’s Todd Melby reports.

Listen:

Support for MinneCulture on KFAI is made possible by the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.

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MinneCulture | The Evolution of Singer-songwriter Gaelynn Lea

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Duluth-based independent musician Gaelynn Lea made headlines when she won National Public Radio’s Tiny Desk Contest in 2016. But she almost didn’t enter the contest that changed her life. Several years later, Lea’s music has been heard by millions and some of her wildest musical dreams have come true. But as a touring artist with a disability, Lea has to deal with a world that is not set up for her, so she recently decided to take matters into her own hands. KFAI’s Nancy Rosenbaum reports.

Listen here:

Photo courtesy of Paul Vienneau. Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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Annie Mack looks down, wearing long tight braids and a gold necklace against a gray backdrop.

MinneCulture | Singer-Songwriter Annie Mack Finds Her Truth in The Blues

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Singer songwriter Annie Mack does it all, from powerhouse blues to New Americana and beyond, highlighting her unique vocal presence and original songs. She released two new singles in 2020, “Shadows of a Kingdom” and “Judge and Jury.” Her new EP Testify dropped in January 2021. She is also featured in the book 50 Women in the Blues (Supernova Books, 2020). This story was produced by Dixie Treichel.

Listen here.

Photo by Shelly Mosman. MinneCulture on KFAI is made possible by the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Fund.

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Patrons of Pi Bar fill the crowded dance floor

MinneCulture | Ty Yule Remembers Pi: “The Dyke Bar of Our Dreams”

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Pi Bar infused the Twin Cities with an ecstatic, high energy jolt of queerness for the year and a half it was open. The bar was dreamed up in 2006 and established in South Minneapolis in 2007. They catered to lesbians and queer women, but was also open to the entire LGBTQ scene, making its embrace of the transgender community explicit.

In his recent memoir, Chemically Enhanced Butch, former Pi proprietor Ty Yule reflects on Pi’s brief but impactful existence in the Twin Cities. KFAI’s Sheila Regan reports. Listen below.

Lower photo by by Kim Thompson. Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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Checkerboard pattern of DejaJoelle, Shannon Blowtorch, MinneCulture Logo, two Hmong rappers,

MinneCulture | Most Memorable Stories of 2020

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Ugh. 2020.

What an onslaught. And yet Minnesota artists persisted, creating and sharing amidst the constraints of isolation, disease and social injustice. MinneCulture producers at KFAI found innovative ways to work around the pandemic and through the unrest, connecting us with timely art and history stories from around the state. The year was terrible, but the work was a triumph. Here are our editors’ picks for Most Memorable Stories of 2020.

The year started in ordinary fashion—Minnesotan artists doing their thing, KFAI producers sharing their stories. Producer Anna Stitt gave us a beautiful story about the Voices of Hope women’s prison choir, Emily Bright brought us a story about a Hmong hip-hop artist who performed alongside his grandma, Dixie Treichel introduced us to interdisciplinary artist and dancer DejaJoelle, and KFAI program director Mason Butler profiled a film fest that actually encourages audiences to heckle.

But around mid-March, with the arrival of the novel coronavirus and the drop of an executive order, the live events industry all but vanished. Many local artists rallied and moved their work online, like DJ Shannon Blowtorch and MPLS Adonia. Their Tuesday night installations of “Quarantine Live: Online Dance Party” caught the attention of KFAI’s Dixie Treichel, who filed this bumpin’ audio portrait.

During the stay-at-home orders, Polish American artist and MCAD professor Piotr Szyhalski turned to drawing. Working in his basement, he responded to news reports about the pandemic by making incisive drawings that utilize sharply drawn humor to criticize America’s response to the coronavirus crisis. KFAI’s Sheila Regan filed this report.

Season 3 of the MinneCulture Podcast rebooted with original interviews and audio dairies, sharing pandemic stories from a poet, a dancer, a rapper, and a chef. Then on May 25, Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. Protests and unrest swept the Twin Cities. The podcast team hit the streets to find out how artists would respond and what art might emerge from the destruction of entire blocks in the Twin Cities. KFAI’s Nancy Rosenbaum, Anna Stitt, Emily Bright, Melissa Olson and Ryan Dawes produced this podcast episode.

Musician Taylor Seaberg lived just blocks from 38th and Chicago where Floyd was killed. They organized and co-produced a BIPOC community album featuring artists who performed at Floyd’s memorial site. On the album is a track called “Pandemonium” written in response to both the pandemic and the killing of Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. Again, KFAI’s Sheila Regan was on it.

The History Theater in St. Paul was slated to stage the world premier of a new musical in May, but COVID-19 wrecked that plan. We did a story on it anyway. Emily Bright filed this one about the historic controversy that inspired “Runestone: The Rock Musical.” By far, this story had the most lively comments section on our facebook page. Who knew a rock might inspire such debate?

June is documentary season at KFAI’s MinneCulture and this year’s crop brought us excellent storytelling on Minnesota arts and history. As 2020 brought the centennial anniversary of both Prohibition and Suffrage, Fulbright fellow and podcaster Katie Thornton revealed how the two movements were intertwined. Here’s “A Brief History of Women in Bars: A Minnesota Story in Three Rounds.”

Then, producer Anna Stitt unveiled her gigantic storytelling feat, “Fighting Back: The Rise of Anti-Racist Action in Minneapolis,” chronicling the rise of anti-racist skinheads who organized to fight white power movements in the Twin Cities. Told through vivid first-person accounts, archival audio, and music from the era, Anna’s doc starts under the railroad tracks in Uptown, Minneapolis and traces a movement that continues to shape the U.S. to this day.

James Napoli’s documentary “Stay Young, Go Dancing” reminded us of the warm embrace of a maskless dance partner in his oral history of one of the Midwest’s most revered polka venues, the Gibbon Ballroom. Dive into the polka scene of rural Minnesota right now. It’ll make you grin.

Returning to the present and the pandemic, as COVID summer 2020 wrapped up, Paul Brohaugh from KFAI’s Poetry, Science and Wrestling brought us a story about an aquatic twist on the drive-in theater. This story features a brief cameo by a cat in a canoe. Listen here:

And lastly, Colleen Cowie reported on the First Love Project, sharing a the story behind a labor love organized by musicians and fans in support of the famed First Avenue.

Thank you to all our producers, the KFAI staff, community radio listeners and the artists who make our work so rewarding.

Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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