Dance Alert!

Dessa

with Aby Wolf and Eric Mayson

Saturday, June 15, 2024
Doors Open: 5:30PM
Show: 7:30PM

Tickets: $29/$39/$44

Blue Canvas Club Presale: Tue, Apr 2, 2024 - 12:00PM CT
General Public Sale: Tue, Apr 9, 2024 - 12:00PM CT

Sponsored by: G. Dahlberg | WXPR

"Language was my first love," says Dessa, and her work as a musician, writer, and speaker is studded with memorable turns of phrase. Her style is also defined by empathetic curiosity--an interest in finding unlikely connections between seemingly disparate people and ideas. Over the course of her career, she’s partnered with neuroscientists, shadow puppeteers, a dentist, a traveling circus, and musicians of all stripes: subway bucket drummers, flamenco palmas, a Chinese pipa master, and a Zimbabwean mbira player. Her work on stage and on the page is often funny, usually clever, and sometimes melancholy: poignancy tempered by wry wit delivered in a cocktail dress paired with combat boots.

Dessa’s musical career began in earnest when she was asked to join Minneapolis’ Doomtree collective, the hip-hop crew known for bold production, charismatic lyricists, and explosive live shows. She started touring hard as a solo act after her 2010 release  A Badly Broken Code . Since then, she’s worked across sounds and styles; her albums include rap bangers; acappella arrangements; and big, catchy pop hooks. On the invitation of Lin-Manuel Miranda, she contributed a track to gold record  The HamiltonMixtape . She’s also co-composed work for full choirs and cut a live album with the GRAMMY-winning Minnesota Orchestra. 

Dessa grew up in the 80s in South Minneapolis as a strong-willed, cerebral, sometimes troubled kid. Both parents were musical—her father played classical guitar and the medieval lute; her mom came up in the Bronx in an apartment where someone (or everyone) was constantly singing. In school, Dessa was studious, with special interest in biological science and creative writing. After earning a philosophy degree, she began competing on the slam poetry circuit where she connected with members of the local hip hop scene. Her songs are the product of this nonconventional trajectory: she remains part academic and part hip hop artist, with moments of playful braggadocio offset by flashes of arresting candor. Dessa’s formative professional years were spent adhering to the DIY model of indie artists: passing flyers hand to hand, touring the world in a grimy van, and learning how to run a business from her backpack. She’s now performed at gritty underground rock clubs in Central Europe; velvet-lined theaters in Australia and China; standing a top a chair in South Africa, and at top-tier festivals like Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, and Riot Fest.

Between tours, and sometimes backstage, Dessa continued to write poems, essays, and short stories. Her written work has been published inthe New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, and in literary journals around the country. She’s released three short literary collections, most recently  Tits on the Moon , a collection of stage poems published by Rain Taxi and Doom tree Press. Her short fiction has been published in The Iowa Review and her first audio play was produced by 45 North in London. In 2018, Dutton Books (Penguin Random House) published Dessa’s memoir,  My Own Devices , which tells the story of her life, career, and an ambitious plan to fall out of love. She delivered a TED Talk in Hong Kong titled “Can We Choose to Fall out Love?” that has notched more than 4 million views. 

Across formats, Dessa’s work embodies ferocity, intelligence, and tenderness. NPR’s All Songs Considered hailed her as a “a national treasure.” The LA Times says simply she “sounds like no one else.” You can listen to her music—including her 2023 full-length album Bury the Lede —read her writing, and check out the tour schedule at  dessawander.com  or find her on Instagram as Dessa, and on Facebook and Twitter as dessadarling.

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Dessa - Hurricane Party (Official Music Video)

Supporting Dessa is Aby Wolf and Eric Mayson. Aby Wolf is a Minneapolis-based vocalist, music maker, and passionate collaborator with an elastic skillset. Whether writing vocal arrangements, fulfilling commissions, or performing in clubs, theaters, and schools everywhere from Brainerd to Bratislava to Beijing, Aby brings a palpable element of joy to whatever endeavor she pursues.

Composer, collaborator, and multi-instrumentalist Eric Mayson has an insatiable curiosity that pulls him in many directions. He works with theatres and dance companies, bands and orchestras, and loves playing Dungeons and/or Dragons and reading history. In 2019 he began training for a new career in aviation and now works as a flight instructor in Mankato. Music, however, will always be his home.

Eric and Aby first crossed paths over a pre-show plate of takoyaki at a Manhattan izakaya in 2013; Aby was on tour with Dessa, Eric was on tour with Caroline Smith, and both artists were getting their road legs in supporting roles. Countless collaborations later, Aby and Eric link up onstage to support one another in an effervescent kinship, holding the room rapt throughout their progressive duo set: a dynamic body of music borne of a marathon fever-dream writing session inspired by MacLean's triune brain model of vertebrate forebrain evolution, the deliciously trippy sci-fi horror film Annihilation, and tequila.

Aby Wolf and Eric Mayson - Permission (Live)