MN Shortlist, Aug. 29-Sept. 4: Arts raffle for Annunciation families and more

MN Shortlist is your weekly curated roundup of recommended events from MPR News, highlighting standout performances, exhibits and gatherings around the region.

Fundraiser for families affected by Annunciation shooting

Ongoing — Staff at James Irving Salon are putting together a fundraiser to support the families and community members impacted by the recent mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis.

They’re collecting raffle donations from local makers, artists and businesses — things like prints, cards, candles, earrings and other handmade goods. The raffle and haircut fundraiser are planned for the week of Sept. 9, with all proceeds going to the larger relief fund organized by the city, the Minneapolis Foundation and the Annunciation community. (Max Sparber)

The Music of Thelonious Monk at Berlin Bar in Minneapolis

Aug. 29 — Known as the “high priest of bebop,” Thelonious Monk had a massive impact on jazz as a composer and performer. Known for compositions including “‘Round Midnight” and “Ruby, My Dear,” his works have become standards in the jazz canon.

A group of Twin Cities musicians will pay tribute to Monk’s work in a concert, “Straight, No Chaser: An Evening of Thelonious Monk.” The show takes place at Berlin in Minneapolis. (Jacob Aloi)

Duluth-Superior Pride Festival

Through Aug. 31 — The Twin Ports celebrates the 39th annual Duluth-Superior Pride Festival with a parade on Tower Ave. in Superior and many events at Duluth’s Bayfront Festival Park and other venues around town.

On the visual arts front, the Prøve Collective hosts an opening reception 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29, for “Magic Beings: A Duluth-Superior Pride Community Art Exhibition,” a show dedicated to “transformation, transcendence and the inherent magic of queer art existence”; and the Zeitgeist Arts Atrium will open the exhibition “ROY G BIV: a body of work” by artist Eris Vafias.

For performing arts, the local band Sadkin hosts an “art-pop dance party” Aug. 29 at Bent Paddle Brewing Company, and there will be several drag shows throughout the festival. For the railroad-inclined, board the “Foo Foo Choo Choo,” the Pride festival party train, for a 3-hour “disco” ride along Lake Superior. (Alex V. Cipolle)

‘Memory, Momentum, and Meaning: A Personal Reflection on Fifty Years in Dance’

Through Aug. 31 — Happening this weekend at the Elision Playhouse in Crystal is “Memory, Momentum, and Meaning: A Personal Reflection on Fifty Years in Dance.” This show blends the works of Ray Terrill, spanning five decades of artistry informed by curiosity, precision and discovery.

It includes performances by Ray Terrill and group numbers with Jack Fischer, Gabrielle Garcia, Megan Gibbins, Lillian Kline, Tessa Longshore, Katie Markey-Nash and Paulette Mattson. The Ray Terrill Dance Group, which moved to the Twin Cities in 1994, has been rooted in the local dance scene ever since. Terrill’s work is emotive and wide-ranging. (Anika Besst)

‘Timber! Art and Woodwork at the Fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’ at Mia

Aug. 30 - Jan. 11 — The early 20th-century Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele is known for his bold, frenetic and erotic portraits and nudes of himself and others. But the short-lived artist (he died in 1918 at the age of 28 from Spanish Flu) also did landscapes, including the haunting “Sawmill” from 1913.

“Sawmill” is on loan from a private collector to the Minneapolis Institute of Art for the free exhibition “Timber! Art and Woodwork at the Fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,” Aug. 30 through Jan. 11, 2026. The exhibition also features “avant-garde wooden furniture,” including the works of Schiele’s friend, designer and architect Josef Hoffmann.

“The ‘Sawmill’ is a painting that speaks to our contemporary concerns with resource extraction, imperial collapse and peripheral labor,” said Max Bryant, Mia curator of European decorative arts and sculpture. “It invites visitors to consider how something as beautiful and refined as a Hoffmann chair might trace its origin to a deforested hillside or dilapidated sawmill.”

Also at Mia: The exhibition “Mary Sully: Native Modern” closes Sept. 21. It’s the first solo show featuring Sully, a Yankton Dakota artist born on the Standing Rock Reservation who created groundbreaking abstract drawings from the 1920s to the 1940s. (Alex V. Cipolle)