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MN Shortlist is your weekly curated roundup of recommended events from MPR News, highlighting standout performances, exhibits and gatherings around the region.
FinnFest in Duluth
July 31 through Aug. 3 — Food, saunas and music make up a five-day festival focused on Finnish culture. For more than 40 years, FinnFest has offered an opportunity to learn about and experience Finnish culture. Seminars on languages, folk dance lessons and film screenings are also on tap for the festival.
FinnFest isn’t limited to Finnish culture — it also hosts events for other Nordic groups, including the Sámi, an Indigenous people from the far north of Norway, Sweden and Finland. (Jacob Aloi)
‘DIVAS & DRAG IV: off Off OFF Broadway’ at Jungle Theater
Aug. 1 – 4 — At south Minneapolis’ Jungle Theater this weekend, local drag and opera artists perform hits from popular operas and musicals. “DIVAS & DRAG IV: off Off OFF Broadway” by An Opera Theatre showcases the art of drag and the spectacle of opera. It will feature mashups from “RENT,” “La Bohème,” “West Side Story” and “Romeo and Juliet” (both Gounod’s and Bellini’s versions).
Founded in 2018, An Opera Theatre aims to break down barriers around classical music by building community and showcasing socially relevant work. Based in the Twin Cities, it hosts this event to celebrate self-expression and spotlight top talent from the local opera and drag scenes. (Anika Besst)
‘Ordinary Days’ at St. Croix Festival Theatre
Aug. 2 – 17 — St. Croix Festival Theatre’s new musical, opening Saturday, follows four young New Yorkers as they navigate love, ambition and life in the city. “Ordinary Days“ by Adam Gwom blends down-to-earth storytelling with lively music.
New York may be bigger and more complex than any Minnesota city, but by showing how 8.3 million lives collide in unexpected ways, the musical reminds us that community can make any place feel like home. (Anika Besst)
Louis Lee book event at Magers & Quinn
Aug. 4 — Louis Lee came from China to Minnesota as a teenager. He started as a busboy and eventually became a comedy club owner in Minneapolis — until debt and a lack of customers forced him to pause. He worked tirelessly to revive his dream and ultimately created one of Minneapolis’s most beloved venues: Acme Comedy Company.
On Monday, Lee is sharing tales from his life that were captured in the book “Home Club” at Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis. “Home Club” is by comedy reporter Patrick Strait. The book captures the fall and rise of Acme, along with Lee’s commitment to providing a creative haven for comedians. (Anika Besst)
Charlie Parr at Electric Fetus
Aug. 5 — Minnesotan Charlie Parr, known for his folksy voice and string-driven blues, has built a national following. He is also the author of the book “Five,” a collection of five stories which Parr describes as “droning, unending descriptions of Mundane people’s lives” on his website.
Parr will read from the book at Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, where he will also perform. The event is free and open to all ages. (Jacob Aloi)
Cat Video Fest Returns
Through Aug. 14 — Remember when the Walker Art Center hosted the first Internet Cat Video Fest on its rolling greens in 2012? I sure do. Ten-thousand people cozied up on blankets on the hill, many with their leashed cats in tow. A significant number of adults dressed as cats; they meowed, purred and hissed at the screen. It was the year an existential tuxedo cat stole our hearts: “Henri, le Chat Noir” took home the People’s Choice award, the Golden Kitty. The New York Times even took note that the Walker fest had successfully harnessed a universal truth of the internet: “cat video was king.”
Puzzlingly, the Walker ended the popular event after four years, but cat video is still king, and, luckily, other outfits have taken up the mantle. Oscilloscope Laboratories, an independent film distributor out of New York, presents CatVideoFest 2025, Aug. 1–4, in theaters nationwide. There’s a handy map of participating venues with many across Minnesota, including The Main in Minneapolis, Zeitgeist Zinema 2 in Duluth, Mann Lakes 12 in Baxter and Pop’s Art Theater in Rochester.
Still yearning for something like the outdoor communal cat cinema lover’s experience presented by the Walker? Head to CHS Field in St. Paul. On Aug. 14, the St. Paul Saints and the Twin Cities Film Fest bring back the Cat Video Fest, after making a faux-paw last year by opening it up to all pets.
“We heard your pleas, your cries, and we have the (cat) scratch marks to prove it,” the press release says, and we “are bringing back the widely popular and solely focused Cat Video Festival.” Attendees can bring their kitties, on leash, to the ballpark. Viva le Cat Cinema! (Alex V. Cipolle)
Nancy Carlson Exhibit at Grand Marais Artist Colony
Through Aug. 31 — The Grand Marais Artist Colony opens an art exhibition Aug. 1 by Nancy Carlson, the children’s book author and illustrator of such classics as “Harriet’s Halloween Candy” and “I Like Me!” This collection of artworks, featuring women alone in nature and at home, explores themes like loss, hardship, healing and loneliness. (Alex V. Cipolle)
Alys Ayumi Ogura Residency at Lanesboro Arts
Through Sept. 16 — The Twin Cities dancer and storyteller Alys Ayumi Ogura starts her artist-in-residence Aug. 1 at Lanesboro Arts, an arts organization based in Southeast Minnesota. Beginning Aug. 7, Ogura, who is also a 2025–2028 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, will host a series of free movement workshops and events rooted in yoga and modern and folk dance.
She will also develop new episodes of the “YumiVerse,” an art platform that Ogura says she started to “share narratives centered on the marginalized voices of Asian women like her while celebrating the richness and generosity of the American Midwest.”
The residency will culminate with a YumiVerse performance Sept. 13 at the St. Mane Theatre. Originally from Japan, Ogura learned from her late dance mentor Mika Kurosawa, considered the “godmother” of Japanese contemporary dance. (Alex V. Cipolle)
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