Aszure Barton & Ambrose Akinmusire
A a | a B : B E N D

Coming Soon

Music, Choreography, Design

Described by NPR Music as “a trumpeter of deep expressive resources and a composer of kaleidoscopic vision,” Ambrose Akinmusire has made a home at the crossroads of different musical forms and languages, from post-bop and avant-garde jazz, to contemporary chamber music, and hip-hop to singer-songwriter aesthetics. He began recording for Blue Note in 2011, earning widespread acclaim for his albums When the Heart Emerges Glistening (produced by Jason Moran), The Imagined Savior is far Easier to Paint, A Rift in Decorum: Live at the VillageVanguard, Origami Harvest (Top Albums of 2018, The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times), and On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment (2021 Grammy nominee, Best Jazz Instrumental Album).

Akinmusire has also created music for film and television projects including the new Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal series Blindspotting; appeared as a featured soloist with the legendary artists Archie Shepp and Roscoe Mitchell; and made signal contributions to groundbreaking albums including Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, Brad Mehldau’s Finding Gabriel, and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. He also played on Joni Mitchell’s 2014 release Love Has Many Faces, and in 2018 accompanied Chaka Khan, James Taylor, and other luminaries honoring Mitchell in a gala concert documented on Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration. Akinmusire received his second Grammy nomination, this time for “Best Improvised Solo” on Carrington’s 2022 release, New Standards Vol 1. In 2024, Akinmusire signed to Nonesuch Records and released the critically acclaimed Owl Song—the first of three records Akinmusire will release over the next few years.

Aszure Barton is a choreographer, director, and innovator who began dancing at age 3. With training spanning from tap and African dance to Scottish Highland and character, she’s been producing dances since her days as a student at Canada’s National Ballet School. In the early 2000s, she founded Aszure Barton & Artists | AB&A—the core of her choreographic voice and an ongoing creative hub described by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts as “watching the physical unfurling of the human psyche.”

While AB&A remains her artistic home, Barton’s reach extends globally. She has collaborated with celebrated artists and companies such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, María Pagés, Cyndi Lauper, Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka), Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, English National Ballet, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Hamburg Ballet, Limón Dance Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, National Ballet of Canada, Nederlands Dans Theater, Sydney Dance Company, Teatro alla Scala, and others.

Among her celebrated works, Mere Mortals premiered at San Francisco Ballet in collaboration with DJ Floating Points and Hamill Industries, marking the first full-length ballet by a female choreographer in the company’s 90-year history. Barton is currently Resident Artist at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and will also become House Choreographer at Gauthier Dance at Theaterhaus Stuttgart in the 2025/26 season—partnerships that expand her choreographic web while remaining grounded in AB&A’s ethos. She has received numerous honors, including a Bessie Award for her work BUSK and the prestigious Arts & Letters Award. Barton was the first Martha Duffy Resident Artist at Baryshnikov Arts Center and is also an official ambassador of contemporary choreography in Canada.

Bonnie Beecher: Lighting Designer

Bonnie Beecher is an award-winning lighting designer from Toronto, Canada. She has designed the lighting for over 400 productions of theatre, opera, and dance. Her work has been seen in most theatres in Canada including The Shaw Festival, The Stratford Festival, The Canadian Opera, Opera Atelier, Soulpepper Theatre, The National Arts Centre, The National Ballet of Canada, Tarragon Theatre, The Segal, The Citadel, and Ballet British Columbia. International work includes lighting designs for The Dutch National Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, The Glimmerglass Opera, The Versailles Royal Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Royal Shakespeare Company, The New Zealand Opera, The Dortmund Ballet, The Royal Flanders Ballet, Ballet du Rhin in Mulhouse, The State Ballet of Georgia, and Ballet Im Revier in Germany.

Beecher also designed the lights for seven world premieres for The Stuttgart Ballet, and collaborated with the Kevin O’Day Ballet in Mannheim, Germany for 14 seasons from 2002 to 2016, where she designed the lighting for more than 25 world premieres for the company. Beecher has received 18 Dora Mavor Moore award nominations and has won the award twice.

Rémi van Bochove: Costume Designer

A graduate with a bachelor’s degree in fashion design from the École Supérieure de Mode, Rémi van Bochove was discovered with his first collection “Les Fleurs d’Opium” presented during the 2017 Fashion and Design Festival. To this day, the collection of Asian and futuristic inspiration has been a resounding success on the Montréal and international scene. Original, fluid, colorful, and sometimes cinematic, his creations have been seen in music videos and visuals of several performing artists including Louis-Jean Cormier, Philippe Dunnigan, Apashe, Pierre Kwenders, Mulay, Lubalin, Sarahmée, and many more. Van Bochove has created costumes for dance projects such as La Résistance by Lydia Bouchard and Merryn Kritzinger, Animal of Distinction by Dana Gingras, and Les chambres des Jacques by Barton for Ballets Jazz Montréal. Other creative projects range from C2 Montreal, to Sakuya Lumina by Moment Factory in Japan, and Attitude’s “Raise the Bar” campaign.

Nicole Pearce: Original Lighting & Stage Designer

Nicole Pearce is a multidisciplinary artist living in Queens, NY. Her work has been seen across the U.S., Cuba, England, Germany, Japan, Korea, Italy, New Zealand, and Russia. Recent works include The Look of Love choreographed by Mark Morris with the Mark Morris Dance Group, Catch Me If You Can directed by Molly Smith with Arena Stage (Helen Hayes Award Nomination), and Children’s Songs choreographed by Jessica Lang with American Ballet Theatre. Her installation of 1,000 paintings entitled Tiny Paintings for Big Hearts is open to doctors, nurses, staff, and patients of Elmhurst Hospital in Elmhurst, NY.

The Dancers

The Production Team

Tony Crawford: Production Manager

Tony Crawford is a technical director and production manager with more than 15 years of experience in dance and performing arts. Select experiences include Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (Operations and Production Manager), Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (Technical Director), Twyla Tharp Diamond Jubilee Tour (Production Stage Manager), New York City Ballet (Assistant Technical Director), and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Production Coordinator). Crawford also has a BS in geographic information science with an interest in conservation and resiliency of natural resources, and he restores and refinishes mid-century modern furniture.

Christopher Gilmore: Associate Lighting Designer

Christopher Gilmore designs for theatre, opera, dance, and live performance. Recent designs include El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered (American Modern Opera Company: Opera Omaha, Stanford Live, Yale Schwarzman Center, St. John The Divine), Boston Ballet School: Next Generation 2023 (Boston Ballet), Wine in the Wilderness (co-design Kathy Perkins, Two River Theatre), Seven Deadly Spins (La Jolla Music Society), Luke Hickey’s A Little Old, A Little New (The Joyce @ Chelsea Factory, American Dance Festival 2022, New Victory Dance Festival 2023), With Care (AMOC: 92Y), Ensemble Connect Up Close: Through Movement (Carnegie Hall), CAGE (AMOC), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (NYFA). Assistant/Associate: Siegfried (Virginia Opera), Only an Octave Apart (Spoleto Festival USA, Gate Theatre Dublin), La Bohème (Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Philadelphia), Harawi (AMOC: DeSingel, Bayer Leverkusen, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg), Broken Theatre (AMOC: Carolina Performing Arts, OZ Arts Nashville, La MaMa ETC).

Amit Hevrony: Company Manager

After working in the fine arts as an educator in the Israel Museum and manager of Raw Art, one of Tel Aviv’s leading galleries, Amit Hevrony moved to the music industry, tour managing some of the leading indie artists in Israel and producing some of the most prominent festivals, such as InDnegev, the Jerusalem Jazz Festival, and Mekudeshet, focusing on bringing international artists to perform in Israel. Then she moved to the dance world and worked with Batsheva Dance Company as manager of international touring, bringing the company’s works to some of the biggest stages for contemporary dance. She was also in charge of the marketing of a leading boutique winery in Israel, for which she produced, curated, and edited a book about art and wine. She currently resides in Northern California.

Jeff Rowell: Sound Engineer

Jeff Rowell is a Brooklyn-based audio engineer. Originally trained at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics with more than a decade of experience recording and mixing for film, music, and theater, he is excited to dig into any interesting creative project. His home theater has been the Park Avenue Armory since 2021, but he has worked nationwide with subjects and collaborators including everyone from Liza Minnelli to Jamie Hector to Michelle Obama.

Pomegranate Arts: Creative & Executive Producer

Since 1998, Pomegranate Arts has worked in close collaboration with a small group of contemporary artists and arts institutions to bring bold and ambitious artistic ideas to fruition. Creative and executive producers Linda Brumbach and Alisa E. Regas, along with their committed team at Pomegranate Arts, have produced the Olivier Award-winning revival of Einstein on the Beach; Taylor Mac’s epic A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, Holiday Sauce, and now—their third collaboration together, along with composer Matt Ray—a rock opera meditation on queerness called Bark of Millions; the touring production of Aszure Barton & Ambrose Akinmusire’s A a | a B : B E N D; Available Light by John Adams, Lucinda Childs, and Frank Gehry; Robin Frohardt’s The Plastic Bag Store and Home Depot Parking Lot; Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch’s Shockheaded Peter; and the Drama Desk Award-winning production of Charlie Victor Romeo.

In recent years, Pomegranate has expanded into non- performative mediums, including the feature documentary film Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music (HBO Original Doc), the film short Taylor Mac: Whitman in the Woods (ALL ARTS), and museum installations for Machine Dazzle. Pomegranate Arts is proud to support North American touring for Batsheva Dance Company and Sankai Juku. Pomegranate Arts website

Creative & Executive Producer: Linda Brumbach
Creative & Executive Producer: Alisa E. Regas
General Manager: Rachel Katwan
Operations Consultant: Kaleb Kilkenny
Administrative Assistant: Elena Messinger
Production Consultant: Jeremy Lydic

TO Live: Producer 

TO Live is one of Canada’s largest multi-arts organizations, operating three iconic venues: Meridian Hall, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, and Meridian Arts Centre. In addition, TO Live presents a full range of performing arts, theatrical, and concert events at these venues in both downtown and uptown Toronto. With these two hubs of creativity and content creation, TO Live has a unique place and perspective to activate creative spaces by inspiring local and international artists, connecting audiences, stimulating new ideas, and elevating artistic potential, becoming a catalyst for creative expression that is reflective of Toronto’s diversity.
TO Live website

Artist Acknowledgments

The 2025 production of A a | a B : B E N D is produced by Pomegranate Arts and TO Live. A a | a B : B E N D is developed with the support of the National Arts Centre’s National Creation Fund which invests in compelling new creations in the performing arts and supports Canadian artists in achieving their boldest ambitions. The production was mounted with the generous support of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity through a theatre production residency in Aug and Sep 2025.

A a | a B : B E N D was originally commissioned and produced by Internationales Sommerfestival Kampnagel and Aszure Barton & Artists; co-commissioned by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, The Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture and the Ford Theatre Foundation, and Northrop at the University of Minnesota.

Support: The Dianne and Daniel Vapnek Family Fund, The Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts through USArtist International, a program in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. Creative residency & development support by Orsolina Art Foundation, Babs Case + Dancers’ Workshop, and Baryshnikov Arts Center. World Premiere: Kampnagel International Summer Festival, Hamburg, Aug 2023.

Special Thanks: 

A a | a B : B E N D would not exist without the extraordinary generosity of our community. We extend our deepest gratitude to Dianne and Danny Vapnek, whose early championing and financial support of this work provided the catalyst for what followed. We thank Joan and Charlie Gross for their support of the music commission. We also celebrate the other originating artists who helped birth this work and whose contributions continue to inspire: Dunia Acosta, Daileidys Carrazana, Nolan Fahey, Nouhoum Koita, and Daniela Miralles. We are profoundly grateful to all the host organizations, presenters, supporters, and friends who have helped bring this production to life, including Corinna Humuza and Andras Siebold at Kampnagel; Sarah Conn at the National Creation Fund; Clyde Wagner, Madeleine Skoggard and Ariana Shaw at TO Live. Thank you to HenX Logistics, Chicago Scenic Studios, Harrison Burke, Mikael Kangas, and Jeremy Lydic. We hold dear the memory of Fred Frumberg for his unwavering belief in our work. To everyone who has been part of this journey of unlearning and discovery: thank you.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Sponsored by PNC Bank, RBC Wealth Management, Graduate Hotel Minneapolis, and Grand Jeté.

The Northrop Advisory Board is committed to the growth and awareness of Northrop’s mission, vision, and the continued future of presenting world-class dance and music in our community. If you would like more information about the advisory board and its work, please contact Cynthia Betz, Director of Development, at 612-626-7554 or betzx011@umn.edu.

With the restoration and reinstallation of Northrop’s Aeolian-Skinner Opus 892 organ, a group of dedicated volunteers now partner with Northrop for the awareness, success, and growth of organ programming and education. The Northrop Organ Committee features volunteers who are help with advocacy, network building, relationship development, and fundraising to help sustain and build Northrop’s Pipe Organ Music Series and other community events.

The Northrop Campus & Community Council acts as a resource for Northrop’s future success and growth, ensuring that Northrop builds relationships with and engages the communities where we live, learn, and work. This group of committed volunteers helps Northrop connect with new audiences and advises on programming that reflects the diverse communities we serve.

Making Legendary Performances Possible!

At Northrop, we believe in connecting great artists and ideas with our community and to a new generation of audiences. Your gift helps make memorable arts experiences possible by supporting extraordinary performances and new arts commissions, and helping ensure accessibility to everyone through live-streamed programming, outreach to diverse communities and subsidized student tickets. Our Friends are at the center of Northrop’s biggest ideas and brightest moments on stage.

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To learn more about supporting Northrop please contact:
Cynthia Betz
betzx011@umn.edu or 612-626-7554 

A special thank you to our patrons whose generous support makes Northrop's transformative arts experiences possible. Make your mark on Northrop's future by becoming a Friend today, learn more by visiting northrop.umn.edu/support-northrop.

We gratefully acknowledge the support from the Anna M. Heilmaier Foundation, Curtis L. Carlson Family Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, hospitality partner the Graduate Hotel Minneapolis, and event sponsors PNC Bank and RBC Wealth Management. 

Thank you to the generous donors who continue to support programming for Northrop’s beloved Aeolian-Skinner Organ. It is because of you that this magnificent instrument’s voice will be enjoyed by many for years to come.

This season’s listing is current as of 9/10/25

Please contact Matthew Keefe at keefe175@umn.edu if you have any corrections or questions.

The Heritage Society honors and celebrates donors who have made estate and other planned gifts for Northrop at the University of Minnesota. 

• Nancy Allen*
• Jerry Artz
• John Follows*
• Stephen Gordon and Pat Gavan-Gordon
• Gail and Stuart Hanson
• Charlie Johnson
• Peter Lund
• Darlene M. Sholtis

*Deceased