Top 10 of 2010: #1-2

We reach the top of our top-10 most-watched Eggs of 2010 with two bows to music. Earning the crown is hip-hop darling Dessa Darling, whose national tour with P.O.S. put her on radars everywhere—and resulted in an Egg that went semi-viral. At No.2 is our Egg on the rock duo Red Pens. Oddly enough, these Eggs first debuted back to back, January 20-21.

No. 1 most-viewed Egg:

The Darling of Dessa

3-Minute Egg: Dessa Darling

►

Dessa Darling has evolved from slam poet to essayist to rapper and singer. Her new CD, A Badly Broken Code, is a tuneful mix of rap, R&B and poetic musings. Last January, 3-Minute Egg peeked into a rehearsal for Dessa’s CD release show at the Fine Line. Members of Heiruspecs make up her backing band.

No. 2 most-viewed Egg:

The Red Pens

3-Minute Egg: The Red Pens

►

Howard Hamilton and Laura Bennett connected over mutual admiration for each others’ visual art, but the two have made a larger splash through their music. The duo, known as the Red Pens, performed at First Avenue through Radio K’s showcase of the “best bands of 2009.” 3-Minute Egg was in the front row, in the wings, in the balcony, and also in the couple’s basement apartment, where Hamilton and Bennett store much of their visual art.

Top 10 of 2010: #3-4

As we continue rolling down our most-watched Eggs of 2010, we look back at our two-part series looking into the creative process of the Brave New Workshop and the choreographic work of a husband-and-wife team with St. Paul City Ballet.

No. 3 most-viewed Egg(s):

Brave New Musical

In this two-part series, 3-Minute Egg looked into the creative process of the Brave New Workshop, which has produced original sketch comedies in Minneapolis for a half-century. The first video drops into an early reading of proposed scripts and scenarios for a new musical. In the second Egg, we watch part of a run-through of Toyota: The Runaway Musical Hit, which opened this past May.

Part 1

123010 BNW1 top10-desktop

►

Part 2

123010 BNW2 top10-desktop

►

No. 4 most-viewed Egg:

St. Paul City Ballet

St. Paul City Ballet has long thrived in the space in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood, but only a few years ago did the school expand into a full performance company. Jennifer Rockwell and Ross Edwards, a married couple who make up half the company’s artistic leaders, set new work on the troupe for its program this past March at the Ritz Theatre. 3-Minute Egg met the pair at a rehearsal.

3-Minute Egg: Saint Paul City Ballet

►

Top 10 of 2010: #5-6

We continue rolling down our most-watched Eggs of 2010 with a look back at Dave King’s weekend at the Walker Art Center and one of the hits of from the 2010 Minnesota Fringe — Tom Reed’s “Bite Me, Twilight!”

No. 5 most-viewed Egg:

King and His Court

122910 dave king top10-desktop

►

Dave King is the Twin Cities’ most musical drummer and at the center of the Twin Cities’ avant garde jazz scene. This weekend the Walker Art Center is giving you double doses of King — nearly every band or project he performs with will be on stage. In March, 3-Minute Egg took you somewhere the Walker won’t — inside King’s car, along with his rehearsal studio, as his newest group (featuring former Husker Du bassist Greg Norton) prepared a song for the concert.

No. 6 most-viewed Egg:

Fringe Fest: ‘Bite Me, Twilight’

122910 fringe10 top10-desktop

►

Tom Reed delivered a surprise hit at the 2009 Fringe Fest with sendup of the Harry Potter series of films and books. He returned this past summer with a musical interpretation and parody of the Twilight series of young adult vampire fodder. 3-Minute Egg dished up the show and tell.

Top 10 of 2010: #7-8

We continue rolling down our most-watched Eggs of 2010 with a look back at Arts Advocacy Day at the State Capital and Wing Young Huie’s ambitious photo documentary of St. Paul’s University Avenue.

No. 7 most-viewed Egg:

The University of Wing Young Huie

Wing Young Huie made his mark in the 1990s with his groundbreaking photo documentary of St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood. Several years later, he took on the entirety of Minneapolis’ Lake Street. This past February, he wound up his work on a six-mile stretch of University Avenue. Wing gave 3-Minute Egg a preview and invited the Egg along on a shoot at a small business along University. The exhibition went up to the broader public in May along storefronts, the sides of buildings and giant projection screens along University.

122810 wing huie university TOP10-desktop

►

No. 8 most-viewed Egg:

Arts Advocacy Day

Artists and arts administrators from throughout Minnesota descended on the State Capitol on a Tuesday last March for Arts Advocacy Day. 3-Minute Egg sought out Republican lawmakers to ask how they intend to stand up for the arts — or not — under the shadow of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s threat to trim 33 percent from the state arts board’s budget.

122810 arts advocacy top10-desktop

►

Top 10 of 2010: #9-10

Today we begin running down our 10 most-viewed Eggs of 2010—two each day through Friday.

Numbers were through the roof for our coverage of the 2010 National Poetry Slam, in St. Paul. More than 16,000 people have watched this singularly dynamic comic work from Shane Hawley. Search for “NPS2010″ for more. Since some of these Eggs document entire works, we won’t feature them in our top 10. Other extraordinarily (but predictably) high numbers went to Eggs from the 2010 Fringe Festival—we’re including the most-viewed Fringe Egg as part of our Top 10.

No. 9 most-viewed Egg:

MIA’s Foot in the Door

020810 MIA foot in door-desktop

►

Once every decade, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts invites any Minnesotan to submit one piece of visual art into the exhibition Foot in the Door . The only criteria: The work must fit in a one-foot-squared box. 3-Minute Egg met with artists (and many wanna-be artists) waiting in line to drop off their contributions.

No. 10 most-viewed Egg:

Zupanc meets Kling meets Zeitgeist

122710 zupanc TOP10-desktop

►

Composer and musician Victor Zupanc has had separate working relationships and friendships with the chamber music group Zeitgeist and writer-poet Kevin Kling. Zupanc has brought them all together with For the Birds, a piece of new music woven around Kling’s recent writings. 3-Minute Egg met the creators at a run-through.

Sacred Spaces

Spurred by the work of New York artist Tobi Kahn, 10 Twin Cities artists were invited to create work while using the Tychman Shapiro Gallery as their studio space. Those artists are exhibited these pieces and others in a the group exhibition Sacred Spaces, on view through the end of the year at gallery, inside the Sabes Jewish Community Center. 3-Minute Egg went to the opening reception.
 

This video is supported by a generous grant from Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council.

The Hebrew Lesson

Esther Ouray is a Twin Cities theater artist and puppeteer debuting her autobiographical solo show, The Hebrew Lesson, through the Naked Stages program at Pillsbury House Theatre. 3-Minute Egg met with Ouray as she rehearsed before opening night. Performances are Dec. 8-11. 

This video is made possible by a generous grant from Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council.

Update: The Egg and what’s ahead

Here’s an Egg update: Through 2010 and into 2011, you’ll continue seeing occasional videos supported by generous grants from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council and Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council. One series of videos explores the creative processes of four women sculptors (the first of these series, which ran in September, profiled emerging artist Asia Ward). I’m also in the midst of an occasional series of videos on Jewish artists and artwork connected to Judaism. We’ve stepped back this season from our daily production to focus on this grant-funded work.

To date, 3-Minute Egg has produced 330 videos and 39 half-hour Egg episodes that aired on the Minnesota Channel of Twin Cities Public Television. You’ll find all of our individual videos on our core site and our channel at blip.tv. You can also “like” our Facebook page, tune into our YouTube channel and follow the Egg on Twitter.

Keep tuning in, and we’ll see you around the Twin Cities Arts SEEN.

- matt

Asia Ward: Part 3 of the Process

We close our three-part series on visual artist Asia Ward by looking at her exhibition at Rosalux Gallery, on view through September 30. Our deeper look into the creative process of visual artists is supported by an Artist Initiative grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.

Asia Ward: Part 2 of the Process

Watch Asia Ward evolve from the motorized sculptures of her early work to large steel and aluminum sculptures in the second of our three-part series into the artist’s creative process. Tune into 3-Minute Egg tomorrow for the final part, where we take you to Rosalux Gallery to view Ward’s current exhibition.

This series is funded by a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.