Twin Cities Pagan Pride 2009
music and performers

All entertainment is in the banquet center (2nd floor, next to the vendors).

Saturday

1-2pm: Totally Northern Tribal (view their website)
Totally Northern Tribal is a Tribal Group Improvisation bellydance troupe in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. The troupe formed in 2004. Their main tribal influences are Fat Chance Belly Dance, Gypsy Caravan and Kajira Djoumahna. They feel free to adapt and modify movements from these influences and from raks sharqi to create their own style. All the members had prior bellydance studies with raks sharqi and folkloric teachers in the Twin Cities and elsewhere.

Group Tribal Improvisation is a method of belly dance that allows a group of dancers to create an improvised dance. The method was invented by Carolena Nericcio of Fat Chance Belly Dance. Carolena calls her specific style of group tribal improvisation American Tribal Style. Many other groups, including Totally Northern Tribal, have expanded on Carolena’s work to develop their own styles.

2-3pm: Dunn County Clerics
Dunn County Clerics is an acoustic vocal band performing folk music with influences of Celtic and Country. Their style is earmarked by close, three and four-part harmonies. DCC’s eclectic sound incorporates elements of Rock, Country and the New York Folk scene of the 60’s. Their concerts include few covers, as most of their material is original, blending humor with social awareness to get the message across. Born out of the festivals, Dunn County Clerics came together to jam one afternoon and relax with a little music. From this, they explored what magic could be made by writing and arranging their own material. Between the four of them, they have over 50 years experience in music; from backup to solo work.

3-4pm: Beth Kinderman (view her website here)
Beth Kinderman got her start as the prototypical girl with guitar, inflicting sad confessional folk songs upon various bars, coffee shops, and European cities. When she teamed up with the rest of the Player Characters, the path of her art changed for good. Nowadays, Beth Kinderman & the Player Characters are a geeky rock band that plays around the Midwest, challenging assumptions of what music for nerds can be. The PCs believe that topics like Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are fertile ground for serious songwriting…that playing primarily for a fannish audience doesn’t mean you have to compromise your vision…that fandom is overdue for a band that blends poetic lyrics, progressive rock’s epic arrangements, and a punk sensibility. (And you don’t have to be a geek to enjoy it either, but it helps!)

Beth’s first solo record, “All Of My Heroes Are Villains” is available for purchase through her website as well as via iTunes, CDbaby.com, and many other fine retailers. Beth Kinderman & the Player Characters’ new album “Apocalypse Blues” was released in July 2009.

4-5pm: Dunn County Clerics
(please see bio in 2pm slot)

Sunday

11am to noon: Celtic Storytelling: Andrew Jacob
The Battle of the Gods against the Giants! Hear Gaelic priest & storyteller Rev. Andrew Jacob tell the old Irish story of the Battle of Moytura. Hear how the gods defended against the one-eyed giants in this foundational myth of Celtic religion!

1-2pm: Becca and Graham Leathers
Graham is a man of many talents. He has worked as an actor, bald eagle researcher, balloon sculptor, comedian, juggler, mime, movie extra, radio voice, and, of course, as a musician. He sings and plays guitar, bodhran, and 5-string banjo.

Becca is a chiropractor by day and a musician by night. She sings and plays guitar, Irish whistle, recorder, mandolin, and kazoo. An anonymous connoisseur of fine music reports that she has “a clear, pure voice, a clean and distinctive guitar style, and an amazing repertoire of songs.”

2-3pm: Three Poppet Opera
From the mystical, Asian island of Shima No Kame comes Mai, an orphaned ‘Tween, whose teachers have taught her well. On her journey, Mai travels to field, to forest, from palace to mountain. Join her as she completes her quest and meets strange characters along the way. (Disclaimer: Any resemblance between “Shima No Kame” and Japan is purely intentional.)

3-4pm:  Kari Tauring and Drew Miller (view Kari’s website here)
Kari Tauring sings and tells stories from our deep Scandinavian tap root. Waving her antler feather fan, she conjures ancient spirits that hover and dance around her classically trained voice. The bone beads of her Bronze Age string skirt punctuate rune songs danced to the pols (pulse) of staff and melodic dulcimer.

Author of “The Runes: A Human Journey” (2007), Tauring’s performances draw on 20 years of research and experience.  Her EP “Völva Songs” (2008) includes songs in Votic, Old Norse, Norwegian and English — in performance, her music is both sweet as a lullaby and frightening as a Valkyrie; both intensely emotional and thoroughly researched. She wakes something from deep in our bones, something simultaneously ephemeral and elemental.

Tauring’s voice is a supple, evocative instrument with an admirable range of expression…” — Green Man Review

“Her shows educate as well as inspire” – David de Young, howwastheshow.com
More information at http://karitauring.com