The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

RAKE EVENT
Gallery Grooves

It's time for another Gallery Grooves tonight, and we've got a very cool spot lined up that you likely don't even known about. This month, enjoy an open studio, shop, and classroom exhibit at Vesper College, a new venue focused on sculpture and ecological architecture. Ecological architecture — how cool is that? Socialize and discuss the latest jazz with Kevin Barnes from KBEM, view artwork for sale, enjoy wine info and sampling courtesy of Artisan Vineyard, and delight your palatte with hors d'oeuvres by Raja's Mahal.

7-9 p.m., Vesper College, 201 6th St. NE, Minneapolis; free.

BOOKS & AUTHORS
Riding Shotgun

Being a mother may not be the easiest of jobs, but being the most influential person in most women’s lives has its rewards. In Kathryn Kysar’s journal Riding Shotgun: Women Write about Their Mothers, various authors, teachers, scholars, and mothers tell the heartwarming and powerful stories about the mothers who have loved and raised them. A true Midwesterner, Kathryn Kysar has won numerous awards for her poetry and received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Kysar, along with several other writers in the collection, will be doing a selection of readings from Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers tonight at the Minneapolis Central Library, and in various locations throughout the Twin Cities in celebration of Mother's Day. —Hannah Simpson

7 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 612-630-6174.

DANCE
Zenon's 25th Spring Season

Zenon celebrates its 25th Spring Season with a powerful performance featuring two world premiere works by New York choreographers Jeanine Durning ("Where are these days, again?") and Seán Curran ("Hard Bargain"), two audience favorites (Wynn Fricke's "Garden" and Cathy Young's "The Secret Life of Walt and Kitty"), and Susana Tambutti's sultry "Mysteriously, This Won't Happen." Expect to be wowed by the choreography. And expect to be outraged by the content. (Ok, maybe not outraged, but this is no sweet, fairytale performance. After all, it ain't easy being a woman.) Zenon, as always, takes dance into a whole new realm. And this production takes Zenon into a new era as founding company member Christine Maginnis performs her final dance with Zenon. —photo by Jeffrey Austin

8 p.m., Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-340-1725; $25.

Email us (contest@rakemag.com) to win two free tickets to tonight's or Sunday's performance. Write Zenon in the subject line, and be sure to include your prefered performance date, along with your name. The first two people to respond will each receive a pair of free tickets.

THEATER & PERFORMANCE
Border Crossing

Off-Leash Area brings us yet another inventive physical-theater production — this time told through the voices of the Sonoran Desert. Two-time Ivey Award honorees Jennifer Ilse and Paul Herwig team up to direct Border Crossing, written by Jerome Fellow and Anishinaabe playwright Marcie Rendon, with an original score by Ben Siems. Rendon's story follows a young girl as she traces her immigrant parents' footsteps across the Arizona/Mexico border, crossing the Sonoran Desert along the way. True to Off-Leash Area's visual style, the production fuses dance, ritual, and puppetry to illustrate the much-traveled journey to a better life. With a cast of 17, portraying the desert air, creatures, and migrants, Border Crossing brings to light the complexity of the current political debate.

8 p.m., Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-436-1129; $24.


FILM
Pond Hockey

Anyone who spent their childhood in Minnesota knows the importance of lakes here — above all, the importance of a frozen lake. We skate on them. We drive on them. We fish on them. We flip snowmobiles on them. And yes, we beat each other up on them, too. We play pond hockey, of course. (Or must that happen on a pond, then?) Or at least we used to. It seems, perhaps, that times have changed. With new climate-controlled hockey rinks in every town, the ponds are losing their allure. But we are the pond hockey people, folks. And so is Tommy Haines. Haines, director of the new documentary Pond Hockey, hails from the Iron Range and has much to say about the changing culture of hockey in Minnesota. Through his new film, he examines these changes through interviews with countless hockey greats like Wayne Gretzky, Lou Nanne, Neal Broten, Phil Housley, and even MN Governors Tim Pawlenty and Wendell Anderson. Don't miss the world premiere this evening as part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. See the trailer.

6:30 p.m., St. Anthony Main Theaters, 115 Main St., Minneapolis.