have you ever stood on a frozen lake, California?
the sun above you, the snow & stalled sea—a field of mirror

all demanding to be the sun, everything around you
is light & it’s gorgeous & if you stay too long it will kill you.

- Danez Smith, “i’m going back to Minnesota where sadness makes sense”

This preview of The Great Northern is part of The Current’s 89 Days of Winter series. Click here for a complete schedule of events in The Great Northern 2022. For further reading, enjoy expanded Q&As with Naeem and Kara-Lis Coverdale.

On his very first night in Minneapolis, Naeem felt right at home. He and a friend went to dinner with a local musician, who invited them to a party on Nicollet Avenue. “We walk in,” he says, “and my friend Alex looks around the room and goes: ‘You're gonna be fine here.’” It was true — Naeem adored Minneapolis’s arts community and small-town feel. But, he admits, “The winter is f—ing brutal.”

Cool art and brutal cold are two of the core themes of The Great Northern, the winter-fêting festival that’ll take place in the Twin Cities from Jan. 26-Feb. 6. Co-founded by Eric Dayton in 2016, The Great Northern integrates the Saint Paul Winter Carnival, the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships, the City of Lakes Loppet Winter Festival, and dozens of original winter-themed events, featuring partner organizations from the Walker Art Center to The Nature Conservancy.

This year, Kate Nordstrum, the festival’s curator, has booked a wide variety of artists, scientists, and outdoor enthusiasts to share “invigorating” ideas, experiences, and art. Those folks include Naeem, who will perform at Icehouse; artists Jovan C. Speller and Andy DuCett, who will unveil an ice-enclosed greenhouse in a St. Paul alley; health psychologist Kari Leibowitz, who will share “winter mindset” strategies in Silverwood Park; and choreographer Dimitri Chamblas, who will stage a “Slow Show” on Como Lake.

“There are so many ways for [us] to reflect on what winter gives us and how it shapes us,” Nordstrum says. “I am trying to gather, as best as I can, different perspectives, and share those with the community and with the world.”

Before joining The Great Northern in 2019, Nordstrum built a reputation as a first-class arts curator with an broad, experimental taste. She founded the Liquid Music series at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2012 and was able to take the brand with her when she left the orchestra in 2019. As her time with the SPCO dwindled, she considered moving out of state, but The Great Northern offered her a full-time job as Executive Director and Artistic Director. “We live in a place with very deep seasons,” she says. “And being able to dig into that a little bit deeper — which writers do really well; poets do really well; artists do well — that work is important.”

While Dayton once called seasonal depression “a choice,” Nordstrum is transparent about the difficulties of harsh weather and limited sunlight. “I have struggled with winter,” she says, “which makes me an interesting choice to program this festival.” In past winters, she says, she has drawn energy from “the strength of our art scene and the options to enrich my spirit with music and with dance and through book talks.” While curating The Great Northern, she has learned from others who feel most invigorated by outdoor activity, craftwork, or food.

In addition to art performances and outdoor exercise, climate-focused programming is woven through the schedule, ranging from a talk by Anishinaabe climate leaders to a class on the life and death of clothing. “In celebrating winter, we have to remember what we stand to lose as our climate warms,” Nordstrum says. “It would be almost inappropriate or irresponsible for us to lightheartedly celebrate the season as if it will always be here for us … It's both, ‘Yes, let's get together and enjoy the season that we have right now,’ but also, ‘Let's fight for its future.’”

Living in rural Ontario, composer Kara-Lis Coverdale has noticed changes in the forest and weather patterns. “We used to do a lot more snowmobiling and things like that,” they say. “But these days, it's really hard to depend on snow being around for that long … The maple sugarbush season has moved forward almost a month and a half, two months.”

Coverdale, who grew up in Canada and has Estonian heritage, will perform at Icehouse during The Great Northern and plans to “nerd out” while exploring the rest of the fest. She hasn’t performed in Minnesota before, but she knows winter well, having grown up on conservation land and lived in frigid Montreal.

“Winter is such a restful season,” Coverdale says. “There's a sense of really calm isolation and solitude that accompanies the idea of the North that, especially growing up in rural conservation land, I really resonate with.”

Coverdale describes the discipline inherent in a conservative winter mindset: If you don’t get up and chop wood, you might freeze. Each winter impels the rituals of changing car tires, unpacking a winter wardrobe, and so on. Yet Coverdale sees an opportunity to integrate stoicism and a search for beauty.

"‘How do you teach ways to enjoy discipline?’ is something I think about a lot,” Coverdale says, “because environmental conservation is discipline, basically. It's a practice of restraint, and it's a practice of holding something, rather than changing it or trying to work it or move it to your whims. There's a lot of good work to be done there.” 

Nordstrum and the rest of the Great Northern team have had to practice COVID-19-related discipline in their programming. Some events, such as a cozy sing-along and an Annie Dorsen theater piece, have been postponed or canceled. Patrons at indoor events will need to show proof of vaccination or a negative test and wear masks, and several of the events will take place online or outdoors.

“I'm very challenged and stressed [about COVID-19], personally,” Nordstrum says, “but I am grateful that I know that we can still move forward with this festival, because we moved forward last year, and I know how to roll with the punches … I am grateful for a lot of outdoor events that I know can happen no matter what.”

Thanks to their nonprofit status and sponsors, The Great Northern does not rely on ticket sales in order to pay artists. “I wanted to make sure that wasn't part of our equation, because again, you can't count on [ticket sales] these days,” Nordstrum says. Over the years, the festival has hauled in many thousands of dollars from foundations, fellow arts orgs, and local businesses. (Minnesota Public Radio is an in-kind sponsor, but this article was conceived and executed independently by The Current’s editorial team.)

“There's a stillness that the winter brings, because it's so brutal,” Naeem says. “You step outside, and you can't hear anything … The whole city almost feels like it's yours. When I think about it now, it feels like a novel in some way. So dreamy, so fictional, you know?”

Naeem can’t wait to return to Minnesota for the first time since moving to Los Angeles. When he arrived in 2017, he planned to spend six months in Minneapolis, making his album Startisha “a bit grander” with the help of Ryan Olson (Poliça) and other collaborators. He ended up staying a year and a half, developing friendships with Velvet Negroni, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), and other Olson associates. In 2019, he reluctantly left to join his boyfriend in LA.

“My last winter in Minneapolis, I didn't even get to experience the spring,” Naeem says. “You know, you get that thing where the spring's coming in, and everybody's so happy. I flew to LA the first warm week we had.” For better and worse, he won’t pick up where he left off — it’s solidly wintertime. But if all goes well, he’ll see old friends, including his fellow musicians; Nicollet Avenue; and the sparkling snow.