Performance artist Minton Sparks has been onstage at the Grand Ole Opry and was part The American Songbook Series at Lincoln Center. She was teller-in-residence at the Jonesborough National Storytelling Festival and has been covered by USA Today, NPR show “All Things Considered,” the BBC and the Chicago Sun-Times. Sparks will lead the writing and performance workshop Burn Through Your Story. The event takes place at The Altamont Theatre Saturday, Sept. 26, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., and is followed by a performance at 8 p.m.
Press release from event organizers:
Saturday, September 26
EVENT: Writing and Performance Workshop
TIME: 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
LOCATION: The Altamont Theatre (18 Church Street, Asheville, NC 28801)
TICKETS: $100
PURCHASE TICKETS: www.mintonsparks.com/workshopWorkshop Description: Every one of us has a story about who we are. Some are wildly inspiring; other times, they are the very things that hold us back. Minton believes that tremendous value lies in locating yourself within a particular time and place in history. After all, many wonderful artistic pursuits are born out of autobiographies. This workshop offers you an opportunity to better discover who you are through exploring and listening deeply to your own story.
Saturday, September 26
EVENT: Performance
TIME: 7 p.m. doors / 8 p.m. show
LOCATION: The Altamont Theatre (18 Church Street, Asheville, NC 28801)
TICKETS: $15 in adv., $18 at the door
PURCHASE TICKETS: https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/2313747During this 3-hour writing and performance workshop, you will focus on the questions “Where are you from?” and “How does where you are from inform the definition of who you are?” while writing your own stories, exploringyour family tree, studying storytelling techniques and learning from Minton’s own work and experience. Minton will then guide you through using your stories to create various poems, pictures and performances.
No writing or performance experience necessary.
Nashville performance artist Minton Sparks dares you to define her: her spoken word/honky-tonk hybrid performances elicit whoops and hollers from beer-swilling good ole boys and latte-sipping intellectuals alike, because she’s doing something wholly new—rebel storytelling with marrow-deep power and resonance. Now this Grand Ole Opry star is raising the bar with her newest album release, Gold Digger, and her wildly unique performance video, “Time Flies.”
Whatever she’s doing, it’s working: Sparks has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC’s Bob Harris Show, and WoodSong’s Old-Time Radio. She’s also shared the stage with country and folk heavyweights like Rodney Crowell, John Prine, Nanci Griffith, and Punch Brothers.
On the one hand, Sparks is a decorated poet, playwright, and author who’s been invited to prestigious events like Berry College’s Southern Women Writer’s Conference (alongside Maya Angelou and Kaye Gibbons) and the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.
On the other hand, she’s a blue-collar troubadour who’s performed in the American Songbook Series at the Lincoln Center, appeared at the venerable Old Towne School of Folk Music, and served as teller-in-residence at the Jonesborough National
Storytelling Festival.Time Flies is the first video to capture the essence of Sparks’ performing power: part music video, part spoken word piece, she takes us on a ride in a “jet-black, thin-backed Cadillac hearse” driven by a funeral-bedecked “prophet named Time.” This midnight cruise grapples with choice, regret, and the inevitability of time’s passing—and with Sparks’ signature Southern poetic style, we can’t help but enjoy (and eerily identify with) the ride.
On her fifth album release, Gold Digger, Sparks breaks new ground (without losing the hands-on-hip attitude of her earlier releases) by enlisting legendary guitarist John Jackson—a seasoned road warrior who has played with Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, Shelby Lynne, and Tom Jones. Gold Digger’s first half might take you to the Delta, but Side B takes you on an airboat up to Nola. Guitarist Joe McMahan’s soulful Dixieland licks are accompanied by David Jaques (upright bass), and Shad Cobb (fiddle and banjo), making for what Nashville Scene and Rolling Stone Country contributor Jewly Hight describes as a “sinewy swing.”
With her new releases, Sparks has struck a match under “ordinary” artistry—and she’s setting the performance world on fire.
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