Star Tribune
The legacy of Minnesota artist, thinker Beverly Cottman
As Ananya Chatterjea discussed the life of her friend, Beverly Cottman, she thought about the trait that most captured her aura.
“Her smile was luminous,” said Chatterjea, a professor of dance at the University of Minnesota and the founder of the Ananya Dance Theatre in St. Paul. “She would smile and there was just so much grace and light in that smile.”
I did not know Cottman, the magnanimous 80-year-old Minneapolis teacher and artist who died in her sleep last month on a trip to Egypt. Her passing came nearly two years after she lost her husband, the multidimensional Bill Cottman, a photographer, poet and game changer in the Twin Cities, too.
But the BIPOC community in the Twin Cities is both vast and small. The losses of our elders carry impact, directly or indirectly, because of their significance to the foundation of our sense of community.
Those within my circle who knew Cottmann said her death left an irreplaceable void. So why would I write about a woman I’d never met? Because I’d also like to live the fruitful life she did; one that left behind a garden of love, empathy and connection — and also a question of who will water its flowers now that she is no longer here.
“This notion that you can live artistically … that’s a thing,” Chatterjea said. “I would see [her and her daughter, Kenna] especially after she retired, the way she built relationships, the way she held the community with grace, the way she showed up at different arts events, the way she talked to children. … She was this umbrella force.”
Earlier this week, I watched YouTube clips of Cottman’s talks and performances. You can see her command of audiences and the grace within her voice through the screen. During a talk in 2014, Cottman told a fable about an elderly woman who would sit outside a bakery and smell the bread she could not afford, as she rattled her coins. But the baker, who demanded she pay for that smell, then took the woman to the village chief and asked him to settle the dispute. The elder then issued his verdict: “Since the baker has heard the sound of the woman’s coins, he has been paid for the smell of the bread.”
When Cottman finished the tale, the crowd gasped, cheered, laughed and nodded.
“Now this old folktale has many, many versions, and tales similar to it are told in cultures all over the world,” Cottman said. “No matter how it’s told or who the characters are, the message, the moral, the lesson is the same: An imaginative mind can overcome many obstacles.”
I continue to hear stories about a woman who left an imprint wherever she trekked. I heard about Cottman, the biology teacher who taught science in a relatable manner meant to encourage curiosity. I heard about the adventurer who traveled the world with her husband after she retired. I heard about the artist who preserved Blackness and its essence through storytelling. I heard about the woman who always had wisdom on the tip of her tongue. And I heard about the artist who long ago proved a Black woman in the Twin Cities can do it all — and do it all well.
Chatterjea, a performer and choreographer who was born and raised in India, had just moved to the Twin Cities as a single mother with dreams of growing her dance studio for Black and brown women when she met Cottman. Today, the Ananya Dance Theatre is “a professional ensemble of BIPOC women and femme artists who believe in the transformative power of dance and identify as cultural activists.”
Chatterjea said Cottman was one of the first people to join and participate. At one point, she’d been so committed to rehearsals that her husband would have to explain her absences from the Sunday church pews.
“That’s how we developed this language, ‘Oh well, dance is church,'” Chatterjea said.
But Cottman was also unafraid to express her views and opinions. When Chatterjea tried to push a new technique, Cottman told her that she could not do the moves because of her arthritis. Chatterjea said Cottman’s willingness to object helped her re-evaluate her approach and design alternatives for performers in the future.
Cottman left her mark, it seems.
I do not know how much money she had or the name of her favorite movie or the artist who sang her favorite song. I do not know the color of the car she drove or the flavor of ice cream she preferred.
I just know the undeniable wake she left behind her as she traveled through this life.
To those who loved her, Cottman was on a mission, even in her death overseas.
“She got herself free. She went to meet Bill,” Chatterjea said. “Talk about intention even in leaving. It’s not like she went to France and left. She went to Egypt and left.”
Star Tribune
Celebrity chef Justin Sutherland gets two years of probation for threatening girlfriend
According to the criminal complaint:
Police were twice called on June 28 to an apartment in the 800 block of Front Avenue. During the first call, a woman told officers that everything was fine despite previously reporting that Sutherland had choked her and tried kicking her out of the apartment.
During the second call about 90 minutes later, the woman told police that Sutherland had briefly squeezed her neck with both hands, said “I want you dead,” pointed a gun at her and hit her in the chest with it, and at one point said he would shoot her if she came back after running off. Officers then arrested Sutherland.
Staff writers Paul Walsh and Alex Chhith contributed to this story.
Operators of the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) have agreed to consolidate housing units, create a new programming schedule and retrain correctional officers in an effort to satisfy state regulators, who rebuked the downtown facility last month for violating resident rights.
Changes come in the wake of a scathing inspection report that accused the center of placing minors in seclusion without good reason to compensate for ongoing staff shortages. An annual audit by the Department of Corrections found that teens were frequently locked in their rooms for long stretches, due to a lack of personnel rather than bad behavior.
In response, county officials vowed to bolster staffing and retrain all officers tasked with performing wellness checks. Last week, the facility closed its “orientation mod,” typically reserved for new admissions, and combined male age groups to reduce the number of living units and provide heightened supervision.
The moves, including a new schedule, are expected to help prevent the undue cancellation of recreation, parent visits and other privileges to children in their custody.
“[Previous] staffing levels did not allow for all units to run programming simultaneously while having sufficient staff available to respond to incidents and emergencies in the building,” JDC Superintendent Dana Swayze wrote in a seven-page letter to state inspectors. “Programming is only cancelled on an as-needed basis based on the JDC’s ability to safely accommodate [it].”
In a Dec. 4 email to the County Board, Mary Ellen Heng, acting director of Hennepin’s Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation, assured elected officials that they had begun taking corrective actions but asserted that some of the report’s findings lacked context.
Heng pointed to a violation where teens were allegedly confined without cause, even when multiple correctional officers were sitting in a nearby office. She explained that, during the dates of the inspection earlier this fall, several officers observed in the office were still in training — and therefore not permitted to interact with the youths alone.
She also contended that while programming has been modified by staffing limitations, “this additional room time is not reflective of punishment, disciplinary techniques, or restrictive procedures.”
Tired of surging gun violence across St. Paul, community leaders and police are asking residents to help create a safer city.
The call for community support came Thursday night when officials from the St. Paul NAACP, St. Paul Police Department, Black Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and the African American Leadership Council gathered at Arlington Hills Lutheran Church to talk about ways to decrease gun violence in the city.
St. Paul has recorded 30 homicides so far this year according to a Star Tribune database, two fewer than last year. But four of this year’s homicides happened in the same week, frustrating law enforcement and alarming residents.
St. Paul NAACP President Richard Pittman Sr. said that solutions to gun violence are “right here, in the room.” But without the community’s help, Pittman said their efforts could fall short.
“Over the last several weeks and months, we have experienced an uptick in violent crimes in our communities. [That’s] turned on a light bulb that it’s time [to] not have the police feeling like all the pressure is on them,” Pittman said. “Nobody wants to the responsibility of having to shoot someone down in the street. Nobody wants the responsibility of hurting somebody’s family. We all want the best outcome.”
Attendee Carrie Johnson worried generational trauma is derailing youth’s behavior, adding that she’s seen boys in middle school punch girls in the face. Migdalia Baez said mothers living along Rice Street feel they have nowhere to turn for help in redirecting their children. Some worry that their child would be incarcerated if they ask for help.
Larry McPherson, a violence interrupter for 21 Days of Peace St. Paul, said some issues stem from youth with no guidance. McPherson and others patrol hot spots for crime across the city, including near the Midway neighborhood’s Kimball Court apartments where fentanyl drove a spike in robberies and drug violations.
“We’ve got a lot of mental health [struggles]. We’ve got a lot of doggone drug addiction that’s going on in our neighborhoods. We all got the best interests at hand for all people in our community, but we’re just not working fast enough,” McPherson said. “Until we get feet on the ground, people coming out of their own community and standing up for this real cause to take back the community, we’re going to have the same outcome.”
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