Klaus Solko, co-executive editor

The Karen L. Charles Threads Dance Project is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. They have thrown many events throughout the year to celebrate this milestone anniversary, such as a gala in April and a community dance party in August. Now, this Nov. 13–15, they will be throwing their last celebration event, the Threads 15th Anniversary Shows, otherwise titled “Love Evolving.”

According to the Threads website, since the project was founded in 2011, its goal has been to elevate love through the narratives told in their dances and a dedication to “further progress towards a more loving, just and equitable society.”

The show “Love Evolving” is a collection of stories that Karen Charles found most personal to her experience as a Black woman in America and also universal stories about loss, joy and identity. 

The show will also be debuting a new piece, “Tell Me A Story.” The piece was created through an artist collaboration project. Community members were invited to write a short story or poem inspired by four out-of-context photos provided by the dance studio. All submissions were then judged by a panel and two were selected. 

Both selected pieces were written by Augsburg alumni/students— Dylan Larson and myself, Klaus Solko, respectively. Larson graduated from Augsburg in 2026 with a major in English; she is a writer and musician who, in August, released “The New Postage Stamp Collection” extended play (EP).  

I, Klaus Solko, am one of the current Executive Editors of the Augsburg Echo. I am a major in Clinical Psychology and Sociology. 

I found out about the “Tell Me A Story” project through A-Mail while I was working over the summer. I thought it sounded like an interesting opportunity but didn’t have any thought that I could win. 

The piece I wrote, titled “Star Flowers,” was a piece inspired by the photo shown above but also what was going on for me at the time. At the end of the 2025-2026 school year, I realized that the career path I had been working towards was not for me anymore. This realization, combined with some other things, really freaked me out, and I was really struggling with accepting my own change and growth. 

“Star Flowers” is about the same thing. It is about grappling with the world around you changing and a loss of what you used to follow. It is also about acceptance and the duality of scary and beautiful that growth is. Using poetic verse to describe how starflowers came to be from sunflowers. 

Getting to collaborate with Threads has been a truly amazing experience. Their entire team is so kind. Getting to watch my work come alive through their dancers was so beautiful, and I can’t wait to see the show this weekend. 

The show is taking place at the Luminary Arts Center, with shows on the 13th and 14th starting at 7 p.m., and a show on the 15th starting at 2 p.m. The show on the 13th will be ASL interpreted. Tickets for students are 22 dollars. 

However, the show on the 14th is their FlexPay performance, with tickets being 5 dollars minimum. The show on the 14th will also host a post-show discussion.