Weekend Preview August 18-22

Submitted by Seth Rogovoy on August 18, 2010 - 10:19am

DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE at JACOB’S PILLOW

Lucy Guerin in 'Structures and Sadness' [photo by Jeff Busby/courtesy Jacobs Pillow]

Dismissing his critics with a pithy simile, Elvis Costello once famously said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Costello clearly didn’t think much of trying to explain one art form through another. However, this skepticism hasn’t fazed Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin (or perhaps Costello’s zinger never reached the Southeastern quadrant of the globe). Guerin explores a bridge collapse through contemporary dance in Structure and Sadness, in the Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow August 18-22. Engineering principles such as torsion, compression, suspension, and failure are explored through contemporary movement in this evening-length dance work.

When not performing Guerin’s postmodern-influenced choreography, the dancers construct a set onstage using utilitarian materials such as wood, twine, and cardboard, illustrating the industriousness of the worker even in the face of tragedy: “The rebuilding is inevitable,” comments Guerin, “it is human nature; we are amazing creatures in that way.”

Lighting and set designers Ben Cobham and Andrew Livingston (known collectively as Bluebottle) have collaborated with visual artist Michaela French to create an arresting, interactive onstage environment. The dancers of Lucy Guerin Inc move through their intricately constructed surroundings to an original electronic score by Scottish sound designer Gerald Mair.

Following the opening night performance on Wednesday, August 18, visitors can join artists from the community and from Jacob’s Pillow for a free gallery reception in Blake’s Barn, where the exhibit space currently features photography by Lois Greenfield, noted for her capture of dancers in midair.

Performance schedule for Lucy Guerin:

Wednesday, August 18 – Saturday, August 21, 8:15pm
Saturday, August 21 & Sunday, August 22, 2:15pm

Annika Lindquist of The Göteborgs Ballet in Episode 17 of '3xBoléro' [photo Ingmar Jernberg/courtesy Jacob's Pillow]

Also on tap at Jacob's Pillow in the Ted Shawn Theatre through this weekend, Swedish contemporary dance company, the Göteborg Ballet, makes its American debut at Jacob’s Pillow August 18–22. The company will perform a full-length production, 3xBoléro; three diverse works each inspired in a different way by Maurice Ravel’s classic score, Boléro. The works that comprise 3xBoléro showcase twenty classically-trained dancers from this leading Nordic company and three leading European choreographers. While Ravel’s score provides the artistic impetus to 3xBoléro, the pieces utilize a unique spectrum of composers and dance vocabularies, in musical styles ranging from minimalist electronica through full scale orchestral recordings.

Performance and Ticket Information

Wednesday, August 18 through Saturday, August 21 at 8pm

Saturday, August 21 and Sunday, August 22 at 2pm

Tickets on sale now online http://www.jacobspillow.org/, via phone at 413.243.0745, or in person at Jacob’s Pillow.

Jacob’s Pillow is located at 358 George Carter Road in Becket, Mass. (10 minutes east on Route 20 from Mass Pike Exit 2). The Jacob’s Pillow campus and theaters are handicapped-accessible.

WORD X WORD BRINGS MUSIC and SPOKEN WORD to PITTSFIELD

Beginning August 21 and for the following week, 60-plus spoken-word and musical artists will perform in downtown Pittsfield for the second annual Word X Word Festival, a celebration of words written, spoken, and sung. This year’s line-up includes musical artists Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, Langhorne Slim, Mike & Ruthy, New England Americana Festival performers, and spoken-word artists Derrick Brown and Rives.

“There are only a handful of urban festivals in the country and most are staged in large cities,” said festival founder and director Jim Benson. “The thing about Word X Word is it’s new, edgy, and fun as hell but rooted in the Berkshires.”

Word X Word gathers emerging singer-songwriters, spoken-word poets, and actors on the cutting edge of their craft.

“As someone who makes his living with words, I can’t believe it’s taken this long for there to be a festival entirely devoted to it: The Word,” said Taylor Mali, 2009 festival headliner, who lives in the Berkshires. “I would travel across the country to witness this festival, but I don’t have to because it’s here!”

This year, the festival gets started with a gala roof top party, on Aug. 21 featuring Christine Ohlman, known as the “The Beehive Queen” and vocalist of the Saturday Night Live Band. DJ Ryan Brown, a Pittsfield native turned Bostonian, will spin dance beats before and after her set atop the Greystone Building.

The festival will be bookended by performances at the Colonial Theatre.

The opening concert features headliners Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, spoken-word artist Derrick Brown and Mike & Ruthy, who take the Colonial stage on August 22. Langhorne Slim, New England Americana Festival performers, and poet Rives will help bring the festival to a close at the Colonial on August 28.

The festival is adding seven new venues to its list, including the Colonial, the New Stage, Micro Theater, Shawn’s Barber Shop, The Lantern, 305 North, in addition to its host venue, Mission Bar and Tapas, bringing to total to nine venues.

Tickets to performances at the Colonial are on sale both online and through the box office by calling 413. 997.4444.

All other passes and tickets can be purchased in-person at Mission Bar + Tapas, 438 North Street, Pittsfield, and The Market, 391 North Street, Pittsfield.

For more information about the festival check out the web site - Word X Word Festival.

NEW YORKER CARTOONIST at NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM

The dirty little secret about the New Yorker is that everyone who reads it does so for the cartoons and not the writing. Norman Rockwell Museum will present an evening lecture with New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff on Thursday, August 19, at 5:30 p.m. Mankoff will look at the art of humor found in the pages of the venerable publication, and the creative process required to produce such work. A book-signing and reception with Mankoff -- the founder of the Cartoon Bank, Cartoon Caption Contest; and creator of many of the magazine's best-loved comic images -- will follow the program. The lecture is free with museum admission, and is being presented as part of the ongoing American Storytellers series.

A cartoonist and the cartoon editor of the New Yorker, Robert Mankoff has created more than eight hundred cartoons for the magazine over the past thirty years. He is the author of The Naked Cartoonist: A New Way to Enhance Your Creativity, published in 2002, about the creative process behind developing magazine-style cartoons. He has also edited dozens of cartoon books, including The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker, which featured all 68,647 cartoons ever published in the New Yorker since its debut in 1925.

CHARLIE MARS at the GYPSY JOINT

Mississippi singer/songwriter Charlie Mars performs at the Gypsy Joint in Great Barrington, Mass., on August 19, in support of his terrific new CD, Like A Bird, Like A Plane. Mars combines the lyrical, melodic, and rhythmic gifts of Paul Simon with the dark, rootsy quality of Bruce Springsteen. Praised by the Washington Post for its “lush musical vignettes,” Like A Bird, Like A Plane has rightly been called “mesmerizing,” which one critic writing, “Charlie’s sultry alternative-southern-soul mastery sounds like what the lead singers for Coldplay or The Verve might sound like if they grew up in the south listening to REM and Nick Drake.”

Born in Arkansas and raised in Mississippi, Mars released three independent albums before signing with V2. His self-titled, 2004 major label debut was hailed by Rolling Stone as “Big emotional rock from Mississippi ... with a knack for hooks, and the hooks here have real barbs: They tug at you and just might draw some blood.” High profile tours with artists such as R.E.M., KT Tunstall, Citizen Cope, John Butler Trio and Bob Schneider followed. When V2 folded, Mars returned to his independent roots, financing Like A Bird, Like A Plane himself, and releasing it on Rockingham Records in conjunction with the Nashville-based Thirty Tigers.

Gypsy Joint
389 Stockbridge Rd

Great Barrington, Mass.

413.644.8811

CONTEMPORARY ART at HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE

Hancock Shaker Village evokes iconic images of straight-backed chairs, yoked oxen, and, of course, the Round Stone Barn. One doesn’t typically think of the living history museum as a place where one goes to view cutting-edge visual art. But in a first, Hancock Shaker Village has enlisted internationally and regionally recognized contemporary artists — painters, sculptors, textile artists, and ceramists — to help celebrate the museum’s golden anniversary.

Forty artists, among them Jenny Holzer, Jon Isherwood, and Ellsworth Kelly, contributed work to Simple Gifts: Contemporary Artists Celebrate Hancock Shaker Village’s 50th Anniversary, now on view in the Poultry House, an adaptively reused authentic Shaker building. The artworks will be shown to the general public free with admission through October 15.

New Colors for HSV by Jennifer Riley; image courtesy Hancock Shaker Village

There will be an opportunity to meet the artists represented in the show during the Village’s Charter Day celebration on Saturday, August 21, from 3 to 5. The exhibition will culminate with a festive live auction of the works, conducted by Courtney Booth of Sotheby’s, on Saturday, October 16 at 5, with proceeds to benefit the artists and programs at the Village. Many of the works are shown online at www.hancockshakervillage.org.

Simple Gifts: Contemporary Artists Celebrate Hancock Shaker Village’s 50th Anniversary exhibit and auction features work by Michael and Maureen Banner, Michael Boroniec, Ben Butler, Gordon Chandler, Peter Dellert, Sue Flores, Gene Flores, Warner Friedman, Anthony Garner, Mike Glier, Paul Graubard, Tracy Helgeson, Jenny Holzer, Lili Holzer-Glier, David Hornung, Jason Houston, Peter Hussey, Jon Isherwood, Ann Jon, Ruberto Juarez, Ellsworth Kelly, Maggie Mailer, Peter McCaffrey, Geoffrey Moss, Gary Orlinsky, Victoria Palermo, Janet Rickus, Jennifer Riley, Denyse Schmidt, Carol Stegeman, Roy Superior, Mara Superior, Jain Tarnower, Suzanne Ulrich, Nicholas Whitman, T. Kelly Wilson, La Wilson, Joyce Audy Zarins, and Michael Zelehoski. The artists’ work represents a range of media and styles.

This exhibit and sale is part of a group of contemporary art activities taking place in honor of the museum’s 50th anniversary, including a conceptual ‘living’ sculpture by artist Ann Belden that is growing in the Village Textile Garden, a recent residency by sculptor David Poppie, and the show Sculpture Now in Lee, Mass., which features outdoor sculpture throughout the town that is inspired by the Shakers.

AFRICAN MUSIC and FILM at MASS MoCA

Wilco has come and gone, but the fun never ends at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., where this Saturday, Aug. 21 at 8, the cultural laboratory turns the stage over to New York record label Nomadic Wax for a night of high-energy African music and film. The evening starts with a screening of Democracy in Dakar, a documentary depicting the transformative role of hip-hop on the politics in Senegal. After the film, African Underground All-Stars, a rap collective with an international reputation, and Group Saloum, Boston's hottest Afro-pop band take the stage. The event takes place outside in MASS MoCA’s Courtyard C on the largest movie screen in the Berkshires.

Nomadic Wax aims to discover, record, produce and expose the underlying talent within the African hip-hop scene. After writing his senior thesis at Hampshire College on Senegalese hip-hop culture, founder Ben Herson returned to the country to record African Underground: Hip-Hop SenegalVol. 1 and film his award-winning documentary Democracy in Dakar. The ground-breaking film, which explores the function of youth, hip-hop and politics in Africa, has been screened at dozens of film festivals and universities internationally. The film follows rappers, DJs, journalists, professors and people on the street at the time before, during and after the controversial 2007 presidential election in Senegal.

The film screening will be followed by live music from African Underground All-Stars and Group Saloum, both groups that use hip-hop as an artistic avenue and shine a light on the musical movement in Senegal.

The African Underground All Stars, a rap collective hand-chosen by Nomadic Wax, will include Outspoken and the Essence from Zimbabwe and Baay Bia from Senegal backed by DJ Boo. The group will not only perform dance-worthy music but offer their lyrics with a sense of purpose. Many of the All Stars' lyrics explicitly tie their musical identities to bigger issues -- African politics, social justice, urban education and more.

Outspoken and the Essense offer a fresh, radical sound combining soul-stirring, politically infused words with an Afrosoul hip-hop sound. The Essence fuses classical and African instrumentation with hip-hop beats and Outspoken performs regularly across southern Africa, often featured in poetry festivals in Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. Baay Bia is a Senegalese composer and rapper who has emerged as one of the leading figures in the Senegal hip-hop scene. Passionate about his country and faith, Baay Bia is deeply committed to making positive social and environmental change. His music is both rooted in the traditions of the West African griot and draws from contemporary hip-hop sounds, giving it a broad appeal.

Group Saloum, Boston's hottest Afro-pop band, fuses Senegalese m'balax, the popular dance music of Senegal, with elements of jazz, funk, reggae, and Afrobeat. Group Saloum performs original mbalax music highlighted by the infectious rhythms of world-renowned griot percussionist Lamine Touré's sabar drums. Since their first performance in 2004, Group Saloum has gained a large dedicated following and earned a nomination for "Best World Music Act" at the 2006 Boston Music Awards. "Group Saloum kicks out a hard-hitting dance mix that spans the percussive fury of Senegalese m'balax and the joyful uplift of Congolese soukous," raves the Boston Phoenix.

Tickets for A Night of African Film + Music are $15 in advance or $19 day of show. Members are eligible for a 10% discount. Tickets are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office located on Marshall Street in North Adams, open from 10 A.M. until 6 P.M. daily. Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours or online at MASS MoCA at any time of day.

SKIP BARBER and OTHER RACERS in THE REST OF THE STORY

Legendary racecar driver and racing educator Skip Barber, owner of Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Conn., will be joined by several other racers to discuss the appeal and attraction of driving fast in “Hot Wheels,” part of Berkshire Living’s award-winning Rest of the Story series of free public forums, on Sunday, August 22, at 11 a.m., at the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington.

Other participants in the discussion include John Fitch (legendary racer, engineer and former track manager), Sam Posey (legendary racer, author, broadcaster and designer), and Murray Smith (noted advertising executive, promoter, and vintage race car driver). Attendees will view some rarely seen footage of the first year of racing at Lime Rock in 1957 as well as a photo slideshow. In addition, there will be a display of vintage race cars outside the theater.

An outgrowth of “Fast Times at Lime Rock Park,” an article about the Northwest Connecticut racing park in the August issue, the event, which Berkshire Living senior editor Amanda Rae Busch, who wrote the story, will be moderated by editor-in-chief Seth Rogovoy and will feature a question-and-answer session.

Each month, Berkshire Living, a regional lifestyle and culture magazine, and the Triplex join forces to present “The Rest of the Story,” free public forums based on an article running in the concurrent issue of the magazine. The series just won its fourth award for Community Service from the National City and Regional Magazine Association.

For more information, call Berkshire Living at 413.443.8200.

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