This weekend’s cultural highlights in the greater region include an avatar of modern dance, a Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novelist, a new art gallery, a state-of-the-art, 21st century remix of images by an iconic 20th century illustrator, a world-beat influenced dance-rock outfit, and an all-stops-pulled performance of a classic oratorio.
Lucinda Childs, one of the most celebrated choreographers of the modern era, revives Available Light, her seminal 1983 collaboration with composer John Adams and architect Frank Gehry, with three intimate, work-in-progress showings in the Hunter Center at MASS MoCA in North Adams tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m. The event comes after an extended artistic residency at MASS MoCA, and features an updated version of Childs's choreography and Gehry's set.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Art Spiegelman will present WORDLESS!, an “intellectual vaudeville show” created in collaboration with avant-jazz composer Phillip Johnston, at the ’62 Center at Williams College next Tuesday, March 10, at 7:30 p.m. WORDLESS! is a stage-show- hybrid incorporating slides, a talk, and a musical performance. The performance looks at the history of comics and their capacity to be interpreted by the brain as wordless messages. The music, all-new scores written by Johnston, will be performed live by a sextet.
BerkshireNow, a new gallery at Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, devoted to showcasing the work of artists living in the Berkshires, will be open free to the public during Pittsfield’s First Friday Artswalk tonight. The inaugural BerkshireNow exhibition, curated by Maria Mingalone, features work by three Pittsfield-based artists who work as a collaborative called Empty Set Projects.
Reinventing Rockwell is a solo show featuring works by Pops Peterson that reinterprets Norman Rockwell’s artwork with contemporary views on politics, social issues, and technology, at Sohn Fine Art Gallery in Lenox. There will be a reception for the artist on Saturday from 4 to 6:30 p.m. The show remains on view through Sunday, March 15. Peterson explores roles of gender, ethnicity, sexuality and attitude in reimagining Rockwell’s imagery for the 21st century. Using his surrounding environment in the Berkshires, as Rockwell did, Peterson presents pious, joyful and controversial imagery that effectively evokes the evolution of society from the 1940s and ‘50s to the current day.
Grammy Award-nominated Brazilian Girls – who are neither Brazilian nor all girls -- bring their singularly sophisticated and catchy fusion of electronic dance music and world-beat styles to Club Helsinki Hudson on Saturday at 9 p.m. The ensemble - three guys and one fabulous frontwoman, vocalist Sabina Sciubba - has recorded with David Byrne, Baba Maal and Angélique Kidjo, and has established a reputation as New York’s premier international party band. The rhythmically colorful group thinks nothing of drawing inspiration from a wide range of music, including bossa nova, dub, dance, electronica, jazz, easy listening, French chanson and German Schlager. The overall vibe is ultra cool and ultra sexy.
Members of the American Symphony Orchestra, Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, Bard Festival Chorale, Bard Chamber Singers, Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program, and Longy Chorale will perform Joseph Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation” in the Fisher Center at Bard College tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. There will be a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. by James Bagwell, chorus master. The oratorio will be conducted by Leon Botstein, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkishire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available online at rogovoyreport.com.