Kaatsbaan Cultural Park presents ’12 Dances,’ a new multidisciplinary venture by harp innovator and composer Maeve Gilchrist
Tivoli, N.Y.— On Saturday, January 24th at 7 p.m., Kaatsbaan Cultural Park presents “12 Dances,” a new multidisciplinary venture by harp innovator and composer Maeve Gilchrist.
In this new multidisciplinary venture by harp innovator and composer Maeve Gilchrist, time is slowed down through the process of careful observation and imagination. She said, “I believe that we live in an over-stimulated society and a lot of the busyness that clouds or cushions our day-to-day feels vapid in substance. There is little incentive to make room for the stillness that breeds reflection or imagination. This project is my personal commitment to a monthly observation of where we are: me and the world. A modest sonic snapshot of the most ordinary kind of beauty. The type of joy that is only noticed once taken away.”
The performance is the culmination of a year-long residency at Kaatsbaan in 2025, during which Maeve wrote a solo-harp composition each month, interweaving site-specific recordings, poetry, and visual stimulation she gathered each day. Known for her ethereal soundscapes, intricate-interweaving voices, and dynamically rhythmic compositions, Maeve leads us carefully through her own reverent cycle of nature, color, and humanity. In a time of political and environmental shifts, this project is a marked noticing of the absolute wonder of our ordinary world, one month at a time.
The performance is on Saturday, January 24th at 7 p.m. at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, located at 120 Broadway in Tivoli, N.Y. Tickets and more information can be found online.
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MASS MoCA presents choreographer and dance artist devynn emory, invited by Jeffrey Gibson to activate his exhibition ‘POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT’
North Adams— On Saturday, January 24th at 4 p.m., MASS MoCA presents choreographer and dance artist devynn emory, invited by Jeffrey Gibson to activate his exhibition “POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT.”
The performance statement reads: “boiling rain is a call to honor our health care workers enduring the durational tending to bodies impacted by ongoing colonialism. it draws a circle around our departed, with an additional circle around our declining workforce in health care. this performance is an invitation to gather around medical mannequin Jeanie, as she departs this plane into the next. join dancers devynn emory, Yanira Castro, and maura nguyễn donohue as they overlay their voices and tongues with the sounds and memories of the club — sweating, insisting on last breaths, and guiding a procession through Jeffrey Gibson’s garments, lights, and ancestral realms. we will offer Jeanie to the skyworld together, as she ascends into the live vocal compositions of artist Holland Andrews.”
devynn emory is a choreographer, dance artist, dual-licensed bodyworker, registered nurse, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, and practices as a seer, educator, and holder of collaborative spaces gesturing to collective ritual. emory’s performance company devynnemory/beastproductions finds the intersection of these fields. As a hospice worker and decolonial death educator, they hold space for liminal bodies bridging multiple planes of transition while finding collective reciprocity as a constant decolonial practice, weaving the limits of western medicine with an invitation of dreamed future death rituals with the wisdom of end-of-life stories from patients and elders. Audiences are invited into grief and somatic practice in collaboration with elemental relatives. This work will premiere as an evening length work in New York City in the fall of 2026.
The performance is on Saturday, January 24th at 4 p.m. at MASS MoCA, located at 1040 MASS MoCA Way in North Adams. More information can be found online.
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American Mural Project’s Happy Hour Piano Series continues with Christopher Casey
Winsted, Conn.— On Friday, January 23rd from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., American Mural Project’s Happy Hour Piano Series continues with Christopher Casey, easing you into the weekend with live piano music and libations in Connecticut’s most unique art space.
Jazz pianist, composer, and arranger Christopher Casey is a Hartt School graduate who studied under such greats as Jackie McLean, Jackie Byard, and Hotep Galeta. He performs extensively throughout New England and New York. He has performed with such greats as Jackie McLean, Nat Reeves, Steve Davis, Claudio Roditi, Slide Hampton, Houston Person, Jacomo Gates, Bob Berg, Jimmy Greene, and Greg Banaszak. His works have been commissioned by Jackie McLean, Curtis Fuller, Steve Davis, PBS Television, and The Polish National Chamber Orchestra of Slupsk. Recordings include “Double Vision,” “Jazz in the Wild,” “Sounds of Hartford,” “Head over Heals,” and “Imagination.”
The event is on Friday, January 23rd from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at American Mural Project, located at 90 Whiting Street in Winsted, Conn. Tickets and more information can be found online.
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Ghent Playhouse presents Peter Shaffer’s uproarious farce ‘Black Comedy’
Ghent, N.Y.— From January 23rd through February 1st, the Ghent Playhouse presents Peter Shaffer’s uproarious farce “Black Comedy,” directed by Ed Dignum, who directed last season’s hit “Lend Me a Tenor.”
Set in London during the height of the swinging sixties, “Black Comedy” follows ambitious young sculptor Brindsley Miller and his fiancée as they scramble to impress both her disapproving father and an influential art collector. Their plan is to “borrow” their neighbor’s priceless antiques—without permission. But when a sudden power outage plunges their apartment into darkness, the couple’s desperate attempts to cover their tracks spiral into madcap chaos.
One of Shaffer’s most inventive conceits turns the theatrical experience inside out: the characters are “in the dark” when the stage is fully lit, and they can see only when the stage goes black. The result is a high-energy cascade of physical comedy and slapstick confusion that has delighted audiences for decades.
The performances run from January 23rd through February 1st at the Ghent Playhouse, located at 6 Town Hall Place in Ghent, N.Y. Tickets and more information can be found online.
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WordXWord presents Poets Creating Conversation
Pittsfield— On Tuesday, January 13th at 7 p.m., WordXWord presents Poets Creating Conversation.
WordXWord’s Poets Creating Conversation throws out a word and asks poets to respond. This month’s word is “footprints.” There is no predicting how the outside world and/or which life experiences and challenges will insert themselves into the conversation. That’s the magic sauce.
The event is on Tuesday, January 13th at 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church, located at 175 Wendell Avenue in Pittsfield. Admission is free. Some poems may contain content or language best suited for teens and adults. Poets interested in participating may register online.
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Stockbridge Grange community dinner
Stockbridge— On Sunday, January 11th from noon to 1:30 p.m., the Stockbridge Grange is hosting a community dinner.
The dinner will feature Swedish meatballs with egg noodles, vegetable, bread, and a dessert choice of chocolate cream or lemon meringue pie.
The dinner is take-out only on Sunday, January 11th from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Stockbridge Grange, located at 51 Church Street in Stockbridge. Dinner is $17 per person and can be reserved by calling 413-243-1298 or 413-443-4352.
