Rites of Passage: 20/20 Vision returns to Whitney Center for the Arts in August
PITTSFIELD — Rites of Passage: 20/20 Vision, a large-scale collaborative art and performance project honoring the lives of women in America, will return to The Whitney Center for the Arts on August 13-16, with two live performances each day. The Whitney, a historic Wendell Avenue mansion once home to The Women’s Club of the Berkshires, hosted the first Rites of Passage, an installation-performance that featured 65 local women artists, in 2013.
Rites of Passage: 20/20 Vision will focus on the lives and visionary futures of Black, Indigenous, Immigrant, Women of Color (BIWOC) in America, in collaboration with dozens of women artists from around the U.S. The audience will travel through the Whitney, experiencing each of its 21 rooms as a “rite of passage” in the lives of Women of Color, from birth to death. Rooms include “Migration/Diaspora,” “No Longer Secret,” “Taboo,” “Queer Luv,” and “Legacy,” and explore relevant issues of the day such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, immigration justice, LGBTQ rights, and reproductive justice.
The organizers are planning eight live performances, with an online VR option. The live performances will occur in accordance with all state guidelines for COVID-19 safety at the time of the events.
Ghazi Kazmi, executive director of the Whitney Center for the Arts, said: “The Whit is extremely excited to host Rites of Passage again. After being shut down since last March due to COVID, it is very fitting that our first event will be Rites of Passage.”
The Rites of Passage Project was founded by Pooja Prema, founder and director of The Ritual Theatre, the only site-specific theater company in the Southern Berkshires. Local organizations partnering with the project include BRIDGE, R.O.P.E., the Elizabeth Freeman Center, and Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
—A.K.
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Berkshire Children’s Chorus to host free comics drawing workshop
SHEFFIELD — The Berkshire Children’s Chorus will host a comics drawing workshop with cartoonist Daryl Seitchik, as part of its Take the Lead! Series, on Wednesday, March 10 at 5:30 p.m. The event is free of charge and open to all middle and high school students in the Tri-State Berkshire Region.
The 75-minute workshop will cover character design, facial expressions, body expressions, and world-building. Registration is required.
Daryl Seitchik is a cartoonist and teacher currently living in Vermont. She received a B.A. in Art History and Visual Art from Barnard College in 2012, and an MFA in cartooning from the Center for Cartoon Studies in 2018. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Resist!, Philadelphia City Paper, and Seven Days.
This program is supported in part by grants from the New Marlborough Cultural Council, Lenox Cultural Council, and Stockbridge Cultural Council, local agencies supported by the Mass Cultural Council.
—A.K.
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Center on Rural Innovation founder Matt Dunne to discuss digital economy in rural America
PITTSFIELD — Matt Dunne, founder and executive director of the Center on Rural Innovation, will give a free online talk, “The Digital Economy in Rural America: Closing the Opportunity Gap,” on Thursday, March 11 at 6:30 p.m. The program is hosted by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Berkshire Community College and will be moderated by Massachusetts State Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier.
The talk is presented by the Tech Impact Forum, a partnership between OLLI, 1Berkshire, and the Berkshire Innovation Center. To register for the event, visit the OLLI website.
The Center on Rural Innovation is a nonprofit action tank that uses progressive public, private, and philanthropic partnerships and strategies to achieve sustainable economic success in rural America, including helping communities plan and build broadband networks to ensure they can participate in and benefit from the economies of the future.
Matt Dunne served 11 years in the Vermont House and Senate, enacting the state’s first broadband grants, brownfields revitalization funding, and downtown redevelopment program. In 1999, he was appointed director of AmeriCorps*VISTA under President Clinton, where he led PowerUp, one of the first national efforts to bridge the digital divide, and launched an Entrepreneur Corps to focus on micro-finance in high-need communities. In 2007, he started Google’s Community Affairs division, where he led all local U.S. philanthropy and engagement, including the Google Fiber rollout and orchestrating educational and development initiatives in Google’s data center communities across rural America.
—A.K.
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Scoville Library’s second Winter Nights Poetry Ramble set for March 11
SALISBURY — Scoville Memorial Library’s second Winter Nights Poetry Ramble, held via the Zoom platform, will be Thursday, March 11 at 7 p.m., with featured authors Jim Kelleher, Jan Conn, and Charles Rafferty.
Jim Kelleher has worked as a carpenter and public school teacher in Boston and Torrington. He has published three books of poetry: “Quarry,” “Mick,” and “Selected Poems.” His work has appeared in Yankee, The Christian Science Monitor, The Country and Abroad, and other publications. Kelleher teaches Literature and Composition at Northwestern CT Community College.
Jan Conn has written eight books of poetry, most recently “Edge Effects” (Brick Books, 2012), whose poems map the world in fragments, encountering ghosts, hookers, and lost-and-found selves. “Botero’s Beautiful Horses” (Brick Books, 2009) includes many lyrical poems written in Latin America, and one set on Mars. “Jaguar Rain” (Brick Books, 2006) focuses on the Amazonian botanical illustrator, naturalist, and explorer Margaret Mee. Her book “South of the Tudo Bem Café” (Vehicule Press, 1990) was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award. Conn studies the evolution and ecology of mosquitoes that transmit pathogens, at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, in Albany, New York.
Charles Rafferty is a poet and fiction writer living in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, who has published more than a dozen books. Rafferty’s most recent collections of poems are “The Smoke of Horses” (BOA Editions, 2017), “Something an Atheist Might Bring Up at a Cocktail Party” (Mayapple Press, 2018), and “The Problem With Abundance” (Grayson Books, 2019). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker; O, The Oprah Magazine; Prairie Schooner; and Ploughshares. New prose poems are forthcoming in Plume, Gargoyle, Rhino, and The Southern Review. He has won grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. Currently, he directs the MFA program at Albertus Magnus College and teaches at the Westport Writers’ Workshop.
—A.K.
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BCC to offer Fine & Performing Arts virtual information session March 11
PITTSFIELD — Berkshire Community College (BCC) is offering a virtual Fine & Performing Arts information session on Thursday, March 11 at 6 p.m.
The event is an opportunity for prospective students to learn more about the Fine & Performing Arts program, the admissions process, and the financial aid process/due dates. Attendees will have a chance to chat with faculty about the Music, Theatre, or Visual Arts options offered at the College.
For more information, or to register for this event, visit the BCC website or contact Admissions at 413-236-1630.
—A.K.
