North Adams — The folks up at MASS MoCA are understandably pretty excited about the summer program that they announced last week. There is genuinely way too much on their calendar to mention here (you can see the full line-up at https://massmoca.org/calendar/) so here are a few particularly exciting highlights, hand-picked for Berkshire Edge readers.
First, this Saturday evening (April 23) there is a genuine treat: a work-in-progress presentation – in collaboration with Jacob’s Pillow — of On the Road by the remarkable Zvi Gotheiner’s ZviDance company. They are promising a “multimedia production examining the general upheaval of the 1960s and the Beat Generation’s startling notions of social rebellion.” If this isn’t tantalizing enough, earlier in the afternoon Gotheiner is offering a masterclass in ZviDance material. Gotheiner’s classes are regarded as a hot ticket among professionals across the entire dance spectrum, so this chance to join in for only $5 is a real opportunity.
Opening May 28, there’s a really fascinating-looking exhibition entitled Explode Every Day: An Inquiry into the Phenomena of Wonder. This has been put together by MASS MoCA curator Denise Markonish and the artist Sean Foley. They have selected work by 23 artists from around the world who they claim will allow visitors to “experience a purer state of wonder, a state of being poised between knowing and not knowing, and defined by an experience of something truly new.” Significantly enough, the show’s title is borrowed from Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury who suggested “You don’t worry about the future, you don’t worry about the past — you just explode.”
Then, on June 11, what many people will already be thinking of as the highlight of the Berkshires summer: The National in their only 2016 headline concert in the Northeast (outside of festival appearances). Playing Joe’s Field, MASS MoCA’s largest venue, the band is promising material from the last fifteen years of their back catalog. The gig will come less than a month after the much-anticipated release of The National’s 59-track Grateful Dead tribute album, Day of the Dead. In addition, A Lot of Sorrow, Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s 6-hour video collaboration with the band,will be installed in MASS MoCA’s Hunter Center to coincide with the concert.
On the evening of July 16, there will be something totally different, but every bit as exciting. A presentation of the fabulous Oscar-winning movie The Triplets of Belleville transformed into a spectacular multimedia event featuring singing and dancing, sound effects, and the original hot swing score performed live by its composer Benoît Charest and his 9-piece Le Terrible Orchestre de Belleville band. It’s billed as “beautiful, outrageous fun for the whole family.” How could any of us turn that down?
There can’t be many organizations planning two complete music festivals this summer, but that’s precisely what’s in store in North Adams. First, there’s the three-week Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival with daily gallery recitals, late-night Chalet appearances, the annual Bang on a Can All-Stars concert, and the Bang on a Can Marathon for a 6-hour genre-busting festival finale on July 30. The FreshGrass Festival, MASS MoCA’s annual celebration of bluegrass and roots music, takes place September 16-18 with headliners Old Crow Medicine Show, Glen Hansard, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, The Devil Makes Three, Rosanne Cash, The Infamous Stringdusters, and many more. That’s over 50 bands in all!
It’s a real cliché to promise “something for everyone,” but this summer MASS MoCA can genuinely claim that that’s what they have in store.
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