BerkshireWeekend Cultural Preview, Aug 24-28, 2016

A highly selective preview of cultural events taking place this weekend in the greater Berkshire region, including a Grammy Award-winning Cajun ensemble; a curtain-closing rouser at Tanglewood; cutting-edge dance-pop at MASS MoCA; a young, bestselling author at the Mount; and a whole lot more.

 

 

 

Rubblebucket

Rubblebucket

RUBBLEBUCKET BRINGS PSYCHEDELIC DANCE POP to MASS MoCA

(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – Rubblebucket brings its psychedelic dance pop grooves to Courtyard C at MASS MoCA on Saturday, August 27, at 8pm. The group’s music features electronica flourishes slithering around organic grooves, blasts of horns, and complex arrangements that turn on a dime.

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Dance Heginbotham

Dance Heginbotham

PS21 DANCE FEST CONTINUES with DANCE HEGINBOTHAM

(CHATHAM, N.Y.) – Contemporary ensemble Dance Heginbotham brings its vibrant athleticism, humor, and theatricality to this summer’s Chatham Dance Festival, a month-long celebration of American dance at PS21 on Friday and Saturday, August 26 and 27, at 8pm. After a successful 14-year tenure as a dancer with Mark Morris Dance Group, artistic director John Heginbotham founded his own company in 2011, creating work known for its “tight formal structure and inventive movement, bolstered by a disarming wit and strangeness” (The New Yorker).

The program includes:

“Waltz Ending,” a guided tour of Scott Joplin’s beautiful, varied Harmony Club Waltz. A bittersweet solo featuring a chorus of six interrupters.

“Rockefellers,” a charmingly witty duet to music Raymond Scott, Manhattan Research, Inc.;

“Diamond,” a solo dance to music by Darius Milhaud performed live on stage

“Easy Win,” a collaboration between John Heginbotham and jazz pianist and composer Ethan Iverson, inspired by John and Ethan’s shared experiences with formal ballet class.

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Emma Straub

Emma Straub

AUTHOR SERIES at THE MOUNT CONCLUDES with EMMA STRAUB

(LENOX, Mass.) – A conversation with novelist Emma Straub concludes this summer’s
Touchstones series at The Mount, on Thursday, August 25, at 5:30pm, with Straub in conversation with cultural critic Kate Bolick, who hosts the series.

Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of “The Vacationers,” “Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures,” and the short story collection “Other People We Married.” Her most recent book, “Modern Lovers.” was named one of Summer’s Best Books by People magazine. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Elle, and Condé Nast Traveler, and she is a contributing writer for Rookie. Straub’s work has been published in fifteen countries.

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Andris Nelsons (photo Marco Borggreve)

Andris Nelsons (photo Marco Borggreve)

ANDRIS NELSONS BRINGS CURTAIN DOWN at TANGLEWOOD with BEETHOVEN’S 9TH

(LENOX, Mass.) – Music director Andris Nelsons will lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra in its traditional season-ending performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at Tanglewood on Sunday, August 28, at 2:30 p.m. The performance features the BSO, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and vocal soloists including soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen, mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Donose, tenor Joseph Kaiser, and bass Günther Groissböck. The program will open with Aaron Copland’s “Quiet City,” featuring BSO principals Thomas Rolfs on trumpet and Robert Sheena on English horn.

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BeauSoleil

BeauSoleil

BEAUSOLEIL BRINGS BAYOU SOUNDS to HELSINKI HUDSON

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Grammy Award-winning Cajun outfit BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet will bring its mix of Cajun, Creole and zydeco sounds to Club Helsinki Hudson on Friday, August 26, at 9pm. For over 40 years, BeauSoleil have blended the rich Cajun traditions of Louisiana with elements of zydeco, New Orleans Jazz, country and blues to become the most esteemed Cajun group in music. A twelve-time Grammy Award nominee and two-time Grammy award winner (1998 & 2010), BeauSoleil were the first Cajun Band ever to win a Grammy and have released 25 albums.  Perhaps no single band is more responsible for popularizing the unique Cajun sounds of the Louisiana bayou than BeauSoleil.

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Angelica Generosa of Pacific Northwest Ballet (photo Angela Sterling)

Angelica Generosa of Pacific Northwest Ballet (photo Angela Sterling)

JACOB’S PILLOW SEASON CONCLUDES with PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET, SOULEYMANE BADOLO

(BECKET, Mass.) – Pacific Northwest Ballet, one of America’s premier ballet companies, concludes the mainstage season at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Ted Shawn Theatre, Wednesday, August 24, to Sunday, August 28, in a program showcasing three works by a range of esteemed choreographers – “3 Movements” by Benjamin Millepied; “Sum Stravinsky” by Kiyon Gaines; and the world premiere of “Her Door to the Sky” by Jessica Lang – danced to music by Steve Reich, Stravinsky, and Benjamin Britten.

Also this week in the Doris Duke Theatre, Burkina Faso-born, Brooklyn-based dancer and choreographer Souleymane “Solo” Badolo explores the delicate balance between maintaining roots and beginning again. In Yimbégré, he and fellow dancer Sylvestre Koffitse Akakpo-Adzaku, along with master drummer Mamoudou Konate, demonstrate a powerful, athletic, and incredibly contemporary movement technique. This work is a deeply personal dance, full of intimate gesture and bursts of energy, strongly grounded in African traditions and history.

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The Sebastians

The Sebastians

MUSIC & MORE SEASON BOASTS SIMON SHAHEEN, NICHOLSON BAKER, SARAH AROESTE, OTHERS

(NEW MARLBOROUGH, Mass.) – As always, this year’s late-summer Music & More at the Meeting House series boasts an outstanding array chamber music, cabaret, and literary events with preeminent musicians, performers and writers, this year including musician Simon Shaheen, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, and novelist Nicholson Baker, among others.

 

The series, which runs at the Meeting House on Saturdays, August 27 – October 8, at 4:30 p.m., kicks off on August 27 with the Neave Trio performing Haydn’s Trio in D major Hob.XV no.16, Dvorak’s Trio in f minor op.65, and Piazzolla’s “Estaciones Porteñas”.  One of the finest emerging young chamber ensembles, the Neave Trio has been enjoying tremendous international success on concert series and at festivals worldwide — fast distinguishing itself as an ambassador of music to a wider audience through innovative concert presentations.

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