(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – Phish bassist Mike Gordon and Jamaican legend Burning Spear, along with cutting-edge choreographers Beth Gill and David Neumann and contemporary art world superstars Izhar Patkin and Darren Waterston headline a lively, abundant winter-spring performing and visual arts season in early 2014 at MASS MoCA.

Beth Gill and David Neumann will bring new works in dance, both partly created during residencies at MASS MoCA, while Izhar Patkin and Darren Waterston fill the galleries with richly detailed, surprisingly intimate exhibitions realized at the grand scale that only MASS MoCA can afford.

Other artists and performers slated for MASS MoCA include Jamaican folk-blues sensation Brushy One String (January 11); psychedelic soul group the Stepkids (January 25); Western swing outfit the Brain Cloud (February 1); Roger Clark Miller’s night of surrealist games inspired by Andre Breton (February 22); vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth’s “Water Songs” program (March 1); theatrical alt-rockers BETTY (March 22); French cosmopolitan-pop outfit Banda Magda (April 12); and theater artist Andrew Dawson (May 9). There will also be play and poetry readings, artist talks, a “God is Where?” film series, and children’s programming.

All tickets for 2014 Winter into Spring season performances (January 11 through May 9) are discounted 25% (in addition to normal membership discounts) when purchased before December 31. Tickets to the Mike Gordon concert go on sale to the public on December 13 and are excluded from early-bird promotion. Winter into Spring kicks off on January 11 with the museum’s annual Free Day, a participatory community celebration which includes special gallery events, fun activities for all ages, and Lickety Split’s famous carrot cake.

New Art on View

Izhar Patkin opens The Wandering Veil, a vast and labyrinthine exhibition of work that spans the artist’s career, including his pioneering technical achievements in blown glass, porcelain, painting, video, and sculpture. The exhibition is staged as a massive behind-the-scenes set piece within MASS MoCA’s largest gallery, and opens to the public on December 7, with an artist talk and reception on January 18.

Incorporating storage and transportation containers in vivid multimedia installations, In Transit: Between Image and Object explores parallels between the movement of art and the display and circulation of visual information in the digital age, in a group show organized under the auspices of the Williams College-Clark Art Institute Graduate Program in the History of Art. The exhibition opens to the public on January 25.

Darren Waterston, who has been working in a studio building on the museum campus since July, will present Uncertain Beauty, a collection of works centered around a major new installation, Filthy Lucre, which reimagines James McNeill Whistler’s landmark decorative masterpiece Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room.  Waterston presents the room as a sumptuous ruin, crumbling from the weight of decadence and scandal. The exhibition is open for viewing on March 8, with an artist reception on March 29.

Dying of the Light: Film as Medium and Metaphor features work by six artists who emphasize old-fashioned celluloid film’s unrivaled texture and luminosity as well as its potential for metaphor at a time when the medium is drifting swiftly into obsolescence.  The exhibition opens to the public with an artist reception on March 29.

 

Also in the Galleries

Free Day on January 11 promises hours of brick-wall-to-brick-wall activity at the museum.  Live elevator music, performances by Berkshire Dance Theatre, and art activities are annual highlights. Date Night at the museum happens on February 14. Couples are invited to a candlelight dinner and after-dark stroll through the galleries, with child care available at Kidspace.

 

Hunter Center Concerts and Dances

Charismatic Phish bassist and vocalist Mike Gordon brings his latest side project to MASS MoCA’s Hunter Center on April 5 (tickets on sale to the public on December 13, and are excluded from early-bird promotion).  Joining Gordon’s onstage jam are Scott Murawski (Max Creek) on guitar; keyboard player Tom Cleary (who plays with Bill Frisell); percussionist Craig Myers (Rubblebucket); and Brooklyn-based drummer Todd Isler.

Jamaican music icon Burning Spear brings his own jam-based Rastafarian rhythms on February 15, transforming the Hunter Center into an all-out reggae party with plenty of room to dance.

A Western Swing Dance Party with The Brain Cloud on February 1 will transform the Hunter Center into a veritable honkytonk for a ranch dance fueled by Western swing mixed with gypsy jazz, R&B, and wailing blues, by way of Brooklyn.

 

Up in the Club

MASS MoCA’s storied “Up in the Club” music series starts on January 11 when Jamaican folk-blues sensation Brushy One String brings all the energy and soul of an eight-piece dance-hall band to the Club B-10 stage with just a one-string guitar and one huge voice.

On January 25, The Stepkids bust out hi-fi magic on a psychedelic musical journey, complete with Zappa-esque freak-outs and synchronized dance moves.

Water Songs is a new music project backed by splendorous footage of the Colorado River with MASS MoCA favorites Roomful of Teeth performing live on March 1.

Legendary all-girl pop-rockers BETTY (who composed the atmospheric soundscape to accompany Darren Waterston’s Filthy Lucre) will be in concert on March 22.

On April 12, Banda Magda, hot off the release of a debut album that has turned heads from Paris to New York, blends bossa nova, jazz, and serious squeezebox chops for a high-energy performance of vintage French pop.

Up in the Club alternative programming features two “only at MASS MoCA” live events.  Mortified, a comic excavation of teen angst shared live by the original (now adult) authors on February 8, is a poignant and hilarious look at high school tribulations. Roger Clark Miller (Mission of Burma, Alloy Orchestra) brings a corpus of riotous, mind-bending games – developed in the 1920s by Andre Breton and friends – to Club B-10 and asks the audience to take part, on February 22.  It will be out of the ordinary, compelling, and utterly engaging.

Made at MASS MoCA: Works in Progress

Two dance performances, in varied states of completion, bookend the season. Bessie Award-winning choreographer Beth Gill brings a new work to MASS MoCA stages on January 19, following her week-long residency.  On April 26, David Neumann performs a suite of existing works as well as one brand new piece he will workshop at the museum this season.

The following week, Andrew Dawson explores a lesser-known element of Anton Chekhov’s legacy, in residency with The Russian Doctor: Anton Chekhov’s Journey to Sakhalin Island, culminating in a work-in-progress showing on May 9.

 

Documentary Films

Five powerful documentary films grapple with the question “God is Where?” throughout the Winter into Spring season.  Tracing stories of people wondering, hoping, and needing to believe, each documentary will be followed by a lively discussion with the filmmakers.  The lineup includes 20 Feet From Stardom, a film by Warren Zanes of the Del Fuegos on January 30; the harrowing but ultimately uplifting When I Walk on February 20; Linsanity, the Jeremy Lin story, on March 13; Damascus-based The Light In Her Eyes on April 10; and Good People Go to Hell, Saved People Go to Heaven, by Williamstown filmmaker Holly Hardman, on May 1.

 

Get with the Artists

Izhar Patkin will be in conversation with writer, curator, and former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art David Ross on January 18 before a reception celebrating The Wandering Veil.

The Interview, a play by Guillaume Leblon (currently exhibiting in the main galleries), will be read in Club B-10 on February 27, followed by a discussion with the artist.

Nepali-born artist Ang Tsherin Sherpa, whose work is currently on display in Freedom: Just Another Word For… in MASS MoCA’s Kidspace, sits down with Williams College anthropology and religion professors on April 10 to discuss The Politics of Tibetan Art.

On April 24, Izhar Patkin and others will read several works by Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali, which inspired Patkin’s ethereal “Veiled Suite” paintings.

 

More for Kids

While in North Adams developing his new work on Chekhov, director, choreographer and hand puppeteer Andrew Dawson takes us from Houston to the moon and back again in Space Panorama on May 3.  His kid-friendly recreation of the Apollo 11 moon landing – using only dramatic narration and his hands as props – has been performed at the Kennedy Center and drama festivals across the globe, to rave reviews.

Registration is on for art camps in Kidspace and throughout the museum campus.  Camp Utopia runs February 17-21, Spring Break Art Detox is April 21, 23, and 25, and MASS MoCA’s summer art camps will be back in August.  Camps sell out early, so advance registration is a must.

Tickets for all events are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office located off Marshall Street in North Adams, open from 11am until 5pm, closed Tuesdays (tickets to Mike Gordon concert on sale to the public on December 13, and are excluded from early-bird promotion). MASS MoCA will be open from 11am to 5pm on Tuesday, December 24 and 31.  Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours or purchased on line at MASS MoCA.

 

About MASS MoCA

MASS MoCA is one of the world’s liveliest (and most expansive) centers for making and enjoying the best new art of our time across all media: music, art, dance, theater, film, and video. Hundreds of works of visual and performing art have been created on the museum’s renovated 19th-century factory campus during fabrication and rehearsal residencies, making MASS MoCA perhaps the most fertile site in the country for new art. MASS MoCA is an open platform that thrives on presenting art and learning experiences that are fresh, engaging, and transformative.

MASS MoCA’s galleries are open from 11am to 5pm every day in the fall, winter and spring, and 11am to 6pm in July and August. Gallery hours are often extended on evenings featuring performing arts events.  Gallery admission is $15 for adults, $10 for students, $5 for children 6-16, and free for children 5 and under. Members are admitted free year-round. For additional information, call 413-662-2111 or visit MASS MoCA.

MASS MoCA is an independent 501(c)(3) whose operations and programming are funded primarily through admissions and commercial lease revenue, corporate and foundation grants, and individual philanthropy. Except for a construction grant from the Commonwealth, and competitive program and operations grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, MASS MoCA is privately funded: 90% of MASS MoCA’s annual operating revenues come from earned revenues, membership support, and private gifts and grants.