BerkshireWeekend Cultural Preview, June 28-July 2, 2017

A highly selective preview of cultural events taking place this weekend in the greater Berkshire region, including modern dance at Tanglewood; tap dance at Jacob’s Pillow; contemporary art at Shaker Village; abstract art at the Clark; and a whole lot more.

 

 

Grand Duo (photo Erin Baiano)

MARK MORRIS SALUTES LOU HARRISON at TANGLEWOOD

(LENOX, Mass.) – The Mark Morris Dance Group pays tribute to the late visionary composer Lou Harrison in Lou 100: In Honor of the Divine Mr. Harrison, an entire Lou Harrison (1917-2003) program performed in Ozawa Hall with the Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center on Wednesday, June 28, and Thursday, June 29, at 8pm. The program features the world premiere of Mark Morris’s Numerator, plus Pacific, Serenade, and Grand Duo.

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Stephen Hannock, The Great Falls for Xu Bing

CONTEMPORARY ART SHOW OPENS at HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE

(HANCOCK, Mass.) – Works by an all-star team of contemporary artists, including Gregory Crewdson, Don Gummer, Stephen Hannock, Jenny Holzer, Maya Lin, and David Teeple, go on view at Hancock Shaker Village on Saturday, July 1, in Making: Then and Now, a landmark exhibition of contemporary art that explores the connection between artists today and an historic utopian movement in the Berkshires, a place both have called home.

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NW Dance Project (photo Blaine Truitt)

MICHELLE DORRANCE-CURATED TAP FEST and NW DANCE PROJECT at JACOB’S PILLOW

(BECKET, Mass.) – TIRELESS: A Tap Dance Experience, curated by MacArthur “Genius” and tap dancer/choreographer extraordinaire Michelle Dorrance, and Portland, Ore.-based NW Dance Project are on tap at Jacob’s Pillow from Wednesday, June 28 to Sunday, July 2.

For the Pillow-exclusive engagement, TIRELESS: A Tap Dance Experience, Michelle Dorrance has brought together outstanding tap artists from around the world for this unique collaboration, including Jumaane Taylor and M.A.D.D. Rhythms of Chicago, siblings Joseph and Josette Wiggan of Los Angeles, Joe Orrach of San Francisco, and Reona and Takashi Seo of Japan. The mini-festival of tap takes place in the Ted Shawn Theatre.

In a rare East Coast performance, contemporary dance company NW Dance Project presents a program of accomplished and rising choreographic talent from the U.S. and abroad, with works by Felix Landerer, choreographer in residence for Scapino Ballet in the Netherlands; Ji?í Pokorný, former dancer for Nederlands Dans Theater; Ihsan Rustem, the 2011 Sadler’s Wells Global Dance Contest winner; and Sarah Slipper, current NW Dance Project artistic director.

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Krakauer-Tagg Duo (photo Tasja Keetman)

KRAKAUER/TAGG DUO to BRING INVENTIVE NEW SOUNDS to HELSINKI HUDSON

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – The Krakauer/Tagg Duo, featuring world renowned clarinetist David Krakauer and experimental keyboardist Kathleen Tagg, brings its innovative blend of world music, jazz, classical, experimental techniques, and electronics to Club Helsinki Hudson on Sunday, July 2, at 7pm, as part of the Rogovoy Salon, a new music and literary series curated and hosted by cultural journalist and music critic Seth Rogovoy.

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Madame Butterfly, 2000. 102-color woodcut from forty-six woodblocks on three sheets of handmade paper, 41 3/4 x 79 1/2 in. Helen Frankenthaler Foundation © 2017 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, N.Y.

HELEN FRANKENTHALER WORKS on VIEW at THE CLARK

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – No Rules: Helen Frankenthaler Woodcuts, an exhibit exploring the artist’s inventive and groundbreaking approach to the woodcut, and As in Nature: Helen Frankenthaler Paintings, which focuses on nature as a long-standing inspiration for the artist, open at the Clark Art Institute on Saturday, July 1.

The No Rules exhibition, on view through Sunday, September 24, includes 17 large-scale prints, on loan primarily from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and the Williams College Museum of Art, presenting the full range of Frankenthaler’s experimentation with the medium from the 1970s through 2000s. No Rules celebrates the pioneering spirit that expanded the possibilities of the woodcut and established Frankenthaler (American, 1928–2011) as one of the medium’s great innovators.

The exhibition explores the artist’s collaborations with printers, publishers, woodcarvers, and papermakers that pushed the medium in new directions. In 1994, during an interview with printer/publisher Ken Tyler, Frankenthaler stated, “There are no rules, that is one thing I say about every medium, every picture . . . that is how art is born, that is how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules, that is what invention is about.”

As in Nature: Helen Frankenthaler Paintings, which focuses on nature as a long-standing inspiration for the artist, is on view in the Lunder Center at Stone Hill from Saturday, July 1, through Monday, October 9.

The As in Nature exhibition comprises a selection of large paintings by Frankenthaler from the 1950s through the 1990s, focusing on nature as a longstanding inspiration. Like many abstract artists, Frankenthaler continually tested the constraints of the genre, at times inserting into her compositions elements of recognizable subject matter that throw the abstract elements into relief. The paintings in this exhibition represent the full range of styles and techniques that she explored over five decades of work; while all are primarily abstract, they also contain allusions to landscape, demonstrating how Frankenthaler’s delicate balance between abstraction and a nuanced responsiveness to nature and place developed and shifted over time. As Frankenthaler once commented, “Anything that has beauty and provides order (rather than chaos or shock alone), anything resolved in a picture (as in nature) gives pleasure—a sense of rightness, as in being one with nature.”

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Lydia Wellington and NYC Ballet MOVES perform In Creases by Justin Peck (photo Paul Kolnick)

BARD SUMMERSCAPE OPENS with NYC BALLET MOVES

(ANNANDALE-on-HUDSON, N.Y.) – New York City Ballet MOVES kicks off the 2017 Bard SummerScape Festival on Friday, June 30 – Sunday, July 2, ushering in seven weeks of music, opera, theater, dance, film, and cabaret. For its first SummerScape engagement, MOVES presents a triple bill of works by Jerome Robbins, George Balanchine, and Justin Peck.

MOVES is a rotating selection of NYCB principal dancers, soloists, members of the corps de ballet, and musicians under the leadership of NYCB Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins. The SummerScape program traces the NYCB’s outstanding choreographic lineage to the accompaniment of live music.

The program includes Dances at a Gathering (1969) by famed NYCB co-founding choreographer Jerome Robbins, set to piano works by Chopin, subject of the 2017 Bard Music Festival; Duo Concertant (1972), by legendary NYCB co-founder George Balanchine, set to Stravinsky’s neoclassical violin and piano duet of that name; and In Creases (2012), the first creation for NYCB by its resident choreographer and soloist Justin Peck, set to music for two pianos by minimalist master Philip Glass.

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Dominique Labelle (photo John Budz)

ARIAS and SINFONIAS from BIBLICAL ORATORIOS at ASTON MAGNA

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., and ANNANDALE-on-HUDSON, N.Y.) – Soprano Dominique Labelle will perform works by Caldara, Handel, Purcell and Clerambault in Arias and Sinfonias from Biblical Oratorios, accompanied by the Aston Magna string ensemble, at Bard College on Friday, June 30 at 8pm, and at Saint James Place in Great Barrington on Saturday, July 1, at 6pm, as part of Aston Magna Music Festival.

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The Flying V guitar (courtesy National GUITAR Museum)

GUITAR GETS SPOTLIGHT at BERKSHIRE MUSEUM

(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked the World, a fully immersive exhibition exploring all aspects of one of the most enduring musical icons of the last 200 years, is at the Berkshire Museum, on view through Monday, September 4.

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Nick Cave, ‘Until’ (detail) (photo Doug Mason)

NICK CAVE’S SITE-SPECIFIC ‘UNTIL’ TAKES OVER MASS MoCA

(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) — Nick Cave, the artist known for his wearable sculptures called Soundsuits, turns expectations inside out at MASS MoCA in “Until,” a massive immersive installation. Cave uses MASS MoCA’s signature football field-sized space to create his largest and most overtly political installation to date, made up of thousands of found objects, a rich sensory tapestry. The sheer volume of material that has been gathered is astounding — 16,000 wind spinners; millions of plastic pony beads; thousands of ceramic birds, fruits, and animals; 13 gilded pigs; more than 10 miles of crystals; 24 chandeliers; 1 crocodile; and 17 cast-iron lawn jockeys.

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Grounded Iceberg, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, by Shaun O’Boyle

SHAUN O’BOYLE’S ANTARCTICA PHOTOGRAPHS at BERKSHIRE MUSEUM

(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Extraordinary images of Antarctica by Berkshire-based photographer Shaun O’Boyle go on view in the Berkshire Now gallery space at the Berkshire Museum from Friday, June 2, through August 21.

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MASS MoCA Building 6

MASS MoCA UNVEILS NEWLY RENOVATED CAMPUS

(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) — MASS MoCA has unveiled its newly renovated campus with the opening of Building 6, the third phase of campus development that encompasses 130,000 square feet of interior renovations to the museum’s 19th-century mill buildings. The new galleries include works by Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, James Turrell, Jenny Holzer, Laurie Anderson, and Gunnar Schonbeck (Bang on a Can), among others.

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Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973), Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937. Oil on canvas, 31 7/8 x 23 5/8i n. MPI58. © 2017 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Mathieu Rabeau, Musée Picasso © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

PICASSO WORKS on VIEW at THE CLARK

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – Works by Pablo Picasso are on view at the Clark Art Institute, along with an exhibition devoted to painter-designer Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Picasso: Encounters includes paintings and prints by the 20th century visionary and is on view through Sunday, August 27.

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Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Jackie, 1964. Synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, 20” x 17”. Williams College Musuem of Art; Partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. and museum purchase from the John B. Turner ’24 Memorial Fund and Karl E. Weston Memorial Fund. ©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

ROCKWELL and WARHOL in UNIQUE PAIRING at NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM

(STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.) — On the surface they might seem like an odd couple from two different universes, but for the first time Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol come face to face in “Inventing America: Rockwell and Warhol,” at the Norman Rockwell Museum. With 100 works of art, a selection of archival materials, and objects relating to their work and lives, the exhibition will show how both of these internationally celebrated image-makers — among America’s most important visual communicators — created enduring icons and opened new ways of seeing.

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Gabriel Metsu (Dutch, 1629–1667), Public Notary, c. 1653. Oil on panel, 16.14 x 12.8 in (41 x 32.5 cm). The Leiden Collection, N.Y.

17th-CENTURY DUTCH PAINTINGS at THE CLARK 

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – An Inner World: 17th-Century Dutch Genre Painting is on view at the Clark Art Institute now through Sunday, September 17. The exhibit brings together paintings from the Clark and The Leiden Collection, among the largest and most important private collections of Dutch Golden Age paintings in the world. The exhibition features seven exceptional genre paintings by Dutch artists working in or near the city of Leiden in the 17th century.

An Inner World explores the work of Gerrit Dou (Dutch, 1613–1675) and his contemporaries by considering tradition and innovation in the representation of figures in interior spaces, individuals in moments of contemplation or quiet exchange, and the enduring taste among collectors for works created by fijnschilders, or fine painters.

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