Arts

Arts

Dramatic, Ecstatic Klezmatics Bring Danceable Joy to the Mahaiwe

By Robert Burke Warren When trumpeter-composer Frank London formed the Klezmatics in the East Village in 1986, he and his bandmates sought to revitalize and update klezmer music, the Yiddish folk/American jazz amalgam popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the band’s first gigs, the

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Arts

Songbird Returns to the Valley: Allison Moorer Graces Helsinki Hudson

By Robert Burke Warren When this writer last saw Grammy-and-Oscar-nominated singer-songwriter Allison Moorer, she lit up a 2011 Midnight Ramble at Levon Helm’s barn, an act she intends to repeat at Helsinki Hudson on Friday, November 15 at 9 p.m.. Back at that Ramble, Hurricane Irene had just

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Arts

Going To Pots: "Sangha," More Than A Thousand Miniature Vessels By Kathryn Walker

By Shawn Hartley HancockPhotos of pottery and shop by Kelby Lawson Sangha, the Sanskrit word for community, is an appropriate name for the stunning installation of miniature earthen pots, each decorated by artist Kathryn Walker, that are on view through November 30 at Pergola, the luscious home store in the

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Arts

Novelist Glenda Ruby Conjures Up A "Death at Olana"

By Marilyn Bethany The fictional character of Lindsey Brooks, an expert on antiques, fell into sleuthing early in her career at the behest of an acquaintance in law enforcement who understood what convenient containers antiques can be for smuggling contraband. In addition to running an international auction house, Miss Brooks

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Arts

Adapting to Ourselves: Williamstown Film Festival Celebrates 15 Years

The Great Chicken Wing HuntBy Nichole DupontHe remembers the first year like it was yesterday. A few indie films sprinkled in with funny shorts and a documentary or two, the distinct feeling that this could be a “thing." Now, Steve Lawson — veteran director of the Williamstown Film Festival — cannot

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Arts

Zip: Two Boots Brings Bawdiness to Bard With Filthy Gorgeous Burlesque

By Robert Warren You can pull all the stops out ‘till they call the cops out, Grind your behind till you're banned. But you gotta get a gimmick if you wanna get a hand! -- Miss Mazeppa, from the Sondheim/Styne musical Gypsy “It’s high time we

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Arts

Books: "Private Gardens of the Hudson Valley" A Vicarious Pleasure

By Dan Shaw The imaginary line that divides Connecticut's Litchfield County from New York's Columbia, Dutchess and Putnam Counties became very real to Jane Garmey as she researched and wrote her beautiful new coffee table book, Private Gardens of the Hudson Valley. "When I began

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Arts

The Rising Son of Genji’s World in Japanese Woodblock Prints at Vassar

By Robert Burke Warren Throughout time and across the globe, cultures rise, fall, and evolve with one constant: storytelling. While some stories die with their tellers, others are durable and mutable enough to claim immortality. Westerners often cite Shakespeare and epic poet Homer as masters, yet our culture overlooks the

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Review: "Clybourne Park" at Barrington Stage

There's a new word -- "authentrification" -- that developers in New York City are using to justify renovating buildings that once served low-income communities and turning them into "authentic" hangouts for free-spending hipsters. Is this awesome or awful? The vicissitudes of gentrification are at

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Arts

Yes We Cannes: The FilmColumbia Festival In Chatham

By Scott Baldinger Chatham’s charming Main Street seems to be in a quiescent stage these days, with a noticeable reduction of retail and pedestrian activity on its handful of blocks. (Thankfully, The Blue Plate, Yianni's, the Thompson Giroux  Gallery, American Pie, The Chatham Bookstore, The Main Street

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Arts

Fellowship of the Five-String: Béla Fleck NY Banjo Summit at the Mahaiwe

By Robert Burke Warren The ongoing saga of the banjo is uniquely American: enslaved Africans bring a deceptively humble instrument from their homeland, whites appropriate and Victorianize it, the burgeoning multi-ethnic folk culture seizes it, mid-20th-century protestors wield it, and, finally, an urban kid – Béla Fleck –hears it on the

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Arts

A Palace of Memory: Anselm Kiefer Invades MASS MoCA

Kiefer's "Velimir Chlebnikov," series at MASS MoCA; all photos courtesy of the Hall Art FoundationBy Nichole Dupont There is nothing lighthearted about an Anselm Kiefer exhibit. The literal weight of his medium — lead, concrete, dirt — can be felt and seen in the near-monumental scale of his

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