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MCLA WOMEN'S CENTER TO PRESENT "BITCHES, BIMBOS AND BALLBREAKERS"

NORTH ADAMS, MASS. - The Susan B. Anthony Women's Center at Massachusetts
College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) will present the world premiere theatrical
production of "Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: A Guide to Female
Stereotypes" on Wednesday, March 11, and Thursday, March 12, at 7:30 p.m.
in Venable Theatre on the MCLA campus.

Adapted from the book by the Guerrilla Girls, the play was produced by a
team of seven MCLA faculty and students, and is in celebration of
International Women's Day on March 8 and Women's History Month. It is part
of the country-wide, month-long Berkshire Festival of Women in the Arts.

"Would you rather date a vamp, a feminazi, or the girl next door? Would
you rather your mother be a super-model or a biker chick? How many
different stereotypes of lesbians do you think can be crammed into one
soap opera segment? What's Lolita doing on 'Reading Rainbow?'" said Dr.
Susan Birns, director of the Susan B. Anthony Women's Center and MCLA
sociology professor. "If you want the answers to these and many other
questions, you won't want to miss this show."

The group has been working on the project for nearly a year. They recently
were joined by 10 technicians and more than 30 MCLA students, faculty,
staff and community-member actors.

"We saw this as the perfect way to culminate two years dedicated to
exploring the theme of gender-based stereotypes," Birns said. "The
Guerrilla Girls do a fabulous job of disproving the myth that feminists
can't be funny. On the other hand, it is crucial that people understand
that we, and the Guerilla Girls, are mocking the stereotypes and those who
perpetuate them, not real women."

In their book, "Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers," the Guerilla Girls take
on the stereotypes that follow women, delving into the lives of both real
and fictional women who have become stereotypes - from Aunt Jemima and
Tokyo Rose to June Cleaver.

The show runs approximately 80 minutes without an intermission. Tickets
are $2. All proceeds will benefit the Elizabeth Freeman Center's battered
women's shelter. Both shows are expected to sell out. To reserve tickets,
call (413) 662-5497 or e-mail [email protected] . For more
information, go to www.mcla.edu/Student_Life/community/womenscenter  or
www.guerrillagirls.com .

Lecture on Le Corbusier's Lectures March 10 at The Clark

Williamstown, MA - Tim Benton will present the spring 2009 Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor
Lecture "The Rhetoric of Images: Le Corbusier's Lectures" on Tuesday, March 10,
at 5:30 pm, at the Clark. Benton is lecturer in the History of Art at Open
University (Milton Keynes, England) and the spring 2009 Robert Sterling Clark
Visiting Professor at Williams College. The Clark/Williams College Graduate
Program in the History of Art sponsors this free lecture.

Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965) was known almost as well
for his stimulating lectures as for the buildings he designed, and once claimed
to have lectured to 2,000 people for three hours. He asserted that his lectures
were improvised but Benton's research has demonstrated that parts of the
lectures were carefully prepared in advance, not only in some passages of
written-out text, but also with sketches which planned out in detail the
drawings he made on large sheets of paper or on the blackboard during the
lectures themselves. Although plentiful material exists-notes, sketches, some
transcripts, and a few transparencies-this study requires detective work and
some speculation. Benton will examine lectures Le Corbusier gave in 1924 in
which he laid down the basic principles of his lecturing technique. Referring to
the classic theories of rhetoric, Benton will explain how Le Corbusier's
lectures worked and how he persuaded his listeners that a revolutionary modern
architecture was required.

Opening Reception for Bouchard Exhibit February 27

Bennington, VT - The opening reception for the exhibition "Spring and Other Paintings" by area artist Renee Bouchard will be held on Friday, February 27, from 5 – 8 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Meetinghouse, 108 School Street in downtown Bennington, VT (parking is available behind the Bank North building on Main Street).

There will be refreshments, an engaging artist's talk, and a provocative exhibit!

Bouchard is exhibiting a selection of her works completed over the past 5 years.  She will describe her evolution from painting to making sculptural installations. 

Renee graduated from the Maine College of Art in 1999.  She has been an artist in residence at the Cooper Union, the Kate Millet Art Colony for Women, and at the Vermont Studio Center.  She has spoken about her work at Union College, the University of Southern Maine, and at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art.  She has exhibited her work in New England, Florida, and New York.  She was recently awarded an individual artist grant from the Vermont Arts Council.

MCLA ART FACULTY MEMBER TO OPEN SHOW AT SIMON’S ROCK

NORTH ADAMS, MASS. – Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) Assistant Professor of Visual Arts Melanie Mowinski will exhibit her work in a show entitled "Walking with Trees" at the Atrium Gallery at the Alumni Library at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, March 2 through April 3.

Mowinski will present a gallery talk at an artist’s reception on Wednesday, March 4, at 5:30 p.m.

The event is free and open to the public.

Mowinski said she explores patterns in time and nature through documentation and collaborations. Her tree drawings seek to recreate the quiet peace of the forest.

“I am inspired by Henry David Thoreau and strive to find a balance between nature and civilization by bringing the wilderness to inside spaces,”
Mowinski said. “I collaborate with a tree by entering its intimate space.
We exchange something beyond the transfer of texture to paper or the touch from wrapping paper and string around a trunk. This collaboration reminds me of the importance of my connections to the earth, to others and to myself.”

An MCLA faculty member since 2008, Mowinski teaches visual art. She earned a Master’s of Fine Art degree in book arts and printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pa., in 2006, and a Master’s of Art degree in religion and the visual arts from Yale University in New Haven, Conn., in 1999.

Bard College at Simon’s Rock is at 84 Alford Road in Great Barrington. The Atrium Gallery at the Alumni Library is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to midnight and Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to midnight. For more information, go to www.simons-rock.edu/events/art , www.melaniemowinski.com or www.mcla.edu .

MCLA FINE & PERFOMING ARTS DEPARTMENT PRESENTS ‘MY SON IS CRAZY...BUT PROMISING’

NORTH ADAMS, MASS. – The Fine and Performing Arts Department at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) will present “My Son is Crazy but Promising” by Tim Kelly as its major spring theatre production, Wednesday through Saturday, March 4-7, at 8 p.m. in MCLA’s Venable Theatre.

“My Son is Crazy but Promising” is a screwball comedy about what happens when a group of eccentric characters come together at the Ritz-Apache Hotel.

With characters like Bud Granger (Jed Krivisky ’11 of Offining, N.Y.), a screenwriter for low-budget horror movies; his mother Tillie Granger (Meghan Zaremba ’09 of Stoughton), a washed-up actress; a notorious mobster named Oysters Rockefeller (Joshua Smith ’09 of Easthampton); and Cora Ames, the crazy lady who talks to aliens (Elizabeth McWhirk ’09 of Mansfield); the audience will be laughing until the end of the show, according to Rachel Seklecki ’11 of Southampton, the production’s publicity manager.

The show is directed by MCLA Fine and Performing Art Professor Douglas Jenkins, with technical design by Andrew Hoar, MCLA’s theatre production designer and technical director, and costumes by Dawn Shamburger, assistant professor in fine and performing arts at MCLA.

Tickets to “My Son is Crazy but Promising” are $2, and may be reserved by calling (413) 662-5123. For more information, go to www.mcla.edu .

"Locus" Exhibit Opens February 26 at MCLA's Gallery 51

North Adams, MA - Beginning tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 26, at 5 p.m., Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) Gallery 51 presents “Locus,” an exhibition of contemporary video art, painting, drawing, photography and performance. 

 

Curated by Lauren Wolk of North Adams, “Locus” features art made by emerging and established American artists whose work explores the human body as experience.

 

The opening reception for this exhibition, on Thursday, Feb. 26, from 5 to 7 p.m., will include a dance performance.  The event is free and open to the public. Please join us!

 

Works included in this exhibition use the human body as a means to explore myriad aspects of experience: utopianism, memory, race, language, gender, and trauma, to name a few. The show features five visual artists, as well as eight dance artists in performances at the gallery throughout the duration of the exhibition.

 

 “The artworks in ‘Locus’ explore how contemporary experiences are registered in the human body,” Wolk said. “Within the scope of the show, the self is really posited as the site where public meets private. In disparate ways, the works are interested in parsing the implications of that intersection.”

 

Catherine Czacki investigates memory, time travel, and language through video, painting, and the strategic addition of other discreet objects. Her work challenges our reliance on symbols and asks us to understand the body and its perceptual potential in a new way.

 

Felicia Garcia-Rivera and Liz Laser contribute a collaborative photograph, and a video work that investigates masculinity, as a group of motorcycle riders are choreographed by a disembodied voice.

 

Liz Laser’s video works and photographs feature bodies that range from frenzied and pained, to awkward and obedient. Viewers form an intimate voyeuristic relationship with Laser when watching “Lost It,” in which she cradles a baby made of ice that melts in her arms over four hours of footage.

 

Simone Leigh is a sculptor who contributes video work to “Locus.” Her work has been termed “Afro-futurist” and explores the formal relationship between body, material, technology, and history. Leigh short-circuits footage of the “Star Trek” character Uhura in her video work, leaving viewers to wrestle with the repeated stutter and twitch of Uhura’s gestures.

 

In painting, drawing, and collage, Sarah Olson combines organic forms – distended and distorted tree limbs, bellies, feet and genitalia. She contributes extant pieces to the show, and her performance-based collaboration with the Wendy Osserman Dance Company at the opening will yield its own work, as the gallery space is transformed into both studio and stage.

 

Performance Schedule & Roster:

 

Performance at the opening, 5-7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 26.

The Wendy Osserman Dance Company was founded in 1976 in New York City and has been collaborating with painter Sarah Olson for the past several years. At the opening of “Locus,” Osserman and two company dancers, Cori Kresge and Emily Quant, will enter into a feedback loop of creativity with Olson, creating performance-based work that explores the cross-pollination of dance and visual art.

pen Rehearsal, 7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 28.

Creatures of Habitat (COH ensemble),  an experimental physical-poetry ensemble based in Massachusetts directed by dance artist Stefanie Weber will hold an OPEN REHEARSAL in conjunction with Locus. Audience members are invited to participate in the process of developing COH's newest series, “habitat (de)fragmentation,” by bringing in a battery (or solar) powered light of any kind. The dancers/performers in this evening’s rehearsal include Kalei Carlson, Kat Gurley, Isabelle Holmes and Stefanie Weber.

 

Performance, 7 p.m., Thursday, March 5.

Modern dancers Marta Miller and Aislinn MacMaster have been collaborating for over a decade. Based in New Jersey and Connecticut, respectively, Miller and MacMaster spend much of their summers creating work in their studio in Stamford, Vermont. Their performance for “Locus” will center on their improvisational response to the art works in the exhibition. 

 

“Locus” runs through March 22. MCLA Gallery 51 is at 51 Main St. in North Adams and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.  For more information, call 413-664-8718, or go to www.mcla.edu/Gallery51 .

 

Clark Hosts Symposium on Film Studies & Art History March 13 & 14

Williamstown, MA - Scholars of film, art, and culture will discuss the complex historical and aesthetic relationships between film and art, and between film studies and art history, on Friday and Saturday, March 13 and 14, at the Clark. The "Image and Movement: Film Studies and Art History" symposium will cover key figures such as Sergei Eisenstein, key genres such as landscape, and key crossovers like the museum film. The symposium is convened by Angela Dalle Vacche of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Cost is $25 for adults, $15 for students, and free for Williams students and faculty. Register online or call 413-458-0460.

A complete schedule of events, including the screenings of Russian Ark and A Visit to the Louvre, is available online at clarkart.edu. Participants and their topics for discussion include:
 * Lynda Nead, of Birkbeck College, University of London, "The Artist's Studio: The Battle of Art and Film"
* Nell Andrew, of University of Georgia, "A Moving Picture in Early Abstract Art"
* John McKay, of Yale University, "Vertov and the Line"
* Trond Lundemo, of University of Stockholm, "Art History as a Reserve for Montage in Eisenstein's Writings and Films"
* Susan Felleman, of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, "To the Art Film and Beyond: The Future Study of Cinema and Art History"
* Angela Dalle Vacche, of Georgia Institute of Technology, "Andre Bazin and the System of the Arts" * Dudley Andrew, of Yale University, "Vertical Sections of Voluminous Time: Bazin and Malraux on Films of Art"
* Noa Steimatsky, of University of Chicago, "Of the Face: In Reticence"
* Thomas Elsaesser, of University of Amsterdam, "Bergman in the Museum?"
* Martin Lefevbre, Concordia University, "Investigating the Film Landscape"
* Lara Pucci, of University of Manchester, England, "Remapping the Rural: Ideology and Iconography in Fascist Italy"
* Sally Shafto, independent writer and scholar, "Artistic Encounters: Jean-Marie Straub, Danielle Huillet and Cezanne"
* Ian Christie, of Birkbeck College, University of London, "A Disturbing Presence? Scenes from the History of Film in the Museum"

The symposium is supported by a generous grant from the Robert Lehman Foundation.

Sullivan Students Present "Colors of Water" March 2

North Adams, MA - Colors of Water, a 3rd grade student show will feature a film screening of "Water is Essential!" and a handcrafted necklace sale on March 2 from 3-5 pm at Sullivan Elementary School, 151 Kemp Avenue.

Dutch Choreographer Anouk van Dijk Returns to MoCA February 28

North Adams, MA - On Saturday, February 28 at 8:30 pm in the MASS MoCA Hunter Center, Dutch choreographer Anouk van Dijk returns with yet another groundbreaking project, a full evening program based on the short piece “Shot.” Call 413.662.2111.

"Shadows on the Winter Moon" February 28 at Heritage Park

North Adams, MA - As part of the February 28 WinterFest, Western Gateway Heritage State Park presents Shadows on the Winter Moon, presented by Supervisor Robert Campanile at the Visitors Center at 2 pm. This is a free program. Call 413.663.6312.