| News from The Porches Inn |
March 2009 |
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PRIMO POWDER ABOUNDS, BUT SPRING IS ON ITS WAY!  With a combination of regular snowfall and snowmaking, and more intense sun, skiing in the Berkshires is a blast in March! Join us in our lobby for apres ski hot chocolate, freshly baked cookies and an array of libations. If you prefer the peace and solitude of a hike in the woods, March is a great time of year as bird activity has increased and the sun shines brightly on trails. Porches is offering great rates for flexible travelers - please click here to check rates and availability. Read on about super-value specials that celebrate the coming of spring...
MoCA Mudness
Springtime in the Berkshires is lovely - the sun is bright and the leaves are just opening up... making for sunny, protected trails, perfect to cure cabin fever. If you don't care to bring your hiking boots, this divine package will keep you indoors at MASS MoCA and the InTouch Day Spa (where you'll see the view above). MoCA Mudness includes a "mocha" gift of local chocolate and deluxe accommodations in our retro-chic inn. The package also includes one mud body wrap - perfect timing to prepare for short sleeves and skirts! - and Porches heated outdoor pool and hot tub, surrounded by a radiant-heated stone patio, is delightful any time of year. The package is available Sunday - Thursday during March and April starting from $225 midweek (based on availability). |
MASS MoCA - FUN AND CULTURE FOR THE FAMILY! 
Saturday, March 21 11 AM - 5 PM
Kidspace Celebration
CRIBS, a large-scale installation
by Matt Bua Kidspace at MASS MoCA - a collaboration between three museums The Clark, Williams College Museum of Art, and MASS MoCA - has moved to the second floor of MASS MoCA's center building and in the process added an additional 1,200 square feet of exhibition and art-making space. This expansion allows Kidspace to better serve the community by increasing opportunities for public engagement in the space and bringing larger exhibitions to local school children. Kidspace, which opened its doors in January 2000, will be celebrating its most recent expansion with events, performances and the opening of CRIBS, a new exhibition by installation artist Matt Bua. On March 21, kids and families are invited to a day long family celebration complete with art-making projects for kids, refreshments all day, and gallery talks by Matt Bua at 11:30 and 1:30 in Kidspace to mark the opening of the new site as well as the new CRIBS art installation. The day will also include performances at noon, 2, and 4 PM of a series of plays written by local school children in collaboration with professional Berkshire writer Juliane Hiam. Performing Arts Events and Talks at MASS MoCA Saturday, March 7, 2009, 8:00 pm The BooksOne of most inventive and unpredictable bands in popular music -- or maybe one of the most accessible and poppy bands in experimental music, depending on how you look at it - The Books will spend a week in residence working on new material, which they'll debut in the Hunter Center in a special hometown performance. Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong's signature mix of samples, loops, found sounds, and acoustic instrumentation is always beautifully rendered: "When the fragile mixture of field recordings, samples from radio broadcasts and twanging folk instruments come into focus, the results are quietly fascinating." -- Q Magazine. Friday March 13 and Saturday March 14 Working Films Forum
The fifth annual Working Films Forum is a festival of screenings and an interactive workshop for documentary filmmakers committed to using film for social advocacy. This year the focus is on community: Made in L.A., Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, and Hotel Gramercy Park all spotlight the complex workings of social, geographical and historical communities in the face of dramatic changes and challenges. Each film will be followed by a Q&A with filmmakers and activists. Saturday, March 21, 2009, 8:00 pm Cynthia Hopkins: The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success) The NYC based singer and theater artist Cynthia Hopkins gives a work-in-progress performance of the final installment of her beguiling musical theater trilogy, which began with Accidental Nostalgia. This prequel/sequel to Hopkins' exploration of identity and unreliable memory is a humorous epic folk tale cast as science fiction: the hero's only chance to save the universe is to fail to save the earth. Hopkins' company includes her band Gloria Deluxe and the video artists Jeff Sugg and Jim Findlay (Wooster Group), The work features Hopkins' signature hybrid of song, text, and dollhouse videoscapes. The performance of this one-woman show comes on the heels of a week-long residency. "Hopkins pulls off the impossible: She makes postmodernism danceable." - Time Out NY. Cinema Lounge: Larger than Life Thursday, March 26 Good Ol' Charles Schultz
The father of one of the most beloved comic strips of all time had a reputation as a tormented, emotionally aloof curmudgeon and recluse. This biopic of the Peanuts creator, originally screened as part of the PBS American Masters series, is a fascinating examination of how Schultz's psychology manifested itself in Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and the rest of the gang. Club B-10. Film with Live Music Saturday March 28 8:00 PM Dean & Britta: 13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests
Sponsored by Porches! This project, commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, is like the coolest concert you've ever been to and an archeological dig unearthing the 1960s New York art scene rolled into one. Dean & Britta (a.k.a. Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, formerly of the storied indie band Luna, and in Wareham's case also of lo-fi icons Galaxie 500) have composed music to accompany Warhol's rarely seen short silent film portraits, which captured Factory superstars, celebrities, and anonymous teenagers alike in technically simple but mesmerizing 4-minute shots. The Screen Tests, as the artist called them, are newly illuminated by Dean & Britta's haunting, seductive scores. Galleries open until 7 PM. Hunter Center.
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LAST CHANCE TO SEE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC... try our Museum Mania Package 
Wishing for Paris in the springtime? We're offering an affordable Parisian "promenade" combined with a viewing of the hottest art exhibit to hit museum walls through the Inn's Museum Mania package. Art lovers will be among the first to see the critically acclaimed Sol LeWitt Wall Drawings Retrospective at MASS MoCA and Toulouse-Lautrec and Paris at the Clark Art Institute, where viewers will be treated to the visionary artist's depiction of raucous late nineteenth-century Paris. The package includes two nights of accommodations in a deluxe guestroom (which includes Porches healthful continental breakfast buffet), admission for two to MASS MoCA and two audio tours of the Clark Art Institute. Kick back at Porches later on by the Inn's bonfire or take a dip in the year-round heated outdoor pool and hot tub, surrounded by a radiant-heated stone patio. From $259 midweek and $355 on weekends.
Toulouse-Lautrec and Paris - EXHIBIT OPEN UNTIL APRIL 26th!
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
Free admission
Vibrant and racy Parisian nightlife of the late 19th century will be on view at the Clark this winter. Toulouse-Lautrec and Paris, an exhibition of over 80 remarkable oil paintings, posters, photographs, drawings, and lithographs, marks the first time in over 15 years that the Clark will show nearly its entire extraordinary collection of works by the great French painter and printmaker Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. clarkart.edu, 413-458-2303
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WILLIAMS COLLEGE - ENGAGING ALL AGES
Lecture:"The Culture of Thin: Through the Lens of Lauren Greenfield"
Wednesday March 4 at 7:00 pm
Griffin Hall, Room 3 (First floor), Williams College Campus
Contemporary artist Lauren Greenfield will speak about her experiences photographing adolescents who struggle with body image and disordered eating. A question and answer session and book signing will follow. Lauren Greenfield is the keynote speaker for National Eating Disorders Awareness Month brought to you by Active Minds.
For more information about the event, contact jw1@williams.edu
For more on Lauren Greenfield visit www.laurengreenfield.com
Season Premiere Party: Toast Our Faculty
Thursday, March 5 at 5:00 pm
Celebrate the spring's new exhibitions, including Williams College Studio Art Faculty Exhibition-2009 and Labeltalk 2009: Vik Muniz. Join us as we honor Williams faculty members and their contributions to the museum.
Storytime in the Galleries
"Traveling the Countryside"
Friday, March 6
10:30 am
Preschoolers, toddlers, and infants with adults welcome. No reservations required for families. Preschool classes please call (413) 597-2038 in advance.
Reclaiming da Vinci: A Symposium of Art and Mathematics
Saturday, March 14
10:00 am-4:00 pm
This symposium brings together mathematicians and artists to explore creativity and the ways that the two disciplines can collaborate. Join us for a gallery viewing, talks, and time for dialogue. Speakers include origami artist Robert Lang at 11:00 am, mathematics professor Edward Burger at 1:00 pm, and artist Alyson Shotz at 2:00 pm. A reception follows.
Interdisciplinary Gallery Talk: Liu Zheng: The Chinese
Wednesday, March 18
4:00 pm
Professor Sam Crane and Deputy Director John Stomberg discuss the historical and curatorial issues that arise in The Chinese. |
BERKSHIRE FESTIVAL OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS
The First Annual Berkshire Festival of Women in the Arts, which kicked off March 1, 2009 and runs throughout the entire month, now boasts more than 60 events at 30-plus venues throughout Berkshire County. Presented by The Women's Times, the festival will feature exhibits, film, music, performance, talk and more, and will include diverse programming that ranges from historical to contemporary, traditional to radical, political to apolitical. Venues run the spectrum from the Berkshires' most established cultural organizations to new and improvised locations. There are opportunities for festival-goers to examine the role of women in the arts, celebrate the achievements of women artists or simply enjoy a diverse cross-section of artistic work. Two signature events will mark the Festival: The Power of Women in the Arts, the Eighth Annual International Women's Day conference will be held on March 6-7 at Bard College at Simon's Rock College; and She's Got Moxie!, the First Annual Festival Awards to be presented at a March 13 gala at Shakespeare & Company (honorees to be announced in early February).
"The Women's Times has always shined a spotlight on women's art, women artists and women working behind the scenes," says Eugenie Sills, founder and publisher of The Women's Times. "A few years ago, we began an annual feature in our Summer Arts Preview called Where the Women Are-and Aren't. Thanks to the Festival's many participating artists and organizations, this March the answer will be resounding: everywhere in the Berkshires!" Details about all Festival events can be found at here. . |
Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers at MCLA...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 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 womenscenter@mcla.edu . For more information, go to www.mcla.edu/Student_Life/community/womenscenter or www.guerrillagirls.com. |
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AFFORDABLE THEATRE IN WILLIAMSTOWN
Betrayed
Written by George Packer and Directed by Pippin Parker
April 16 , 17 | 8:00 PM | MainStage
$3 Students/ $10
In 2007, George Packer's article in The New Yorker about Iraqi interpreters who worked for American forces on the ground drew attention to a moral scandal: the interpreters were jeopardizing their lives in an atmosphere of increasing hostility with no real U.S. protection. Packer, whose The Assassin's Gate is one of the best books written on modern Iraq, turned the article into Betrayed, an extraordinary play about three young Iraqis-- two men and one woman-- who risk everything for America's promise of freedom. This complex, heart-wrenching exploration of the relationships between the Iraqis and their American supervisors is one of the most powerful and incisive works of art to come out of the war.
- nner of the 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play -
These performances are made possible by the W. Ford Schumann '50 Endowment for the Arts and the Lipp Family Fund for Performing Artists.
'62 Center for Theater and Dance
Williams College
1000 Main Street
Williamstown, MA 01267 | |
