Some items I thought were interesting out of John Greenwald’s weekly batch of cultural events. And don’t forget, until until February 22nd, you can see the Women of Western Ave at the Whistler show, Whistler House Parker Gallery. You’ll even see my new piece there!
POETRY OPEN MIC AND SLAM THURSDAY
Enjoy the premiere of our monthly Lowell Poetry Slam and Open Mic at Brew’d Awakening Coffeehaus
67 Market Street
Lowell, MA
This is a new, exciting event in Lowell that combines the art of poetry with the art of performance. Everyone is invited to perform! Sign up between 6:30-7:00 to participate in the Open Mic or the Poetry Slam.
Special guest judges will also perform. Come read and learn from fellow poets! Winner of the Poetry Slam will enjoy a wonderful gift!
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DESTINATION WORLD: BRAZIL
Thursday, February 1st, from 5 - 9pm.
Discover Brazil in downtown Lowell for Destination World: Brazil.
Destination World is a monthly cultural celebration around town featuring film, art, music, dance, food and family programming. Start your adventure at the National Park Visitor Center at 246 Market Street to pick your itinerary for the evening.
This event is free to the public! This month’s featured activities include:
* The Revolving Museum Current Exhibition:
Race, Class, Gender ≠ Character: Nov 4, 2006 - Feb 4, 2007. The exhibition is a riveting collection of paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media pieces that convey the message that, just as a book cannot be judged by its cover, a person’s character cannot be judged by race, class, gender, politics, nationality, religion or other broad associations. Rather, character is associated with those attributes that people truly value most in themselves and in others, thereby transcending negative stereotypes.
* Refreshments by Mambo Grill
5pm - Reception
* Lowell Five Main Stage
Black Women of Brazil, a documentary. Despite official jargon to the contrary, Brazilians live in a racially segregated class system. This upbeat, sensitive and elegantly composed documentary, produced by Lilith Video Collective, looks at the ways Black women have coped with racism while validating their lives through their own music and religion. 5:45 pm screening
* 6:30 pm @ National Park Visitor Center. Join us for the thought provoking screening of City of God, this shocking film shows the unbelievable poverty, greed, danger and crime in the Cidade de Deus.
* Also at 6:30 pm @ the Revolving Museum, check out filmmaker Brian Findlay’s documentary on the Brazilian martial art, Capoeira. Mestre Calango of Lowell, has been training in and teaching the art of Capoeira for over 26 years in Brazil and the United States. The film covers a Batizado (or baptism) as his Lowell & Boston students are tested and Capoeira masters from NY, Maine, Conn. and Mass. gather to practice their acrobatic, beautiful & skillful art. For more on Capoeira in Lowell go to www.capoeirarosarubra.com. or call 978 837 8499.
* 7 - 8 pm @ Revolving Museum. Join us for the rhythm and soul that Catarina Costa and Friends will present with “Brazil and Carnival”.
* 8 pm @ Brew’d Awakenings. Enjoy the premier of our monthly Lowell Poetry Slam.
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A PRINT IS A PRINT IS A PRINT
Feb 24 to April 1, 2007
Brush Art Gallery and Studios
256 Market Street in the National Historical Park, next to the Visitor Center Lowell, Massachusetts
978 459-7819
* February 24: 2-4 PM Opening Reception (snow date 2/25)
* March 17: 1-3 PM Talk by Kathleen Cammarata
* March 17: 3-5 PM Slide Presentation by Carolyn Muscat, President of the Boston Printmakers, on the history of Boston Printmakers, and its impact on printmaking in New England (being held next-door to the Brush Gallery in the National Historical Park Visitor Center auditorium.(snow date 3/18)
“A Print Is A Print Is A Print” is being held in conjunction with the Boston Printmakers 60th anniversary celebration. The Brush Gallery exhibition, one of a group of exhibitions in Lowell to focus on printmaking, is being curated by Kathleen Cammarata of X/O Printmaking Studio in Lowell.
This exhibition is designed to demonstrate some of the diverse approaches that printmakers take in producing their unique or multiple artworks. Today printmaking is cross pollinating traditional and non-traditional techniques of printmaking; providing the field with myriad exciting discoveries.
Artists featured in the Brush Gallery exhibition are: Glenn Szegedy (drypoints), Jean Winslow (monoprints), Michal Truelson (collographs), Stephanie Mahan-Stigliano (woodcuts), Bob Tomollilo (lithography), and Kathleen Cammarata (mixed processes).
On display alongside Glenn Szegedy’s six drypoint prints will be six poems by Rita Lipman interpreting the prints. The poems were typset and printed by Bethany Plath at her Pinwheel Press in Lowell. Lipman will read her poems during the opening reception, February 24, 2-4 PM (snow date 2/25).
In celebration of the Boston Printmakers 60th anniversary, the Brush Gallery has joined with other cultural institutions in the city of Lowell to provide the public with an opportunity to learn about the varied forms of printmaking being used today.
Gallery hours are: Wed to Sat 11-4, Sun 12-4. For more information
call 978 459-7819. Free admission, free parking, wheelchair accessible.
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THE ESSENCE OF CULTURE 4TH ANNUAL EXHIBITION “Taking It Personally, A Multi-Cultural Reflection of Social Addiction”
(not your usual suspects).
Opening Reception February 10, 6-9
The ALL Arts Gallery
67 Middle Street
Lowell, MA 01852
978.441.Arts (2787)
Featuring: Raquel Bauman, Pam Goncalves, Roland Cosby, Noredin Morgan, Deborah Dixon and Jennie Sandberg
February 3 at 4pm screening of Ask the Dusk, staring academy- award nominee Salma Hyack. Discussion to follow screening. Rated R/117min.
Music by: Roxianne Jones and the Zip Codes. Enjoy a evening of old school, jazz and blues
Contact Pam Goncalves, co-director of The All Arts Gallery, ph2studio@comcast.net, 978.677.6096
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INDEPENDENT/FOREIGN FILM NIGHT AT THE POLLARD
Award-winning, independent and foreign films every second Thursday of each month.
Thursday, February 8th
at 7 p.m.
Pollard Memorial Library,
Community Room
401 Merrimack Street
“The Great Match” (Spain, 2006)
Languages: Kazajo (Mongolia), Tamashek (Niger), Tupi (Brasil) With English subtitles
“A visually breathtaking, gently comic homage to the indigenous communities that are its subject and to soccer’s power to penetrate lives” — Jonathan Holland, Variety.com
This film tells the adventurous story of three heroes, none of whom have ever met, but who nevertheless have two things in common: firstly, they all live in the farthest-flung corners of the planet and, secondly, they are all three determined to see on TV the final in Japan of the 2002 World Cup between Germany and Brazil. The protagonists in this ‘global’
comedy are: a family of Mongolian nomads, a camel caravan of Tuareg in the Sahara, and a group of Indios in the Amazon. They all live about 500 kilometres away from the next town - and the next television - making their task a particularly daunting one. Nevertheless, these inventive people possess the resourcefulness and the willpower to achieve their goal.
Please note: independent films are not rated by the MPAA and should be considered for mature audiences. For more information, contact the Pollard Memorial Library at 978-970-4118.
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“DINAH WAS”
A commanding performance on the life of Dinah Washington
Merrimack Repertory Theater
50 E. Merrimack St, Lowell, Mass.
978-654-4MRT.
February 15 – March 11, 2007
The Obie-Award winning “Dinah Was” by Oliver Goldstick and directed by MRT artistic director Charles Towers is a roof-raising musical about the life and loves of the “Queen of the Blues,” the incomparable Dinah Washington. Fast paced and riveting vignettes of the singer’s life are woven around her groundbreaking performance in Las Vegas where she was the first African-American woman to headline on “the Strip.”
Determined and driven, Ms. Washington was a self-made performer, working her way up to sing with Lionel Hampton’s band, then breaking out as a solo artist, and finally becoming one of the most versatile and gifted vocalists in American popular music history. Ms. Washington made unforgettable recordings in jazz, blues, R&B and pop, bringing her own signature style to whatever she performed.
Get ready to tap your feet and sway to the rhythms of 13 of her classic hits performed live including “Baby, You Got What It Takes,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “I Wanna Be Loved” and, of course her Grammy Award winner, “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes.” In his 2001 biography Q, music legend Quincy Jones vibrantly described Washington’s style, saying she “could take the melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator and you would’ve still understood every single syllable.”
Regrettably, Ms. Washington’s extraordinary musical gifts were offset by a wild and extravagant personal life. Told through a series of flashbacks, in “Dinah Was” we witness her tumultuous relationship with her disapproving mother, experience her journey to perform music she is passionate about and meet two of her seven husbands. Her struggles are made all the more poignant when she arrives at the Sahara Hotel, where she is scheduled to perform, and is informed that as a Black performer, she will not be permitted to stay in the hotel. Refusing to go to a trailer that they’ve placed behind the hotel for her, literally next to a dog act, she embarks on a sit-in protest in the hotel lobby.
Revealing the darker side of fame, Dinah Was will leave you wanting more.
Returning to Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s stage is the astonishing Laiona Michelle who portrayed Ida B. Wells in MRT’s hit production “Constant Star” by Tazewell Thompson.
Dinah Was previews run Thursday, February 15at 8pm; Friday, February 16 at 8pm; Saturday, February 17 at 8:30pm; and Sunday, February 18 at 2pm.
Opening Night is Sunday, February 18 at 7pm. The production runs Wednesdays through Sundays from February 21 – March 11, a schedule is below. Single Ticket prices range from $25 – $55 based on the time and date of the performance. Student tickets are always $15, and Seniors receive 10% off any ticket purchase. For tickets call 978-654-4MRT or visit www.merrimackrep.org.
Ticket info:
Single Ticket Buyers can take advantage of 50% off “Rush Hour” tickets for that evening’s performance Wednesdays–Fridays from 5:00pm–8:00pm by calling or visiting the Box Office,
“The Pay What You Will” performance will be Thursday, February 15 at 8:00pm and is Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s opportunity to offer affordable tickets to the greater Merrimack Valley community.
“Lowell Night,” with special $5 tickets for Lowell residents only, will be Wednesday, February 21 at 8pm.
“Pay What You Will” and “Lowell Night” tickets are available from 5:00pm-8:00pm the day of the performance in person at the Box Office.
These tickets are best seats available, subject to availability; cash only, no exchanges or refunds.
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SAVE THE DATE: BRUSH ANNUAL FUNDRAISER
The Brush Art Gallery has scheduled its annual fundraiser, Cinco de Mayo, on Friday, May 4, 2007 from 7pm to 10pm.
More information will be forthcoming by e-mail and on our website, www.thebrush.org.
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January 31st, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Here’s some info on what should be a fun night out in Chelmsford. Books, Food and Refreshments, what could be better than that! “Tastings” will held Friday, February 2, 2007 at Adams Library in Chelmsford. Festivities begin at 6:30 pm.
Kick off the “One Book Chelmsford” campaign and
Chelmsford’s Winterfest all on the same delightful, delicious night!
Get a taste of books that are great for discussion. We’ll pair these books with some yummy drinks and foods to whet your appetite and your palate for further reading!
Fireside chats Hear book talks throughout the evening - by our fireplace
in the historic part of the library –by staff and Special guests.
Music by pianist Ernie Woessner.
Join us for this community social with samplings of books, foods, wine, beer, coffees, teas and more! Visit over 12 themed
stations of books paired with beverages and finger foods. Foods
provided by staff, volunteers and area restaurants. Special thanks to
Harrington Wines and Liquors. See the library’s website for participating restaurants.
Suggested donation $10
January 31st, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Cool, Mack, thanks for posting the event!
February 1st, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Until this Sunday, “Trying” is at the Merrimack Reperatory Theater. It is an outstanding play in every way: excellent, excellent acting, witty dialogue, a script that holds your attention the entire time. If you haven’t seen it, go while you still can. Did I say that the acting was excellent?