P R E S S R E L E A S E S 2004
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November 3, 2004

MASS MoCA Announces Full Winter Season of Performing Arts

Sweet Honey In the Rock to Perform, Basil Twist and Craig Harris Bring New Projects

Social Interventions featured in new Film Festival and Cinema Lounge series

(North Adams, Massachusetts) - Beginning December 2, MASS MoCA kicks off a sparkling Winter/Spring season with two big concerts, two raucous dance parties, major dance/theater works, a first-ever film festival, plus several work-in-progress showings, and a lively Alt Cabaret and Cinema Lounge series.

For concerts in the Hunter Center, MASS MoCA starts the season with Cat Power on Saturday, December 4. Legendary a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock takes the stage on Friday, March 18.

The Hunter Center will also host Dutch choreographer André Gingras and his troupe performing The Sweet Flesh Room on Saturday, April 2. Gingras is known for incorporating video as a live element on stage: video is projected within, on, and under the screens of the three-dimensional set, and the performers carry projecting cameras, literally performing with them on the stage. Sweet Flesh Room is funded in part by the Netherlands Culture Fund, Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York, and Theater Institute Nederland. Headlong Dance/Theater's Hotel Pool will be performed at the Holiday Inn pool on April 19 and 20 at 7 PM and at the Williams Inn on April 22 at 7 and 10 PM. By transforming the typical hotel pool into a setting for an intimate drama, Hotel Pool investigates some of the truth behind the trappings of our modern world's transience and business culture. Seating is very limited for these off-site performances. Hotel Pool is funded in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Both Sweet Flesh Room and Hotel Pool are funded in part by the National Dance Project (NDP) of the New England Foundation for the Arts. Lead funding for NDP is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funding for both productions is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

As part of its fifth birthday celebration, MASS MoCA will have a FREE Family Day on Saturday, January 29, from 11 AM to 9 PM sponsored by The Porches Inn and Hoosac Bank, Williamstown Savings Bank, Coakley, Pierpan, Dolan and Collins, and True North Financial Services and supported in part by a grant from the Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. In addition to free admission to the galleries and birthday cake, Free Day will feature frequent gallery tours and specials at Hardware: The MASS MoCA Store. In the evening, the birthday celebration takes on a Latin flair as Radio Mundial performs their infectious funk and roll at a Latin Dance party starting at 7 PM. In honor of the fifth anniversary, tickets for the dance party are reduced to $5. The event is sure to sell out and would-be Latin dancers are encouraged to buy their tickets in advance. A Zydeco Dance Party on April 15 with the legendary accordion player Terrance Simien is sure to fill the Hunter too.

From Thursday, March 3, through Sunday, March 6, MASS MoCA offers its first annual documentary film festival and forum. Like the Bang on a Can Festival and Institute in the summer, the MASS MoCA Doc Festival will invite documentary filmmakers from all over the country for intensive workshops and seminars. This year's festival is presented in conjunction with Working Films, a nationally recognized activist-driven group that bridges the gap between high quality documentary filmmaking and serious grassroots organizing. A festival for film buffs and activists alike, all screenings will feature lively discussions with filmmakers, activists and audience members about how to use film for social change. Films to be screened include Thirst, a moving documentary on global resistance to water privatization, a trend sweeping the United States. Dramatic stories from Bolivia, India and California are bracketed by escalating conflict over privatization at a global water conference in Japan. Blue Vinyl explores the impact of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) used to side homes across the country. Also on tap for the festival is an Alt Cabaret/Cinema Lounge combo with a screening of Maquilopolis and a performance by folksinger/activist Si Kahn.

Several Mass Manufacturing residencies will culminate in work-in-progress showings. On Saturday, January 22, East truly meets West as MASS MoCA hosts a group of Japanese and American choreographers performing new work after a week-long residency and cross-continental exchange. Basil Twist -- who has visited MASS MoCA several times, first as a part of Mabou Mines' Red Beads, and most recently with the underwater puppets of Symphonie Fantastique -- returns with more than 100 puppets to work on Sleeping Beauty before its premier at the Spoleto Festival, offers a showing on Sunday, February 13. Music lovers will enjoy Craig Harris's new work-in-progress, Sanctified Slides, on Saturday, February 26 a truly spectacular event with at least 40 dancers, actors, and musicians plus a full professional trombone shout band participating in a music/dance/theater work based on James Weldon Johnson's collection of the sermons of itinerant black preachers. Sanctified Slides is co-presented with Williams College and funded in part by a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts and Meet the Composer, Inc. with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The popular Alternative Cabaret series continues in Club B-10 with Lickety Split providing meals, snacks, and ice cream, and the MASS MoCA bar offering beverages. Performances this season include: the inventive duo One Ring Zero on Saturday, December 11, guitarist and singer Joan Wasser with her combo in Joan As Policewoman on Saturday, January 15, a fashion show/performance with House of Diehl on Saturday, April 9, the alt country trio Clem Snide on Saturday, April 30, and an Alt Cab Variety Show on Saturday, May 7, with the Wau Wau Sisters and accordionist Corn Mo.

The Cinema Lounge also takes up residence Thursday nights in Club B-10 with a focus on documentary films including: Life and Debt on December 2, Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst on December 16, Citizen King on January 6, Baby I'm Yours in conjunction with the REACH Foundation on January 27, Independent Spirits: The Faith and John Hubley Story on February 10, Hiding & Seeking: Faith and Tolerance after the Holocaust on March 31, Jazz 34 on April 14, and Super Size Me on May 5.

Saturday morning kids events in conjunction with Northern Berkshire Creative Arts and Kidspace and sponsored by Banknorth will keep kids occupied on a chilly morning. All kids events start at 11 am. December 11 is about Flying Objects; January 22 features Global Mask Making; February 12 is a Puppet Workshop; March 12 is about Community Activism in Collage; and April 9 will be a Fashion event in conjunction with House of Diehl.

Lickety Split will open one hour before all shows, serving full dinners and snacks. Eleven, a full-service restaurant and bar on the MASS MoCA campus, is also open before and after shows. Tickets to all events are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office located on Marshall Street in North Adams from 11 A.M. until 5 P.M. (closed Tuesdays). Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours or online at www.massmoca.org.

MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States, is located on Marshall Street in North Adams on a 13-acre campus of renovated 19th-century factory buildings.