The City of Somerville is preparing a Master Plan for the historic Armory building to ensure the space continues to be a vibrant arts center for years to come. Three community meetings, two in-person and one online, will be facilitated by Create Today. The two in-person meetings will take place at the Somerville Armory Café, located at 191 Highland Avenue on Monday, July 24, 12-1 PM and 4-5 PM. Space is limited to 40 individuals on a first-come basis. The Zoom meeting will take place Tuesday, August 1, 7-8 PM. Please contact Ted Fields (tfields@somervillema.gov) with any questions about these events.
This week Metamovements offers a series of Cuban Dance and Music Workshops at Spontaneous Celebrations in Jamaica Plain and Magazine Beach Park in Cambridge. Get a taste of Rumba: Yambu & Guaguanco dance and percussion featuring the teaching of visiting teacher Takechi Ruiz. Check the website for dates and places.
Morris dancing is an English country tradition with roots in medieval street theatre. The 46th tour of the American Travelling Morrice returns to the greater Boston — plus Worcester county — to dance in picturesque town centers and parks, at farms and historic inns, and at some of the finest breweries in the state. Catch them when they come to your area!
Monday, July 24 – Lincoln
3:15 pm: DeCordova Sculpture Park & 5:30 pm: Lincoln Center
Tuesday, July 25 – Bolton, Clinton, Worcester
10:00 am: Bolton Library, 11:00 am: Clinton Central Park, 3:30 pm: Worcester Common, 4:30 pm: Worcester – Wormtown Brewery
Thursday, July 27 – Newburyport
10:15 am: Atkinson Common, 11:15 am: Inn Street Fountain and Splash Pad, 2:45 pm: Newburyport Waterfront, 3:40 pm: Newburyport Town Center, 6:15 pm: Across from Sunset Club, Plum Island
Friday, July 28 – Boston
11:00 am: Copps Hill Terrace, 12:15 pm: Columbus Park, 2:00 pm: Long Wharf, 3:15 pm: Outside Trillium Beer Garden on the Greenway
Saturday, July 29 – Sudbury, Concord, Maynard
10:30 am: Sudbury – Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, 12:15 pm: Maynard – Amory’s Tomb Brewing Co., 2:30 pm: Concord – Verrill Farm, 4:00 pm: Maynard – Amory’s Tomb Brewing Co.
Vermont, particularly Montpelier, has been devastated by floods. Eve Boltax is hosting an online Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement class to help raise money for VT Flood Recovery. All proceeds from this class will go toward off-setting costs for business owners and homeowners affected by the flooding and for workers and volunteers involved in recovery efforts. This is a chance to support Vermonters while reducing stress and anxiety and improving your movement abilities. Join via zoom or watch the recording at a different time after making a donation. Monday, July 24, 7:00 – 8:15 PM EST.
City Spotlights Teen Leaders will perform a dance flash mob inspired by a positive message for social change through choreographed pop-up performances at different locations throughout the city. Wednesday, July 26 at 10 AM.
Artist Will Rawls joins The Field Center for five days this summer. This “Intervals & Quiet” workshop will begin with a series of writing and movement exercises and then segue into a durational silent meditation for up to twenty-four hours… Aside from a fast paced exercise here and there, this workshop will privilege contemplative, playful and restful surrender to and discussion of time and our bodies within it. Wednesday, July 26-Sunday, July 30 at the Field Center, 61 Williams Rd., Chester, VT.
The Rainbow Serpent is a multidisciplinary collective based in Pittsburgh that advances Black LGBTQ culture through an exploration of emerging technologies, advanced healing protocols, African cosmologies, and multimedia art. While at The Yard they will offer a one-hour workshop. Miracles in Motion is a dance modality that promotes healing on physical, spiritual, mental, and energetic levels through guided meditation, choreography, and improvisation. Wednesday, July 26, 10:30 AM. They will also present an in-progress showing of their new piece — The Four World Ages depicting the four eras of human history from the perspective of Nigerian-Igbo tradition — the Age of Universal Oneness, the Age of Self-Awareness, the Age of Light, and our current Age of Suffering. Saturday, July 29, 7 PM at the Patricia Nanon Theater.
This week Jacob’s Pillow features Oona Doherty at the Ted Shawn Theater and Resident Island Dance Theatre, Almanac Dance Circus Theatre, Oyu Oro Afro Cuban Experimental Dance Ensemble and Dunham Legacy Project Performance at the Henry J. Leir Stage. Wednesday, July 26-Sunday, July 30.
Moving in the Moment is a structured improvised performance featuring Bates Dance Festival faculty and musicians with guest artists, co-facilitated by Alex Springer and Xan Burley. This real time collaboration highlights the skill and openness of the performers as they take risks and move together in front of a live audience. Wednesday, July 26, 7:30 PM at the Bates Dance Festival Tent in Lewiston, Maine.
Berkshire Pulse, South County’s dynamic dance and performing arts education center located in the heart of Housatonic, is presenting Spirits of Chesterwood, an intergenerational dance project. Created by seven local choreographers, this roving, site-specific performance will be presented as a part of Chesterwood’s Arts Alive! series at Chesterwood, the historic home, studio, and gardens of sculptor Daniel Chester French. Thursday, July 27, 4 & 6 PM, 4 Williamsville Road, Stockbridge, MA.
Ira Klein and Liz Walker will premiere At the Seam of Life and Death, an interdisciplinary show inspired by Mt Auburn Cemetery as a place of transition and remembrance. Ira’s original musical compositions are inspired by a variety of folkloric music traditions, as well as by the beauty of the natural world. Liz’s choreography explores dance-making that leaves a physical trace and encourages connection to the materiality of the earth. Friday, July 28 & Saturday, July 29, 6 PM, Sunday, July 30, 2 PM at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge.
Broadway Plaza in Arlington Center hosts a night of dancing, fun and cultural celebration. Bellydancer Seyyide Sultan and musician David Curry combine forces for a Sharqi performance accompanied by Arabic drumming. Bring chairs and take a seat at a neighboring café patio or bench to watch this Pop Up Celebration of Middle Eastern Dance Friday, July 28, 6:30 -7:30 PM.
The multi-generational cast of mourning after mornings, by Vanessa Anspaugh, explores communal loss and mourning, reclaiming wildness, and attending to the devastating, absurd, and sacred ways we come to care for bodies and ritualize endings. Friday, July 28 & Saturday, July 29, 7:30 PM at Bates Dance Festival’s Schaeffer Theatre.
3rd Annual: OnStage 360° features local choreographers and dance companies performing work in the round: Brianna Antaya, Brett Bell & Kylie Grossmann, Saee Chitale, Dance LAB Creative, Duets for a Lifetime, Emotion in Motion, Jenny Huang, Shirin Kuppusamy, Leaps and Bounds Movement Company, Mosaic Dance Inc., OnStage Dance Company, Pistachio Groove, Pluto Return, Jessi Stegall & Holly Stone. It all happens Saturday, July 29, 5:00 & 7:30 PM at Arts at the Armory.
The first ever Brookline Community Parkfest in Olstead Park on Pond Ave July 29 11-3 PM is a family friendly day of free dance performances by Triveni Dance and Boston Bhangra, puppetry, games, food, and a guided tree walk of Olmsted Park designed to increase park equity across the Emerald Necklace and the Town of Brookline.
Elise Roth returns to the JP Jitterbugs‘ boathouse pavilion next Sunday, July 30! She and the Boston All Stahs will dazzle your dancing feet as the sun sets over Jamaica Pond. Enjoy a beginner lesson from 4-5 PM and at 6 PM Elise Roth and the Boston All Stahs take the stage until 8:30 PM. This event is free for volunteers!
Join Salsa y Control for their Dance Social. Get ready for this special SyC Social as they debut a few of their teams shows! It’s a perfect way to warm up for the Boston Salsa Festival coming in August! Sunday, July 30, 6-10 PM at Tavern in the Square Allston, 161 Brighton Ave.
Calling all Performing Artists for Works-in-Progress: Mark DeGarmo Dance seeks applicants for its virtual salon performance series for social change 2024, broadcast via Zoom on Thursdays, February 1, March 7 & April 4 at 7:00 PM ET with the theme: Dance as Social Rescue & Healing. Apply now.
Deadline: September 15, 2023 11:59PM ET.
Tess Saoirse Dance Company (TSDC) seeks 1-3 more dancers from any expertise level, style background, and career background! Dancers must be available for a November 11 & 12 show and weekly rehearsals at MassMotion Boston. Open rehearsal auditions happen Wednesdays, July 26 and August 2, 8-10 PM. Email tesssaoirsedancecompany@gmail.com for more information.
Newton Community Pride’s 2023 fall micro grant application opens on August 1. Artists, arts organizations, neighborhood groups, and creatives are encouraged to apply for funding for events, public art, performances, and other projects consistent with our mission of free arts & culture programming, beautification or service. Events/projects must occur in Newton November 2023-March 2024. This application closes on September 1.
Open Door Arts seeks part-time teaching artists. Teachers for music, visual arts, drama and dance comfortable teaching K-12th grade are encouraged to apply. Please send a resume (or link to your LinkedIn profile), lesson plan example, and a brief description detailing your interest in the position to education@OpenDoorArtsMA.org. Qualified candidates will be contacted for an interview and next steps.
New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA)’s New England States Touring (NEST) applications for the current cycle are due August 1. There are three different versions of which only NEST 1 and NEST 2 have a current deadline. Applicants must be 501c3 nonprofits, although you do not have to be an arts organization. (Sorry, you can’t apply to NEST through a fiscal agent.)
September 15 is the deadline for NEFA’s New England Dance Fund which awards grants to New England-based choreographers of all genres and backgrounds who identify an opportunity that will advance their careers in dance. Grants of $500 to $1,000 are made directly to choreographers who identify and articulate an important opportunity that will significantly impact aspects of their dance making or advance their role within the regional New England dance landscape.
Pop-Up Intensive Ballet Training with former Boston Ballet principal dancer Paulo Arrais consists of 4 hours of daily training in classical ballet. Weekly and daily options are available. The workshops run Monday, August 7- Friday, August 11 and Sunday, August 13-Tuesday, August 15. Contact admin@arraisballet.com for more information.
Join Omayra Amaya‘s Flamenco Dance Workshops. This weeklong workshop series provides training in technique, choreography, and even a free guitar masterclass. Monday, August 7 – Sunday, August 13 at the Dance Complex. To register email omayra@omayraamaya.com.
Flamenco Workshop with Clara Ramona include Flamenco and Clásico Español. Tuesdays and Thursdays from August 8-31 at Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre studios in Cambridge. Call (857) 285-8526 for more information.
Get your registration in now for Labor Day Weekend at Pinewoods Camp. Labor Day Weekend is a late-summer chance to enjoy the lovely ponds and forests of Pinewoods Camp, and participate in a relaxed schedule of classes and events, including English, American, and International dancing, music classes, plus additional staff- and camper-led workshops and activities. Friday, September 1-Tuesday, September 5.
Animator Zhao Xiaoze brings new meaning to the phrase “play with your food” for a cool — and perhaps delicious — summer dance.
We can do all this because of your support, and we’re very grateful.
Keep dancing,
__________
Debra Cash, Executive Director