GLENS FALLS — Adirondack Theatre Festival will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary with a peppy tribute to its hometown roots and its national reach.
Adirondack Theatre Festival’s fundraiser has become legendary in Glens Falls for creative themes including James Bond, the Olympics, and last year’s sold-out Beatles Bash. This year’s party is a hometown “Pep Rally” celebrating 30 years of innovative theatre that makes a difference at home and around the country.
The night will feature Emcee Billy Floyd of the Adirondack Thunder, songs from musicals developed at ATF that have captured national attention, the unveiling of ATF’s next summer season, a live auction hosted by former ATF Producing Artistic Director Mark Fleischer, and a very special surprise announcement.
The festivities will take place on Saturday, Feb. 10 at the Charles R. Wood Theater, 207 Glen St. in downtown Glens Falls. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $90 per person and include wine, beer, soda, appetizers, and entertainment.
Tickets are available at the Charles R. Wood Theater box office at 518-480-4878 or woodtheater.org/events.
Installation view, Isaac Julien, Lessons of The Hour, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, 2020, photo by Henrik Kam. Photo provided.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College has announced the following upcoming exhibitions.
An opening reception will be held at 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10.
Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour: Feb. 3–May 19: London-based artist Isaac Julien’s film installation Lessons of the Hour features actor Ray Fearon as Frederick Douglass, the nineteenth-century abolitionist, writer, and freed slave. Open-ended narrative vignettes set in Washington, DC, London, and Edinburgh portray Douglass with influential women of his time—including Susan B. Anthony and Ottilie Assing—dramatizing ideas of racial and gender equality. Julien’s work reiterates Douglass’s belief in the importance and power of photography and picture-making in advocating for social justice. Lessons of the Hour features ten screens of varying dimensions hung salon-style. The vibrant colors of the film have a modern aesthetic that, in conjunction with the period set, costumes, and salon-style screens, unites past and present.
Studio/Archive: Feb. 3–June 9: Studio/Archive features contemporary art from the Tang collection that examines studio portraiture and archives as tools for agency, empathy, and justice. Among new acquisitions being shown for the first time at the Tang are work by Ja’Tovia Gary, Kahlil Robert Irving, and Annette Kelm. The exhibition also includes work by Mike Disfarmer, Elger Esser, Zanele Muholi, Vik Muniz, Alice O’Malley, Joachim Schmid, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Malick Sidibé, Sanlé Sory, Mickalene Thomas, and Huang Yan.
Abject Anatomy: February 9–April 21: The artistic transformation of the body into something unrecognizable, disturbing, or abject probes human anxieties about bodily behaviors and desires. Our mind races and our skin crawls as we contemplate the possibility of a grotesque and fantastical metamorphosis of our own. Is this what happens in the absence of control? Abject Anatomy features a selection of photographs, prints, drawings, and paintings from the Tang collection that ask us to reflect on deep-seated fears about our own bodily nonconformance and that of those around us.
Elevator Music 48: Alone, only in flesh: Feb. 10–May 5: Alone, only in flesh is a site-specific, collaborative meditation on diaspora combining spoken word poetry, experimental cello, traditional Vietnamese áo dài (garments), and Southeast Asian home goods. The installation melds the language of altars—spaces of presence, transcendence, and transmission—with the liminality of the shifting elevator. The artists Antonius-Tín Bui, MIZU, and Theresa-Xuan Bui thus create a space for all to commune with the unknown and untranslatable.
Coming in July: Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld. A voyage of discovery into the depths of our threatened natural world through large-scale painted and sculptural works.
The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College opened in fall 2000 with about 3,500 objects and the collection has since grown to more than 18,000 works, representing a wide variety of materials, subject matter, and time periods. The Museum is open to the public on Thursday from noon to 9 p.m. and Friday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. Go to: https://tang.skidmore.edu
BALLSTON SPA — Opening in 1792, the building that now houses Brookside Museum was a hotel that hosted guests in Ballston Spa. At 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 15, Brookside Museum is hosting an immersive evening of food, music and stories.
The event, A Night at Aldridge House: An Evening Tavern Experience, will encourage participants to step back into the late 18th century.
Ticket holders will enjoy a night of hearty stew, crusty bread, refreshing cider and jaunty music.
Stories will be told about George Washington’s visits to the area by local author John Oliver, who will also discuss a secret real estate mission that led the first U.S. president to the region. Meals will be served by historical interpreters in 18th century clothing.
Tickets are $25 per person, $20 for Saratoga County History Center members. Tickets are limited and pre-registration is required at: brooksidemuseum.org. Friday, Feb. 16 is the snow date for this event.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Frederick Allen Elks Lodge #609 and Mary A. Carter Temple #302 will spotlight banned books on Sunday, Feb. 4, during its recognition of Black History Month.
The event will take place 2-4 p.m. at Frederick Allen Elks Lodge, 69 Beekman St.
Invited readers will share passages from banned books, either penned by Black authors or illuminating racism and Black American history, as well as share personal insight into why the book had been targeted. Attendees will also have the opportunity to read from chosen material. The vent is free and open to the public.
The New York State Writers Institute announced its spring schedule of events.
ALBANY — The New York State Writers Institute has announced its Spring 2024 schedule of events.
The events are free and open to the public and mostly take place on the University at Albany’s Uptown Campus. Some require registration. Events include:
Jan. 31 – Elizabeth Benedict, essayist, novelist and writing coach. 7:30 p.m.— Reading / Conversation with Robert Boyers, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition. Author of the eternally popular how-to book, The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers (1996), Elizabeth Benedict applies her talents to retelling the story of her recent encounter with cancer in Rewriting Illness: A View of My Own (2023).
Feb. 1 – Sandra Guzmán, storyteller, editor and filmmaker. 7:30 p.m.— Reading / Conversation, Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center. Sandra Guzmán, Afro Indigenous storyteller and literary editor, presents her new anthology, Daughters of Latin America: An International Anthology of Writing by Latine Women (2023), a dazzling collection of essential works by 140 Latin American and indigenous writers— many of them translated into English for the first time.
Feb. 8 – Aaliyah Bilal, author of Temple Folk. 7:30 p.m.— Reading / Conversation, Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center.
Feb. 22 – Karin Lin-Greenberg, novelist and short story writer. 4:30 p.m.— Conversation / Q&A, Assembly Hall (2nd Floor), Campus Center.
Feb. 27 – William Wegman. 7 p.m. — Conversation with WAMC’s Joe Donahue, Main Theatre, UAlbany Performing Arts Center. Beloved American artist known throughout the world for photographs and videos that feature his Weimaraner dogs in a variety of costumes and poses.
More: February 29 – Richard Mirabella, novelist and short story writer; March 5 – Prachi Gupta, memoirist and journalist; March 6 – Molly Guptill Manning, bestselling author, historian and UAlbany alum; March 14 – Alice Green, activist and memoirist, and Amy Godine, Adirondack historian; March 18 – Andrew Kirtzman and Terry Golway, mayoral biographers; March 20 – Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of nonfiction; March 26 – Lydia Davis, author of essays and short, short fiction in conversation with acclaimed author and UAlbany professor Lynne Tillman; April 11 – Alice McDermott, one of the leading novelists of her generation, is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Absolution (2023).
For a complete list of times, venues and appearances, films and other associated events, go to www.nyswritersinstitute.org.
The Doobie Brothers and Steve Winwood will stage a show at SPAC Aug. 13.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Doobie Brothers 2024 Tour will touch down in 38 U.S. cities, kicking-off June 15 in Seattle and staging a show at SPAC on Aug. 13, before wrapping up one week later in Salt Lake City. The band is perhaps best known for their hits, such as “Black Water,” “What a Fool Believes,” “Listen to the Music,” and “China Grove.”
In Saratoga, the Doobie Brothers will be joined by Steve Winwood – whose legend traces to his days as a member of the bands Blind Faith, and Traffic.
Country music’s best-selling duo of all time, Brooks & Dunn, will bring their Reboot 2024 Tour to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on June 27. Country rocker David Lee Murphy and country hitmaker Ernest will accompany Brooks & Dunn on the tour.
Brooks & Dunn claim 20 No. 1 hits stretching back to 1991, – “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” “My Maria,” and “Believe,” among them.
Dave Mathews Band will stage a pair of shows at Saratoga Performing Arts Center this summer.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Dave Matthews Band will launch a summer tour on May 22 in Tampa, Florida and will stage a pair of shows at SPAC in Saratoga Springs on Friday. July 5 and Saturday, July 6.
Tix: An online ticket presale for members of the DMB Warehouse Fan Association is underway now at davematthewsband.com/warehouse.
Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets beginning 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13 – 10 p.m. Thursday, Feb 15, through the Citi Entertainment program. For complete presale details visit citientertainment.com.
General on sale for tickets begins 10 a.m. Feb. 16.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College hosts its seventh-annual Winter/Miller Lecture, to be delivered by revered multidisciplinary artist Mickalene Thomas at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 8. The event is free and open to the public.
Thomas is lauded for her bedazzled portraits of Black women, including supermodels, family friends, contemporary Black icons, and her mother, a frequent muse. Her work has been exhibited around the world; a 2012 portrait of her mother, Madame Mama Bush, will be on view this spring in the Tang exhibition Studio/Archive.
Thomas’s expansive artistic practice also includes photography, collage, filmmaking, and site-specific installations. Beyond her studio practice, Thomas has produced a Tony-nominated Broadway show, designed clothing for Christian Dior, curated museum exhibitions, and taught at colleges across the US. She has made mentorship central to her career. She is a co-founder of SOULAS House, a cultural hub and retreat for Black women, a co-founder of Pratt>FORWARD and the founder of Art>FORWARD Artist in the Market incubator for post-graduate students.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Local swing clarinetist Jonathan Greene is celebrating the release of his first self-produced swing album at Caffe Lena on Thursday, Feb. 15.
Greene has spent the better part of the past two years living and performing in New York, New Orleans, Paris and Barcelona.
Fans of Greene’s work with Hot Club of Saratoga take note, the performance at Caffe Lena will feature some of the most in-demand Northeast-based musicians. The band includes: internationally beloved swing dance pianist Gordon Webster, Nick Russo on guitar, Dylan Perrillo on bass, Jay Lepley on drums and vocalist Hannah Gill.
For more information and tickets, go to: caffelena.org.
ALBANY — The Hot Club of Saratoga and The Linda-WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio will collaborate on a spectacular homage to the musical genius of Django Reinhardt Tuesday, Jan. 23 with a concert, immersive workshops, open jam session, and dancing.
The highlight of the evening features a concert with the Hot Club of Saratoga alongside Adrien Chevalier Gypsy Jazz Quartet.
The celebration will crescendo into an open jam session, inviting musicians of all levels to join in and pay tribute to Reinhardt’s innovation through collaborative improvisation and musical camaraderie.
Workshops will take place 4:45-6:30 p.m., the concert at 7 p.m., and jam from 9-11 p.m. at The Linda – WAMC Performing Arts Studio in Albany.
For more information and tickets, go to: www.thelinda.org/event/django-reinhardt-birthday-show/.
