SARATOGA SPRINGS — The new Schick Gallery exhibition “True to Type” presents selections from designers and muralists Annica Lydenberg and Lynne Yun, through Dec. 2.
Lydenberg and Yun bring a passion for type design to their client work and their own art. In addition to operating their own design firms, both are deeply dedicated to education and making a social impact. “True to Type” features both their personal and commercial work, including four new murals created on site.
Lydenberg is a Brooklyn-based designer, illustrator, and sign painter who graduated from Skidmore College in 2000 with a degree in studio art. She founded Dirty Bandits, now a web design firm, in 2003 as a T-shirt company, then completed the Type@Cooper typeface design program at Cooper Union and honed skills in hand lettering and sign painting. Lydenberg is also one of the founders of the collaborative You Are Not Alone mural project. Inspired by compassion for those struggling with mental health issues, it offers support to anyone feeling misunderstood, victimized, or abandoned.
From crafting calligraphic pieces to designing type for the screen, Yun enjoys the balancing act of form and function that is required when designing tools for communication. Yun is a New York City-based type designer, educator, technologist, and a founder of Space Type, a studio practice operating at the intersection of type and technology. Previously, Yun worked as a type designer for Monotype, where she created custom typefaces for clients and retail. She also worked as a graphic designer for Apple Inc., Publicis, and Deutsch, and past clients include Google, Samsung, Anheuser-Busch, and the World Trade Center. Yun has served on the boards of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Society of Scribes, and she regularly teaches for institutions such as Type@Cooper and Parsons School of Design.
The Schick Gallery at Skidmore College is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Director Rob Roth and ATF producing artistic director Miriam Weisfeld at the Charles R. Wood Theater on Oct. 13, 2022. Picture by Thomas Dimopoulos.
GLENS FALLS —The Adirondack Theatre Festival staged its annual film festival Oct. 13 with a regional premiere of a short documentary featuring the band Blondie performing a culturally path-breaking concert in Cuba in 2019.
The opening night screening of “Blondie: Vivir en la Habana” staged at the Charles R. Wood Theater and included a Q&A between ATF Producing Artistic Director Miriam Weisfeld and the film’s director Rob Roth.
“I realized afterwards how these cultural exchanges are really important,” said Roth, regarding the band’s concert, which was part of an official cultural exchange between Havana and New York City. “It was perfect timing, because the previous administration had opened up a dialogue with Cuba and we just made it, because the next administration just shut it all down.”
It was Blondie co-founder and guitarist Chris Stein who was the driving force behind the journey. “He would tell the manager: ‘Just get us to Cuba. Just get us to Cuba,’” Roth said. Ironically, Stein wasn’t ultimately able to make the trek, due to illness.
Blondie burst out of the Max’s Kansas City and CBGB’s scene in downtown Manhattan in the mid-70s with their self-titled debut (most notably featuring the songs “X Offender,” and “Rip Her To Shreds”), and its follow-up LP ‘Plastic Letters.’ It was their third release, ‘Parallel Lines,’ that gained them national attention with the hit “Heart of Glass” in 1979 – and it is from this period and on into the ‘80s with the subsequent hit songs “Rapture” and “The Tide Is High” that the 18-minute documentary focuses its soundtrack.
“I didn’t really know how I was going to shoot in a communist country. It just came to me one day: I’m going to shoot it on film, 8mm and 16mm. And I think that had a much more deep effect, because it’s almost like a lens of time that they’re stuck in, and also the lens of what I call metaphysical; the magic happening around them,” said Roth, adding that he first struck up a friendship with Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry during the 1990s, when they both attended weekly Tuesday night parties at Jackie 60 nightclub in New York City’s meatpacking district.
“Only one time did my cameraman have a problem with officials – I don’t even know who they were, but they came out of nowhere. We were shooting on the street and the camera moved to what I think was a government building of some sort, and they were there like – that!” said Roth, snapping his fingers together for emphasis. “But, they were pretty cool about it. We just had to not shoot that building. I don’t know what the building was. And I don’t even want to know what it was,” he said with a laugh.
Roth – a longtime collaborator with Blondie, has also worked on projects with David Bowie, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna, among others.
There was initial interest in using some archival footage tracing the band’s origins to New York City in the ‘70s, but Harry wasn’t particularly keen to the idea. “She doesn’t like to go to the past a lot. I was creative director of her memoir ‘Face It,’ and it was like pulling teeth,” he laughed. “She doesn’t like to go back. And it’s funny because we keep toying with this idea of me directing a film about her – so that would be even harder!”
Just before the entourage’s landing in Cuba, there were expressed concerns about whether the residents of the communist country would even have had the ability to know who the band was.
“While we were going there, Debbie and I were discussing whether they even knew the music,” Roth recalled. “When I was shooting, at one point there was a balcony and a family – from the grandparents down to the grandchildren and: they were all singing. It was ‘Heart of Glass,’ or ‘The Tide is High.’ And they knew it. It was clear. The music had gotten there.”
“Blondie: Vivir en la Habana,” had its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2021. The Adirondack Film Festival, presented by ATF for the seventh year, ran Oct. 13-15 and presented its programming in a hybrid mode – both in-person and online – with live screenings at the Charles R. Wood Theater and Crandall Library in downtown Glens Falls.
Dermot Kennedy stages a 28-date tour and SPAC show in 2023.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Platinum-selling singer-songwriter Dermot Kennedy this week announced his upcoming The Sonder Tour – a North American run taking place in 2023 that will kick off in Vancouver in May and lands at Saratoga Performing Arts Center on June 19.
Tickets for the Sonder 2023 Tour go on sale Oct. 28 on Ticketmaster.com.
The tour comes in celebration of the artist’s new album, Sonder, to be released Nov. 4 on Island Records/Interscope.
Nominated for the “Best International Male” BRIT Award in 2020, Kennedy has amassed nearly 4 billion streams across platforms and has the best-selling debut album in Ireland of this millennium, making him a platinum-selling artist in over 12 countries.
Saratoga Children’s Theatre actors performed Disney Descendants the Musical Oct. 21-23. Photo provided.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Children’s Theatre actors performed Disney Descendants the Musical to an audience of nearly 500 in four sold out shows last weekend.
The live performances of the show, based on the popular Disney Channel Original Movie series, took place at SCT’s new space on Maple Avenue Oct. 21-23.
“We are so thrilled to share this show with our community,” said Sean Rossley, SCT General Manager, in a statement. “We are overwhelmed by the amazing talent this cast has brought to the show, as well as the hard work and dedication of the creative team.”
More than 40 young people – ages 8-18 – auditioned for the show to fill only 34 roles.
Saratoga Children’s Theatre – 501c3 non-profit – was started in 2008 to provide the youth of the greater Saratoga Region with a quality arts education program that fostered a love of theater and performance. Since its inception, SCT has performed nearly 40 shows.
For more information, to donate or to get involved, visit www.saratogachildrenstheatre.org
Saratoga Springs Youth Ballet. Photo by Susan Blackburn Photography.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Springs Youth Ballet stages a Nutcracker Tea at 2 p.m. Nov. 20 at Canfield Casino.
Tickets range from $45 to $150 and are available this weekend at eventbrite.com. All profits to be used to cover the costs of SSYB Nutcracker production.
Saratoga Springs Youth Ballet is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that is committed to providing quality professional dance training to pre-professional students throughout the Greater Saratoga region. SSYB does not charge its dancers audition, performance or costumes fees. The full Nutcracker production will be presented at the Performing Arts Center at the University at Albany on Dec. 17 at 1 and 7 p.m. and Dec. 18 at 2 p.m. More than 100 local dancers will perform.
Canfield Casino is located in Congress Park. For more information contact: info@saratogaspringsyouthballet.org
Dan Navarro will host a pair of singer-songwriter workshops and stage a show in Saratoga Springs. Photo provided.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Dan Navarro will stage a show at Caffe Lena on Nov. 18.
Navarro’s career started as a songwriter – most often with Eric Lowen, for artists as diverse as Pat Benatar, The Bangles, and Jackson Browne, to Dave Edmunds and The Temptations.
His first true studio-recorded album, “Shed My Skin,” was released in 2019, and his latest release “Horizon Line,” was issued in August.
In addition to the staged performance on Nov. 18, Navarro will host Singer-Songwriter workshops on Nov. 17 (at 1 p.m.) and Nov. 18 (at 4 p.m.).
For more information and tickets, call 518-583-0022, or go to: www.caffelena.org.
Schenectady Symphony Orchestra and Skidmore College cast and orchestra rehearse for Benjamin Britten’s “The Turn of the Screw.” Photo provided.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Schenectady Symphony Orchestra is kicking off the 2022-2023 season by returning to Universal Preservation Hall for another collaboration with Skidmore College 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23.
Be pleasantly puzzled and tastefully terrified by Benjamin Britten’s Gothic ghost story opera, The Turn of the Screw, described as one of the most dramatically appealing English operas. This marks the third operatic collaboration between SSO and Skidmore College.
This semi-staged production tells the woeful tale of the children of Bly Manor in 1898 England as depicted in the novel of the same title by Henry James. Follow the Governess as she struggles with the supernatural and her own sanity. Considered Britten’s operatic masterpiece, singers include Sylvia Stoner as the Governess, Casey Gray as Peter Quint, Anneliese Von Goerken-Zinser as Mrs. Grose, Stefanie Sudduth as Miss Jessel, and with Skidmore students Jessica Byers-Flora, Lucrezia Zichichi-Miles, and Johnny Mulcahy singing the Prologue.
Tickets are available at the Box Office at Proctors, in person or via phone at 518-346-6204 Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. or online at universalpreservationhall.org. Groups of 10 or more can get tickets by calling 518-382-3884, ext. 139.
ALBANY — The UAlbany Performing Arts Center and New York State Writers Institute are collaborating to present A Celebration of Hmong Culture Through the Arts, a multi-discipline project celebrating Hmong culture and history which revolves around Kao Kalia Yang’s memoir, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir. The project spans the disciplines of literature, theatre, film and art and includes a display, a documentary screening and a stage performance.
The schedule of events, all taking place at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on the uptown University at Albany campus, is as follows:
• A display of Paj ntaub (also known as Hmong story cloths or flower cloths) is available for viewing on Monday, Oct. 24 through Friday, Nov. 4, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily on weekdays. Admission is free. No reservations are required.
• A screening of the documentary Being Hmong Means Being Free will take place at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Oct. 27 at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free. No reservations are required.
•Performances of The Latehomecomer. Directed by Elise Thoron, this theatre work starts as author Kao Kalia Yang is born in the Ban Vinai Refugee camp in Thailand and eventually arrives in the United States. The book and stage presentation follow her journey from a quiet, reticent student struggling to speak English while facing racial discrimination to a self-empowered young woman claiming her voice to tell the untold story of her people. They tell a universal story of immigration through the specific lens of this ancient culture inextricably bound to the history of the war in Vietnam.
There will be a public performance at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Nov. 3 at 7:30 p.m., preceded by a pre-show talk beginning at 7 p.m. A second performance will take place on Friday, Nov. 4 at 10 a.m. exclusively for high school student groups.
Advance tickets for the public performance are $15 for the general public and $10 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Tickets purchased on the day of the show (pending availability) are $20 for the general public and $15 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Individual tickets can be purchased on the UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s site at www.albany.edu/pac.
Admission to the morning matinee is free for high school student groups. Reservations are required. Educators wishing to bring groups can contact the UAlbany Performing Arts Center office at 518-442-3995 or PAC@albany.edu. Home school students and parents are also welcome.
GLENS FALLS — The economy of the Glens Falls region is deeply rooted in its natural resources and the hard work of early settlers. The Chapman Museum casts a light on the generations that built the region in “Groundwork, Labor in a Burgeoning Community,” which recently opened.
The exhibition, which will be unveiled in the Museum’s newly renovated Carriage House Gallery, runs through Jan. 15, 2023.
“Early settlers were eager to capitalize on the power generated by the mighty Hudson River and the region’s substantial assets,” said Nicole Herwig, director of The Chapman, in a statement. “This area became one of the wealthiest in the state, but what went unseen were the lives of the hard-working people whose labor generated those riches.”
Early Glens Falls icon Abraham Wing settled a homestead on the Hudson River in 1762, the first in a long history of entrepreneurs to break ground in area industry. Wing built the first of many sawmills to emerge from Glens Falls and north into the Adirondacks. Forty-foot falls on the Hudson River allowed laborers to move logs downstream from the Adirondacks to Glens Falls. The region’s fertile farmland, mineral deposits and waterways rounded out opportunities for settlers.
For more information about The Chapman Museum, and a full calendar of upcoming events and exhibitions, visit: www.ChapmanMuseum.org.
