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Displaying items by tag: Skidmore College

SARATOGA SPRINGS – A crowd of cheering friends and families filled the bleachers in the Saratoga Springs High School’s blue gym as 14 young athletes embraced their futures.
In a special ceremony held on April 12, the Saratoga Springs City School District honored 14 senior athletes as they signed their letters of intent to play inter-collegiate athletics at the universities of their choice in the fall. Athletic director Peter Sheehan addressed the attended crowd – which included other student athletes allowed to attend before their various practices and meets by their coaches – before the actual signings, thanking them for their attendance and congratulating the athletes on their achievements.
“We are so very proud of each and every one of you, and of the time and effort you’ve put in to make this day possible,” Sheehan said.
The athletes honored at the ceremony were, in the order they were seated at the table from left to right: Sarah Winters, who will play field hockey at Skidmore College; Francesca Mangino, who will play lacrosse at SUNY Brockport; Cameron Parry, who will play lacrosse at Quinnipiac University; Emily Fischer, who will play lacrosse at Clarkson University; Tucker Pierce, who will play lacrosse at Westminster College; Elizabeth Maguire, who will play soccer at Le Moyne College; Gabe Olsen, who will play soccer at Mount Ida College; Daniel Varsames, who will play soccer at Utica College; Michael Moran, who will also play soccer at Utica College; Autumn Boxley, who will swim at George Mason University; Victoria Breslin, who will swim at Le Moyne College; Morgan Hoffman-Smith, who will swim at Ithaca College; Nick Cavotta, who will run track and field at Winthrop University; and Mary “Mimi” Liebers, who will run track & field at the College of the Holy Cross. Griffin Taylor, who will play lacrosse at SUNY Oneonta, was not present at the ceremony due to attending a meet at his soon-to-be school, but he was mentioned by Sheehan and was present on the list of athletes at the ceremony.
“I just loved the campus as soon as I stepped on campus,” Parry said about her choice of Quinnipiac. “I knew that that was the place for me. The coaching staff was just really welcoming, and all the girls on the team were super welcoming, and I just really got a good feel for the team and for the… kind of program that I’d be going to.”
“I’m very excited,” Liebers said about attending Holy Cross in the fall. “I’ve always known I wanted to do college sports, and track has been my main sport for five years now. So getting to continue track in college is a dream come true… I wanted a D-1 program, but I particularly liked the Patriot League. And I just loved the school, and I knew I needed to see myself at the school without track, so it all just fell into place.”
“I was looking at schools in the south, and I found Winthrop, it has my major in business and a minor in sports marketing, which is just awesome for me,” Cavotta said about his choice of Winthrop. “It’s a beautiful school. It’s down south, lot of warm weather. Not a huge school, which I like, so I can get some more individual time with my professors. It just has everything I could look for in a college.”
“Super proud,” Cavotta’s mother said about her son’s achievement. “I like the school. Like he said, it’s a nice small school, homey, they focus on academics and education, and parent involvement.”
Notably, two of the athletes at the ceremony, Varsames and Moran, will be playing the same sport, soccer, at Utica. This is fitting, as they have been close friends for years.
“That’ll help a lot,” Varsames said about attending school with someone he is so familiar with. “We both know how each other plays. It’ll help team chemistry, obviously. We’re best friends, so it’ll be fun… [We’ve been playing together since we were] probably like around 10, 12 maybe.”
“I think we have an outstanding group of coaches, we have very supportive parents who allow our student athletes to have opportunities, both in-school and out-of-school, that kinda give them a chance to compete at the collegiate level,” Sheehan said about the SSCSD athletics program. “I think that’s important to have that year-round commitment and to have those year-round opportunities.”

All photos by Thomas Kika.

Published in Sports

SARATOGA SPRINGS – By the time the early 1970s rolled around, any promise perceived of a train bound for glory on a fast track to the Aquarian Age had instead become supplanted by a cranky subway car departing a graffiti-stained station with a congregation of misfits aboard.

It is these characters of humanity – Rake the hustler, Fick the junkie, Al the alcoholic, and Franny the transvestite prostitute – put on display, in all their grit and glory in the staging of Skidmore Theater’s presentation of “Balm In Gilead.” The play, scripted by Lanford Wilson, premiered Off Off Broadway at La MaMa in 1965 and a generation later re-set to take place in the early 1970s.

The geography is uptown Manhattan, the setting an all-night diner where characters drift in and out against a backdrop of booths and swiveling stools that lean on a cheesy, diamond-motif counter topped by metal napkin holders, red and yellow plastic-spout squeeze bottles, and a big, clunky cash register.

Under the direction of Phil Soltanoff -  a veteran of recent projects staged in Austin, Vancouver, Los Angeles and New York City - the two dozen or so Skidmore College players convincingly convey a scenario with a talented realism that certainly pre-dates the time before their own existence on earth if not their parents, in providing a voyeuristic experience of a collection of characters whose lives are simultaneously humorous and tragic.

Sydney Tennant portrays the doe-eyed Darlene - a naïve, newly transplanted New Yorker - with credible splendor, marathon monologuing deep into the night, expressing every single thought that pours from her mind with a blend of child-like innocence and annoying animation. She engages even the most hardened characters seated in the 24-hour diner in a shared humanity, if only for a fleeting moment. When she concludes her soliloquy by saying “Anyway, to make a long story short…” it cracks everyone up, characters and audience alike.  

In John - the grungy, apron-draped cafe manager portrayed by Jacob Hudson who alternates his time between cooking in the kitchen and showing non-paying customers the door - and Kay, the yellow- garbed waitress played by Anabel Milton who runs around taking coffee orders and wiping down tables – the play depicts a solid foundation of the drab, bleak realities of the working class. It stands in high contrast to the commotion of platinum blonde wigs and wounded blue jeans, hot pants, leather thigh-high boots and fishnet stockings, silver sequined miniskirts and post-hippie fringe in a sleaze-and-glam cacophony that lives somewhere between a New York Dolls concert and a Starsky & Hutch TV show. 

Lulu Fairclough-Stewart especially shines as the oh-so-bored, scarlet-haired Ann, providing a perfect foil to Darlene’s ramblings, nursing a cigarette and firmly encased in her hard shell of emotional body armor, before heading back into the street, past a shuttered bodega and an alleyway framed by trash, to make her living. Chris Naughton is convincing as well in a lead role as the mustached drug dealer Joe, for whom the naïve Darlene falls.  

The ensemble as a whole weaves its work like a large orchestra, a series of direct and non-direct actions conveying the mayhem with an authenticity; These student actors bring the scenes to life.

 An appropriate soundtrack blares out the diner jukebox throughout: Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Meeting Across the River,” “Thunder Road,” and “Jungleland,” and “Waltzing Matilda” sung by Tom Waits, that fittingly sprinkles the optimistic hope of escape onto on-the-nod moments of despair. 

After the final curtain call, the characters return for one more go-around the diner, reminiscent of the dusky cycling at the conclusion of the Rolling Stones documentary “Gimme Shelter,” and which leaves the open question: are we moving on to a grander time in this life, or being forced to return to our destiny, time and again?

Skidmore Theater Presents “Balm In Gilead,” by Lanford Wilson. Director: Phil Soltanoff.

Performances at 8 p.m. Friday, April 21 and Saturday, April 22, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 23.   Skidmore College: Janet Kinghorn Bernhard Mainstage. Tickets are $12 adult, $8 students and faculty. After the April 22 performance of Balm in Gilead, the Skidmore Theater Department will host its annual house party. “That 70’s House Party,” is a celebratory event to recognize the department’s achievements this year.

Published in Entertainment
Friday, 27 January 2017 12:10

New Tang Museum Exhibition Opens Saturday

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College will present its latest exhibition - Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio: Entangle - beginning on Saturday.

This exhibition presents three works that combine action, video, and installation. “Rope Dance,” “On the Table,” and “Honey Baby,” explore a range of ongoing multidisciplinary collaborations, which Antoni and Petronio began more than three years ago, setting out to blur the lines between artist, dancer, choreographer, and audience. Each offering has one element in common — a wooden floor — that frames different activities understood through the body.

“Rope Dance”, an interactive experience created by legendary movement artist Anna Halprin, with Antoni and Petronio, will run Jan. 28 to March 19.

“On the Table” - during which the gallery serves as set and dining room and features a tablecloth woven out of 200 neckties – will be on exhibit April 6 - 30. The artists will be on campus to visit with classes and participate in the first dinner from April 3 - 7. Between dinners, the installation will be offered to the community as a tool for dialogue.

“Honey Baby” - billed as an immersive experience created by Antoni and Petronio to confound the notion of the body’s relation to gravity – will be on exhibit May 13 to July 16.


Janine Antoni was born in Freeport, Bahamas, in 1964. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at numerous institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.

Stephen Petronio was born in Newark, New Jersey, and was the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown Dance Company. A leading contemporary dance-maker, Petronio has built a body of work with some of the most talented and provocative artists in the world, including composers Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, and Diamanda Galás. Founded in 1984, Stephen Petronio Company has performed in 26 countries. In December, The Stephen Petronio Company bought a 175-acre property in the Catskill Mountains, according to the New York Times. Called Crows Nest, the $1.3 million property, near Cairo, includes about 9,000 square feet of residential and studio space and will house the Petronio Company and the Petronio Residency Initiative, which is to begin in summer 2018.

“With Crows Nest, I’m hoping to leave the world an intimate place where dance can be made, where history happens, and where the dance community can feel at home,” Petronio said in a statement. Janine Antoni & Stephen Petronio: Entangle, is organized by Dayton Director Ian Berry, in collaboration with the artists. Antoni and Petronio will be in residence at Skidmore College as the 2016-17 McCormack Endowed Visiting Artist-Scholars from March 1 - 4 and April 3 - 7 to engage with students, faculty, and the public. Public talks will be held 5:30 p.m. March 2, and 7 p.m. April 6, both at the Tang Teaching Museum, located on the campus of Skidmore College. For more information, visit: More information at http://tang.skidmore.edu.

Published in Entertainment
Friday, 11 October 2013 09:35

Malta Releases Tentative Budget

MALTA – The monthly Town of Malta Board meeting on Monday, October 7 was preceded by a short public hearing about a property maintenance violation concerning a trailer on Lot #3 on Airfield Road. The town had previously determined that the trailer was unsafe and substandard for habitation and the town was going to remove it. Supervisor Paul Sausville invited the owner, current tenant or anyone with a public concern about the property to speak. Later, the board unanimously voted 5-0 to authorize the violation. There was some discussion amongst the board regarding plowing the Dunning Street Path when needed due to snow accumulation. What made this area particularly significant is that the town of Malta owns only part of the path land. Supervisor Sausville recommended that they proceed, but making it a “secondary priority” to main roads and the like, perhaps having a goal to have the path cleared within 48 hours after a storm. Roger Crandall, building and maintenance department supervisor, estimated that it would occupy one town worker for one day to complete the plowing in question and advocated that it be tried for one season to determine the financial impact. Councilman Peter Klotz took an alternative view, expressing concern that other areas might feel entitled to request the town’s assistance in plowing if the board set a precedent here. The matter was tabled for the time being The town board breezed through the rest of the agenda items, with all items passing, in most cases unanimously. Among these items were several appointments to town positions, including deputy animal control officer and deputy town clerk. Councilwoman Tara Thomas did have a dissenting vote on two items: an amendment to the deputy tax receiver’s job description (she was joined by Klotz on this) and to refer the Caro planned development district to the planning board (Klotz abstaining). Both of these items passed with a split vote. The date and time of the next town board meeting was moved to Wednesday, November 6 at 6 p.m. The date was moved to be after Election Day, and the earlier than usual time was set to allow for a public hearing on the budget.
Published in News
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