Festival Days: August 7, Pittsfield, MA


Pittsfield's River of Art Day - 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
sponsored by the Storefront Artists Project

On Saturday, August 7th, in downtown Pittsfield, artists, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, and other performers will recognize and honor the Housatonic River in Pittsfield with a variety of performances. The celebration is co-sponsored by the Storefront Artist Project, the Berkshire Music School, and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. The performances are free and open to the public.

The first performance, a multimedia, multicultural celebration entitled RiverMASS, will be held at 2pm at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church on Park Square.

At 1pm, acclaimed storyteller Brother Blue, the official storyteller of Boston and Cambridge, wil be out in front of St. Stephen's church telling stories for all ages. Brother Blue scats and raps his modern versiions of ancient tales dressed in his trademark blue, with butterflies painted on his palms.

RiverMASS, which is created and directed by singer/songwriter JoAnne Spies, features a variety of performers including the dancers and drummers of Youth Alive; the River Festival Chorus, directed by Berkshire Music School director Tracy Wilson; jazz tap dancer Sherry Hains Salerno; musicians from Manos Unidas' Latin American Music Project; and five to eight-year-old art students from the Becket Art Center, who will perform River Myths in costume.

Other participating musicians include Hector on Stilts, who will be performing a song entitled "The River" by John Hyatt; harpist Lynne Davis; singer Shirley Edgerton, who will perform "Wade in the Water"; and Ed Stander, who will perform the Pachebel Canon on water glasses. In addition, dancer/choreographer Stefanie Weber will present a world premiere of Oshun Exuvia, a interactive sculpture/performance based on the Yoruban water goddess Oshun and the role that dragonflies play in both the ecology of the Housatonic River and the tracking of pollution in it.

In addition to music and performances, Housatonic River Initiative founder Tim Gray will read "A Letter from the Hopi Elders;" Michael Johnson will lead "Calling in Our Ancestors;" artist Susan Hartung will read "Water I Had Not Known You;" Sufi elder Aftab will lead a water dance; Reverend Gay Rahn will perform a water blessing; and Wahita Janice Young will lead attendees in a Buddhist blessing and chant.

Longtime Pittsfield artist Edwin Treitler will read a poem written for the occasion entitled, "A Prayer for our Rivers." Treitler organized a celebration/ceremony for the Housatonic River in Pittsfield in the early 1980s that led to the establishment of Pittsfield's Fred Garner Park along the Housatonic.

RiverMASS will be followed by an evening of outdoor performances on the lawn at Berkshire Music School at 30 Wendell Avenue in Pittsfield. Attendees are invited to bring blankets and picnic dinners. In case of rain, the performance will be moved indoors to the Berkshire Music School's Taft Recital Hall.

From 6pm to 7pm, local literary luminaries will read poems, stories, and essays about the Housatonic River. Entitled "Housatonic River Readings," the reading is organized by Word Street, a literary arts center on North Street.

Following the reading, Berkshire Music School students will perform, and at 7:30pm the acclaimed Mettawee River Theatre Company will give a free performance of Turkish folktales called "The Heroic & Pathetic Escapades of Karagiozis." The Mettawee River Theatre Company is a nationally acclaimed company led by master puppet and mask-maker Ralph Lee, who founded the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade and was the creator of the television show Saturday Night Live's Land Shark, among many other accomplishments. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2003 and is an artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.