SO MUCH GOOD STUFF, UPPER VALLEY!
Friday
Dartmouth’s Rockefeller Institute hosts US Rep. Chris Pappas. The New Hampshire Democrat (his district’s on the other side of the state) will sit down with Rocky’s Kristin Smith and visiting sociology prof (and member of the state Democratic executive committee) Quinn Allred as part of the center’s "Law and Democracy: The United States at 250" speaker series. 1 pm, in Filene Auditorium and online.
A new gathering for writers kicks off at the Chelsea VT Public Library. The last Friday of January-April, from 6:30 to 8 pm: a chance for writers to share their work. Each writer will be get allotted time for reading, depending on how many sign up in advance. It’s open to authors and poets from any community nearby—and to people who just want to show up to hear what local writers are up to. Email Carrie Caouette-De Lallo at [email protected] to sign up to read, just show up if you want to listen.
A pre-show conversation about dance at the Top of the Hop. The Mark Morris Dance Group is in town this weekend for their homage to Burt Bacharach, and ahead of the performances, the Hop is hosting two conversations. Friday’s pairs choreographers Mark Morris and John Heginbotham (who directs the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble) talking about the artistic process behind Morris’s The Look of Love. Saturday’s features music prof Steve Swayne and music director Ethan Iverson on “the legacy and musical brilliance of iconic composer Burt Bacharach.” 6:30 pm both evenings.
The Look of Love at the Hop. This production features Morris’s ensembles of dancers and musicians—”as always with Morris' choreography, the music is live and the dance leaps from the stage.” You know the songs—”Alfie”, “Walk on By”, “I Say a Little Prayer”…—though maybe not as performed by singer, actress, and Broadway star Marcy Harriell and certainly not through a dancer’s lens. In the Moore Theater, 7:30 pm Friday (standby tix only), and 2 pm and 7:30 pm Saturday (limited tix left).
A night of Americana at the Anonymous Coffeehouse. Addison County folk mainstays Beth Duquette and Richard Ruane kick things off at 7:30 pm. At 8 pm, Rutland singer, songwriter and storyteller Phil Henry takes the stage. And at 9 pm, Josi and Lily Lion, the coffeehouse’s first sisters act, with “elements of country, Celtic, and bluegrass but…their own melodic, contemporary style.” At the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
Saturday
Billings Farm’s Woodstock Film Series screens Seeds. Brittany Shyne’s portrait in black-and-white of three Black farming families in the South. “Through scenes of cotton harvesting, chasing cows, and mending broken machinery, Seeds honors farmers’ deep connection to heritage and place while confronting a sobering truth: only a fraction of the 16 million acres once owned by Black farmers remains today,” Billings writes. 3 pm both Saturday and Sunday.
Cantabile and “Faith, Hope, Love”. The Upper Valley women’s chorus opens its two-concert winter series Saturday: Messe Brève by Léo Delibes, songs from the Shaker, Jewish, and Early American Shape Note traditions. Violin and cello in works by three contemporary choral composers, texts drawn from poets Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, and others, Jacques Brel… Saturday at 3 pm at the Norwich Congregational Church, Sunday at 3 pm at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
The Bach Dialogues at Still North Books & Bar. This week, Grammy-nominated cellist Matt Haimovitz and pianist and former “From the Top” NPR host Christopher O’Riley release a new album of JS Bach’s work on five-string baroque cello piccolo and clavichord. They’re doing a mini-tour to mark the launch, and will be at Still North Saturday from 4-5:30 pm performing three Bach Viola da Gamba Sonatas and the C Major Trio Sonata, along with preludes and fugues and cello Suites. In Seven Days, Chris Farnsworth has an extremely helpful feature on the project.
In Thetford Center, the Impossible Possible Project concert and dinner. The evening begins with a four-course northern Italian dinner by chef (and drummer) Steve Ferraris. Then it moves on to a live concert by balafon masters Mamadou Diabaté and Balla Kouyaté, joined by Ferraris on conga drums. It’s all a fundraiser to help create a ten-day residency in Norwich this fall, bringing together five other musicians to live and work intensively as an ensemble while learning the repertoire of both balafon masters. 6 pm at the Thetford Community Center, 3923 Route 113 in Thetford Center. No link, reservations required: [email protected].
A panel discussion on “The Politics of Information: Science, Media, and Credibility” after the Hanover High Footlighters’ performance of An Enemy of the People. Ibsen’s classic is in performance at HHS this weekend (tickets here) and after Saturday’s 7 pm performance, the team of student directors will moderate a panel featuring Tim Calabro, editor and publisher of the White River Valley Herald; former VT legislator and current CEO of the Center on Rural Innovation Matt Dunne; and Olivia Wooten, Hanover High student, production dramaturg, and self-described science nut. The panel will start around 9:15 pm, and is free and open to the public.
The Stones at the Claremont Opera House. Oh, well, not quite. But “Satisfaction – The International Rolling Stones Show” will be there, a tribute band with, they say, over 4,000 performances under their belts. 7:30 pm.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Lebanon Opera House. “See the gloriously bawdy cult classic musical on our BIG screen — with a live shadow cast and plenty of audience participation,” LOH urges. Free prop kits will be handed out to the first 400 audience members. Film at 9 pm, pre-show shenanigans begin in the lobby at 8 pm. And if you want a sense of just what’s going on, here’s Alex Hanson’s Valley News story about how Rocky Horror “has gotten new life in the Upper Valley” and about JAM’s Jordyn Fitch, who’s helped make that happen.
Sunday
The Dartmouth Film Society screens A Hard Day’s Night. Yep, that one. The one the Beatles began working on just a month after they hit the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time and that, once it was released, you couldn’t actually hear in the theater because of the audience’s screaming. As the Hop puts it, “A Hard Day's Night, in which the bandmates play cheeky comic versions of themselves, captured the astonishing moment when they officially became the singular, irreverent idols of their generation and changed music forever.” In the Loew Auditorium, 4 pm.
At the Playhouse Movie Theater in Randolph, The Trouble With Harry. The 1955 film (featuring, among others, Shirley MacLaine in her film debut) was an actual Hitchcock comedy. It’s part of a series of films called “Hollywood, VT at the Playhouse” programmed by transplanted Randolph film and arts mover-and-shaker Alia Quart Khan. Art collaborators Rachi Farrow and Hettie Stearns will be on hand, and there will be post-screening lemonade and along with materials from the Barre premiere in 1955 showcased in a slide show. It all starts at 6 pm.
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