A Dance With Grain, On Stage and Coming Soon, Quilters Wanted, and Calling All Poets
No shortage of arts, and artists, in the UV
When Michael Bodel isn’t helping to bring the arts to you in his role at the Hopkins Center, chances are he’s dancing. Or choreographing. Or maybe both. Forecasts and Findings, an interdisciplinary dance created by Bodel and collaborators and previously workshopped at Junction Dance Festival in White River Junction, will premiere on February 28. The evening-length work integrates movement, object theater, a live soundscape, and one-hundred pounds of grain. A few sneak peeks can be found here.
“The dance creates immersive and abstract worlds with complex choreography involving small and giant sacks of grain. It explores how throughout human history grain has been gathered, gleaned, and cataloged; or hoarded and lost . . . The electronic score is played live and devised from samples of grain, weather sounds, natural instruments and [my favorite] excerpts of the BBC’s “shipping news” radio forecast.”
The 3-show run is hosted by New England Youth Theatre in Brattleboro, VT and will be presented February 28 at 7 pm, March 1 at 4 pm and March 1 at 7 pm. Tickets are $15-$25 and available online>.
Coming Up/Worth Marking Your Calendars For/Nabbing Some Tickets
Waitress at Northern Stage—March 12 to April 13:
Jenna is caught in a dead-end marriage and a dead-end job, where making pies is her one source of joy. An unexpected pregnancy jolts her into action, and she starts making big changes. With her best friends and coworkers by her side, Jenna bakes a new life, one pound of butter, sugar, and flour at a time. A playful and soulful score by 7-time Grammy nominee Sara Bareilles lends boundless joy to this Broadway smash. Tickets and further info here.
We The People’s A Man of No Importance, the musical, is about an amateur theatre company, The St. Imelda’s Players. This creates a special opportunity for art to imitate life when the cast takes on the job of playing players putting on a play, sometimes even imitating their real life contributions to We the People Theatre. You’ll remember many of them from Something Rotten or other We the People Theatre productions. Opening March 28 at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction. Tickets available here.
This weekend has two teen productions: North Country Communiy Theatre’s Hello Dolly at Lebanon Opera House (info here), and Les Misérables at Kimball Union Academy. Tickets free for Les Mis but you need to email. (Info here.)
In addition to appreciating art, if you’d like to make some to share with others, grab your needle and scissors or your keyboard:
Billings Farm and Museum Quilt Exhibition 2025: The Vermont Quilt Sampler Exhibition is a juried exhibition open to all Vermont quilters and and quilters from outside of Vermont who are members of Vermont quilt guilds. Submissions will be received from March 3 to March 30. If interested, guidelines are here.
What’s Going Down? It’s PoemTown: PoemTown is an effort to celebrate National Poetry Month in April by showcasing poems written by folks in Vermont, and this is the Town of Hartford’s inaugural year. Businesses and organizations in White River Junction will have printed poems in their windows for the month of April and associated events around town will celebrate the creativity of the community.
The deadline for submissions is March 8, 2025. PoemTown Hartford accepts submissions from poets of any age residing in Vermont or in the Upper Valley. Poems must be original work. You’ve got a 2 poem limit at 28 lines per to express those poetic thoughts, longings, bemusements. Guidelines for submissions are here.
—-———————————————————
Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We now exceed 3000 subscribers.
And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.