Performing Arts

Actor Will Portray Marquis de Lafayette Saturday

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The Marquis de Lafayette may not be a household name in America, but without him this country might not even exist. Even as a new documentary film traces Lafayette’s descent from one of the most famous men on the planet to relative historical obscurity, the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation offers visitors the chance to “meet” this extraordinary character.

On Saturday, September 25, at 1:00 p.m. at the Mount Independence State Historic Site British actor-playwright Howard Burnham will portray Lafayette in his one-man costumed program, “Liberty now has a new country!: The Marquis de Lafayette.”

“Lafayette’s story is a truly remarkable one, and Howard Burnham captures the spirit of this gallant Frenchman who came to America as a young man to fight for the cause of liberty during the Revolutionary War,” said Elsa Gilbertson, Regional Historic Site Administrator for the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation.

A new documentary, “Lafayette: The Lost Hero,” recently debuted on Vermont Public Television and other stations around the nation, telling the story of the aristocrat who led troops against the British- befriended Gen. George Washington and served with him at Valley Forge- and helped bring France into the war on the colonists’ side.

Burnham will portray Lafayette on his triumphal tour of America in 1824 and 1825, when President James Monroe invited him to visit in part to celebrate the nation’s 50th anniversary.

“At the time, Lafayette was wildly popular all over the country,” Gilbertson said. “He was welcomed as a hero- Fayetteville, North Carolina was named after him- and the United States Congress voted him a gift of $200,000 and a township in Florida.”

Lafayette will reflect on his long and eventful life and will transport the audience to Camden, South Carolina, where he laid the foundation stone for the monument to Baron de Kalb – with whom he came to America in 1777 – as well as eulogize the Baron.

General Lafayette’s aide de camp, Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy, created an important map of Mount Independence and Fort Ticonderoga, showing it after the Americans retreated in July 1777.

“Lafayette visited every state during his visit, and on June 30, 1825, he traveled south on Lake Champlain past Mount Independence on the steamboat Phoenix on his way to Whitehall, New York, at the end of his visit through Vermont,” Gilbertson said.

The program is sponsored by the Mount Independence Coalition and Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, and admission is $5.00 for adults and is free for children under 15. It also includes admission to the museum and all the trails.

Burnham has given six performances at Mount Independence in recent years, including interpretations of British figures Gen. John Burgoyne- Lord Charles Cornwallis- and Maj. Banastre Tarleton, as well as Americans like Gen. Horatio Gates and Thomas Paine.

The Mount Independence State Historic Site is one of the best-preserved Revolutionary War sites in America.

On July 5, 1777, faced with a British force more than twice his size that had occupied a position from which they could bombard him with impunity, General Arthur St. Clair withdrew from Mount Independence and nearby Fort Ticonderoga without firing a shot.

Though his actions helped preserve the army, Congress was outraged and censured St. Clair for the loss. He later argued that his conduct had been honorable- demanded review by a court martial- and was ultimately exonerated.

The site is located near the end of Mount Independence Road, six miles west of the intersections of Vermont Routes 22A and 73 near Orwell village- carefully follow the signs. Regular hours are 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily through October 12.

Call (802) 948-2000 for more information or visit: www.HistoricVermont.org/sites.

Glimmerglass Opera to Perform at Adk Museum

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On August 17, 2010 Adirondack Museum visitors can enjoy early nineteenth century American music as the Glimmerglass Opera Company’s Young American Artist program performs &#8220They Heard American Singing,&#8221 an evening of music by Aaron Copland and Charles Ives, as well as songs that influenced both of these original composers.

The program will include tunes that made up the fabric of American life at the turn of the twentieth century: hymns, folk tunes, opera, and a liberal sprinkling of ragtime.

The gates will open at 5:30 p.m. for guests who wish to bring their own picnic. The performance itself will begin at 7:00 p.m. The cost of the concert only is $25. Tickets for the concert will be available at the door. Limited seating will be available. Guests are asked to bring lawn chairs or a blanket.

Proceeds from the performance will support exhibits and programs at the Adirondack Museum.

Glimmerglass is an internationally renowned opera festival that offers four productions each summer season in the Alice Busch Opera Theater on the shores of Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, New York.

The Young American Artists Program was established at Glimmerglass Opera in 1988 to promote an artistically challenging environment for young American performers. The program provides training and performance experience for talented singers at the beginning of their professional careers.

Fort Montgomery to Host 18th Century Music

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Fort Montgomery State Historic Site will host an evening of music performed in Late Eighteenth Century America on Saturday, August 28th, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.

Visitors will hear music popular during and after the American Revolution, performed by members of the Fort Montgomery State Historic Site staff and friends. This vocal, violin, and harpsichord performance will include music by Arne, Handel, Webbe, Linley the Younger, and others. Listeners will experience a concert similar to entertainments enjoyed by America’s founding fathers. The event is free.

The Fort Montgomery Visitor Center is located at 690 Route 9W,1/4 mile north of the Bear Mountain Traffic Circle in Fort Montgomery, NY 10922. For more information, call (845) 446-2134.

Music Series at Saratoga Battlefield

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Enjoy free music concerts at 12 noon on Tuesdays in August at Saratoga National Historical Park, located on Route 32 and 4 in Stillwater. Bring a bag lunch, take a seat on the patio or bring a lawn chair and enjoy a different concert every week. The performances, sponsored by Friends of Saratoga Battlefield are held at the park’s visitor center.

August 10 &#8211 Elizabeth Huntley: How much more elegant can things get?
Sublime music of the 18th century performed on the harp, sublime views of
the Saratoga Battlefield from the Visitor Center lawn. Enjoy classical
pieces played upon the Queen of Instruments performed by harpist Elizabeth
Huntley.

August 17 &#8211 Tom Akstens and Neil Rossi: Bet you can’t keep your toes from
tapping to these lively traditional tunes! Celebrate America’s musical
roots played on fiddle, banjo, guitar and mandolin by virtuosos Tom Akstens
and Neil Rossi.

August 24 &#8211 Fort Ticonderoga Fife and Drum Corps: Martial music at its
best! The Fort Ticonderoga Fife and Drum Corps perform tunes that wafted
over Revolutionary Battlefields while providing inspiration and commands to
soldiers.

For more information on this and other programs at Saratoga National
Historical Park, please call 664.9821 ext. 224 or visit their website at
www.nps.gov/sara

‘Grace Coolidge Musicale’ To Feature 1920s, 1930s

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The music of the era in which Vermont’s native son, Calvin Coolidge, served as president will be featured at a free recital at his birthplace. Pianist Abigail Charbeneau and soprano Jane Berlin Pauley will perform at the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site on Sunday, August 8 at 3:00 p.m.

Their 45-minute program, “Tunes of the 1920s & 1930s,” will feature music by American composers George Gershwin and Cole Porter, as well as Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff. An afternoon tea follows at the site’s restaurant, the Wilder House.

“Rachmaninoff was an honored guest at the Coolidge White House, performing there on at least three occasions,” said William Jenney, Regional Historic Site Administrator for the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation.

“In fact, the Coolidge Site’s collection includes the menu for the tea prepared for Rachmaninoff on March 30, 1927,” Jenney said. “He and 156 invited guests were treated to an assortment of sandwiches and desserts for the sum of $151.13.”

This is the first concert of the 2010 Grace Coolidge Musicales, a series named in honor of one of America’s favorite First Ladies. The program includes patriotic melodies honoring the country that Coolidge served.

Jenney said the audience will also have the rare opportunity to hear a soprano sing Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise,” a piece typically heard as a string solo with piano accompaniment.

Charbeneau and Jane Berlin Pauley currently teach at the Concord (NH) Community Music School. Abigail Charbeneau is a native of Woodstock, Vermont and has a master of music in piano performance and piano pedagogy from the University of Illinois.

A regular performer with the Musicians of Wall Street in Concord, Abigail has performed on the Walker Lecture Series and has played at two Inaugural Balls for New Hampshire Governor John Lynch. In addition to her teaching duties, she is the music director at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Concord.

Jane Berlin-Pauley received her master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. She pursued further studies at Westminster Choir College, Manhattan School of Music, and the Tanglewood Music Center.

Her opera and concert engagements include Rutgers Summerfest, New England Lyric Operetta, Dartmouth Handel Society, and Longwood Opera.

The concert will be first official performance in the President Calvin Coolidge Museum & Education Center, which will be dedicated during Plymouth Old Home Day festivities on August 7.

It will showcase the famous “Grace Coolidge piano,” given to Mrs. Coolidge by the Baldwin Company and used in the family quarters at the White House.

The Grace Coolidge Musicales continue on September 12 and October 3 and are organized by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation and generously sponsored by the Alma Gibbs Donchian Foundation.

The concerts are free and open to the public- donations are welcome. Reservations are recommended.

For further information or to make reservations call (802) 672-3773, or visit www.HistoricVermont.org/Coolidge

Illustration: &#8220Coolidge Village&#8221 Artist: William Fisher. Oil on canvas, c. 1925

Haudenosaunee Dancers at Iroquois Museum

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The Iroquois Indian Museum in Howes Cave, NY has announced the second in a series of three “Summer Dance Saturdays” featuring Iroquois social dance groups. This Saturday, July 31, will feature the Haudenosaunee Dancers from Onondaga. The group will perform three sets at approximately 11, 1, and 3. Visitors are encouraged and welcomed to join in with the dancers.

Led by Sherri Waterman Hopper, the Haudenosaunee Dancers will perform Iroquois social dances as practiced in their small traditional community near Syracuse. Waterman-Hopper has traveled internationally as an artist and cultural speaker.

The Dancers feature a core group of seasoned singer/musicians and young adults. Pride in the culture and adherence to the traditions are the hallmarks of this troupe. Hopper is also a respected designer and seamstress who incorporates her knowledge of the construction and significance of traditional outfits into her presentations.

For more information contact the Museum at: Iroquois Indian Museum, P.O. Box 7, 324 Caverns Road, Howes Cave, NY 12092, 518-296-8949, [email protected] or visit their web site at www.iroquoismuseum.org.

Mettawee River Theatre at Johnson Hall

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The Friends of Johnson Hall State Historic Site, 139 Hall Avenue, in Johnstown, NY, will host the Mettawee River Theatre on Thursday evening, August 5, 8:00 p.m., on the lawn under the black walnut trees &#8211 this popular annual theatre company presented their first production at Johnson Hall over 30 years ago. This year’s 35th anniversary production is an Iroquois creation story. Bring chairs, blankets, snacks, and bug spray – but no pets, please.

Mettawee’s outdoor production for the summer of 2010 is The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, which was originally produced in 1997. It is drawn from the Iroquois creation tale in which the Sky Woman falls from the spirit world and lands on the back of a turtle. Water animals bring up mud from the bottom of the sea so the earth can grow. The character Sapling creates all the earth’s delightful things- his brother Flint brings us mosquitoes and thorns and sharp rocks. The abrupt arrival of Hodu’i, a whimsical crack-pot who claims to have created it all, spells the readiness of the earth for the arrival of human beings. The production will incorporate many puppets representing the spirits and creatures of this young world.

According to Mettawee Artistic Director Ralph Lee, &#8220At this time, when serious concerns about the state of our environment weigh heavily on us, it’s nourishing to hear these clear voices from the beginning of the world, reminding us of the gifts we’ve been given.&#8221

For further information, contact Wanda Burch at 518-762-8712 or [email protected]

Dead Apple Tours Offers History of NYCs Deceased

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A new tour company is taking guests on a unusual look at New York City. The brainchild of Drew Raphael, a native New Yorker, Dead Apple Tours was inspired after watching fans gather outside the home of Heath Ledger immediately after the news of his death. Raphael figured with so many interesting locations in New York of famous and infamous accidental deaths, murders and suicides—why not collect a group of these experiences into one tour to get a fuller picture of the Big Apple? Why not present the “living history of New York’s deceased?” Dead Apple Tours gives passengers on its downtown tours a unique sightseeing experience in a rare, classic hearse that has been customized for a comfortable ride.

Highlights of the Dead Apple Tours include:

* The Soho spot where Heath Ledger spent his final hours.
* The secret of the “Hangman’s Elm” and “Dead Man’s Curve.”
* The Little Italy locale where mobster “Crazy Joe” Gallo ate his last bowl of pasta
* The spot where Sid Vicious allegedly killed girlfriend Nancy Spungen as well as the location where he eventually overdosed himself, and more.

The star of Dead Apple Tours is “Desdemona”- one of only 478 Cadillac Superior Crown Royale Hearses made in 1960 and believed to be one of only a handful left in existence today. This deluxe vehicle has been painstakingly restored and customized to provide a comfortable, modern ride in plush seats with the comfort of air conditioning, WiFi and video screens to help complete the story-telling adventure.

The downtown tour runs approximately two hours, starting at the Empire State Building and ending at the South Street Seaport. Winding through the streets of lower Manhattan participants learn “New York City Death Fun Facts” while Dead Apple Tours takes them to the exact locations the most famous deaths occurred.

Communipaw Story Marathon in Jersey City

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A Communipaw Story Marathon will be presented tomorrow, Friday, June 4, as part of Jersey City’s quarterly arts and culture festival, JC Fridays. There will be dramatic readings by professional actors of several short stories by Washington Irving, including three set in Communipaw, from his 1855 collection, Wolfert’s Roost And Miscellanies.

Also included will be an excerpt from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Trish Szmanski will be reading A Tale of Communipaw / Guests from Gibbet Island, the story on which she is adapting a script for theater. According to Trish &#8220The play is coming along well, not done, but close to final in form. Lots of new characters, dialogue, drama, four acts &#8211 exciting!&#8221

Communipaw is the historic European place of origin for Jersey City begun in 1634 when one of the first &#8220bouweries&#8221, or farnmsteads, in New Netherland was built there. The homestead was part of Pavonia, a patroonship of Amsterdam businessman Micheal Pauw. Plantations, worked by enslaved Africans, were located there. The Tappan and Wecquaesgeek took refuge there in 1643 before being attacked by the Dutch in the Pavonia Massacre, which led in part to Kieft’s War.

The village of Communipaw was originally part of the Dutch West India Company holdings. After the British takeover it became part of the Province of New Jersey although it retained its Dutch character for hundreds of years. Washington Irving visited the area often and referred to Communipaw as the stronghold of traditional Dutch culture.

Illustration: Joan Vinckeboons (Johannes Vingboon), &#8220Manatvs gelegen op de Noot [sic] Riuier&#8221, 1639. &#8220Manhattan situated on the North Rivier&#8221 with numbered key showing settlements at Communipaw.

Staten Island: Old U.S. Gypsum Plant to Host LUMEN Festival

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Staten Island’s once abandoned waterfront will be hosting LUMEN, a cutting-edge video art festival on the site of the Atlantic Salt Company, presented by COAHSI, the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island. This raw, magnificent, old, beautiful, decaying space, originally opened in 1876 as a plaster mill. In 1924, the building was bought by United States Gypsum, a plant that made wallboard and paint. The gypsum plant employed Staten Islanders for 52 years, before closing in 1976. Now owned by the Atlantic Salt Company, the 10-acre property is a depot for road de-icing salt for New York State, New Jersey, and Connecticut.&#8221

It’s that grungy, creepy, abandoned feeling that keeps people coming to industrial sites like Atlantic Salt, but normally these spaces are off-limits. Now’s your chance to see the space — without breaking any laws. The site will be open to the public for LUMEN, Saturday, June 26, 4pm-12am. The LUMEN Festival will showcase amazing contemporary video/projection and performance art both outside and onto the space. Atlantic Salt is right on the waterfront, so get ready for views of NYC and NJ, plus up-close views of the many tugboats & container ships that float up and down the Arthur Kill.

The festival will include performances throughout the day, raffles featuring artists’ work, as well as an open bar sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery from 9pm-11pm. Participating artists and collectives include: Alex Villar, Alix Pearlstein, Scott Peel, Lena Thuring, Grace Exhibition Space, Flux Factory, and Steven Lapcevic, among many others. For a complete listing of all participating artists, visit: LUMENFEST.org. Atlantic Salt is located at 561 Richmond Terrace, a 10-minute walk or bus ride from the Staten Island Ferry.

LUMEN will be free of charge and open to the public. Contributions are welcome at LUMEN’s Kickstarter page.

About COAHSI:

The mission of COAHSI is to cultivate a sustainable and diverse cultural community for the people of Staten Island by: 1) making the arts accessible to every member of the community- 2) supporting and building recognition for artistic achievement- 3) providing artists, arts educators, and organizations technical, financial, and social resources to encourage the creation of new work. COAHSI does extensive outreach to communities that are underserved geographically, ethnically, and economically. The organization works hard to impact the arts across all borders.