Holidays return in the Berkshires — even in an uncertain year, we can find music and storytelling and lights in the dark, and an energy in local places …
READ MOREThe Berkshires are hills on the Western edge of Massachusetts
— they run along the border with New York state and merge into the Green Mountains in Vermont.
I live in a high green country with a vivid creative life. It is a rare place. Up here a choreographer from Brooklyn can walk into a 200-year-old meetinghouse and imagine black American Shaker dance. And then he can create his own movement and perform there.
In some ways it’s an in-between place, across the state from Boston and up the Hudson River from New York, and as a cultural area and as a geographic one, it spills over the state line.
Berkshire County is a long, lean stretch. It runs from Connecticut north to Vermont, 50 miles from end to end. But it’s a beautiful amble. Not long ago I took an hour to get from Cobble Hill to an old friend’s wedding in Manhattan, and here in that time I can cross the length of the county and tool along country roads, watching for wild turkeys on my way to see a play before it opens Off-Broadway.
Local Shops
When I am searching for gifts, I want to be out in bookstores and greenhouses and barns full of chocolate molds … Local shops are adapting in the pandemic, and I’ll let you know what I’m seeing.
READ MOREHistoric Places
Some of our history in the Berkshires is alive because we still use it every day, to make cheese or cider or a cup to drink it in. And some of our history we are reviving in new ways, as in a silo at Hancock Shaker Village, new music invokes Shaker hymns with contemporary artists and technology.
READ MORESummer camps in Covid-19
In response to Covid-19, Berkshire camps have adapted, moved online or closed, with strong effects on campers and families, communities and local businesses.
READ MORE10×10 Festival
The 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival is in town, a weeklong celebration with art and music, new plays, outdoor play and more.
READ MORE