On the flyleaf of a book of Japanese poetry translated into French, penciled handwriting tries out haikus. Haiku would have been a less familiar form in the early years of the 20th century, when the owner of the book sat here in an arm chair, playing with ideas. The handwriting is Edith Wharton’s. […]
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Fall wildflowers come in with a flourish
Throughout the Northeast, nature rushes to display one last event of the growing season. The late summer and early autumn flourish of brilliant wildflowers on a September or October afternoon are worth an outing. To see it at its best, you’ll need to stroll through meadows and fields, although in […]
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Penelope tells the Odyssey in Tom Stoppard and André Previn’s new work
Penelope is coming down to dinner slowly on the night Odysseus comes home. The high-walled courtyard with its cypress pillars is full of noise. She has stayed as long as she could in the shelter of the loom, in her workroom, and the sea below the house is dark in […]
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Internationally acclaimed artist Doug Aitken launches New Horizon
It will gleam like lake water and drift in a clear sky. In late July, the internationally acclaimed artist Doug Aitken will bring a new work to the Berkshires. And it will fly. New Horizon is an abstract sculpture and a moving stage — and a hot air balloon. By […]
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Reggie Wilson’s Fist and Heel Performance Group invokes black Shaker dance
Voices call and respond, as men and women move in a circle in a tresillo pulsing rhythm, keeping a beat with their hands and feet, and singing. They are moving together in an ecstatic ritual, a ring shout. Here and in the Caribbean, people brought from Africa and enslaved created […]
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Irene Rodríguez invokes Federico García Lorca in Cuban Flamenco
A woman walks down a mountain at sunrise, when the slopes are still dark around the rocks. Voices are singing to her: Roosters pick like axes and dig into the dawn … Amber copper, her body, with the scent of horses and shadow. Irene Rodríguez performs her own melding of […]
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Berkshire labyrinths offer a quiet journey into a new future
A curve drawn in one movement becomes a pathway on a hillside. Walk slowly on a spring morning. The cherry trees are blooming. A woodpecker drums in the wood over the hill. The path turns with each step, toward the lake in the valley, toward the wooded slope above it. […]
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Pilobolus dance company finds movement and connection in organic forms
They swing like saplings — roll and lift and orbit. Six dancers blend into three creatures, four-armed like dancing Shivas. They are wearing spare clothing the colors of their skin and moving in sunlight, to the sound of quiet strings and calling birds. Pilobolus has performed around the world for […]
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Thom Smith snowshoes in the back country
Thinking back 16 years, Scott Jervas who worked with me managing the Berkshire Museum aquarium, had an unlikely winter pastime — searching for long-closed ski areas returning to forest. In 2003, a winter of deep snow in the Berkshires, three of us — Scott and I and Al Krupa, of […]
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Gentle snowshoe treks in the Central Berkshires
When temperatures hover around 25 degrees F, or even a bit higher, it seems only logical to take a hefty dose of cabin fever remedy — head to the woods and give the snowshoes a workout. The Berkshires border the Snow Belt, and not every winter is a snowshoe winter, […]
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