festival – Page 18 – Salem Main Streets

PEM/PM Fosters Unconventional Gatherings for Creative Minds

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May 192015

Unconventional gatherings for creative minds is the best description thus far for what transpires in Salem Ma on the 3rd Thursday of each month when the Peabody/Essex Museum kicks open its doors to a party of entertainment & engagement (PEM/PM) beginning at 6pm. Coming up March 21st the event is simply called Run & Play. But believe us, there’s nothing simple about it.

Run with your imagination and play with what you find. Possibilities are limitless

Channel your inner child with the help of Project Adventure, Marbles: The Brain Store and the Salem YMCA. Play a game of foursquare and compete in a relay challenge, join Salem’s Wicked Running Club for its weekly No Rest for the Wicked 5K Fun Run, and then kick back and listen to music with a cool beverage.

As another example of imagination and playing with what you find, consider Stickwork artist Patrick Dougherty, who will be on hand for a meet & greet. What is Stickwork? It is something that has come to Salem. Listen to the thoughts of Dougherty leading up to the local project at the Crowninshield-Bentley House located at 126 Essex Street.

As always, cash bar and small plates by Hawthorne Hotel.

No admission charge for PEM members, Salem residents and Salem State students with an ID. Otherwise there is a $10 fee for non-members, payable at the door. For more details, go to pem.org or call 866-745-1876.

Salem Pedestrian Brick Walk Getting a Tattoo

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May 172015

What is going on in Derby Square? What are those people doing to the sidewalk? And why are they having a good time? Those people are volunteers assisting artist Liz LaManche who is creating a public art installation titled “Salem’s Connected World.”

From her blog LaManche explains “City of Salem is commissioning a Connected By Sea companion piece as a temporary installation for their summer arts festival season, to be painted on the pedestrian brick walks of Derby Square around the Old Town Hall and down through Artists’ Row.”

Art interpreted & rendered in the form of a tattoo!

She continues, “It will highlight Salem’s seafaring history, cultural inputs and world connections, informed by the fantastic collection in the Peabody Essex Museum, where I’ve learned a tremendous amount over the years from their Native American and Asian trade goods collections.”

The schedule for the installation is as follows:

Layout of artwork taking place May 15-21
Inking in to happen May 21-30
Both phases can use people of varying skill levels
Layout can have people holding and moving things,
Inking needs people comfortable handling a brush, but can be either making good lines or inking in defined areas.

In discussing the first day, LaManche remarked, “Excellent day kicking off tattoo project in Salem!! Half the ground prepped, placement decisions decided, volunteers found and met, a fantastic bunch of people up here with a desire to make cool stuff!”

For more info on the project, check out this Creative Salem feature story.

Intrigued? Interested? To join the volunteers, contact Deborah Greel, the Public Art Planner for the City of Salem at dgreel@salem.com or call 978-619-5681. “Salem’s Connected World” is funded by the City of Salem in association with the Public Art Commission.

(All pictures courtesy of John Andrews at Social Palates Photography)

Salem Jazz & Soul Presents Berklee Yellowjackets in Salem

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May 072015

Weekends rate highly on the Salem Ma diversity meter. Pick any Saturday or Sunday and there is ALWAYS something going on— and usually different from the previous week. Music or Art or Theatre or Film. For example, The Salem Jazz and Soul Festival launches its 2015 SJSF/Berklee Summer Series with a concert featuring The Yellowjackets, a band made up of current Berklee College of Music students, this Saturday, May 9, in Derby Square, Salem ( Rain location: Opus, 87 Washington St., Salem).

The Berklee Yellowjackets Ensemble is a high-level student band led by professor Dave Weigert (playing drums). What makes this performance especially interesting is that this ensemble learns and plays the repertoire of the world-renowned Yellowjackets, one of the few jazz bands that has been together for more than 30 years. Those are big musical footsteps to keep time with!

According to the SJSF “The selected Yellowjackets repertoire that will be played is funk-oriented and groove-based, with beautiful, soaring and expressive melodies and rich harmonies. Audience members will be treated to an uplifting and inspiring performance.”

And, the concert is free.

The students are bassist Elin Margareta Sandberg (Sweden), tenor and alto saxophonist Andrew Denicola (Stamford, Conn.), guitarist Lior Tzemach (Ramat Gan, Israel) and piano synth player Zak Leever (San Francisco).

The free show will take place from 5 to 7 pm. and will feature an educational interview about music and the Berklee experience.

The Lobster Shanty restaurant will sponsor the performance. For more information, visit salemjazzsoul.org.

Three more SJSF/Berklee Summer Series concerts will take place this year: Marika Galea on June 13; Beneil Miller on July 11; and Chuks Okpu on Aug. 8.

The ninth-annual Salem Jazz and Soul Festival will follow during the weekend of Aug. 15-16, featuring 10 bands, a kids’ tent, music-education tent, artisan fair and 21-plus beer pavilion. There is no admission charge for the two-day concert.

The festival is a nonprofit, volunteer-run organization that produces free concerts and raises money for music education causes on the North Shore.

Salem Arts Festival Gets “Real” for Submissions Applications

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May 052015

Work by Denny Tentindo, 2014 Festival

Attention! Visual artists considering “showing” their works at the 7th annual Salem Arts Festival (June 5-7) in the juried gallery should take note of a big change in the submission process. Rather than electronic submissions of work as has been conducted in the past, the Festival is moving to an on-site review of works the weekend before the Festival (May 29 – June 1).

According to Kylie Sullivan, Executive Director of Salem Main Streets, which oversees the Festival, this new process “will hopefully better serve the artists by letting their work speak for itself. Using electronic images in the past has been so problematic – colors can appear differently on different screens and printers, the impact of 3-D work is often lost in a 2-D format, and inevitably, an unfair advantage is given to the individuals who are better at presenting their work digitally. Members of the festival committee have been advocating for this type of jury process for several years, and we’re excited that we finally have the capacity this year to make the change.”

Over 5,000 people attended last year’s family-friendly Festival which transformed downtown Salem, MA into an opportunity for the arts community to showcase a wide range of talents: painting, photography, sculpture, dance, music, writing, film, new media, performance, theatre, poetry, and more!

Artists this year may submit up to 3 pieces; at least two of which must be for sale. Dates/times for drop off at Old Town Hall (32 Derby Sq.) will be May 29 from 5-8pm and May 30 from 9am-noon.

Hung artwork may not exceed 36″ in any direction (including frame) and must be wired to hang – no sawtooth hangers. Larger artwork must have an easel or a stand. While installations are welcome, be mindful that Salem’s historic spaces come with some limitations. Accepted work will be presented at Old Town Hall during the Salem Arts Festival (June 5 through June 7).

For full details of requirements and regulations, please see the admission form.

This special exhibit is to be judged and juried for prizes by a panel comprised of individuals from the Salem arts community and beyond. Jurors will made up of regional artists representing diverse media, including Karen Ristuben, Bob Packert, and Denny Tentindo.

The Salem Arts Festival is organized by Salem Main Streets and a collaboration of Salem organizations which provide support for the festival, including the City of Salem, Salem State University Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem Arts Association and Creative Salem.

Rhyme Time in Salem; Mass Poetry Festival Returns

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Apr 302015

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. — William Wordsworth

Keep those words in mind as you read, hear, sample, immerse and explore the words of participants to the 7th annual Massachusetts Poetry Festival, which takes place this weekend, May 1-3, in various venues of downtown Salem.

The Massachusetts Poetry Festival showcases nearly 100 poetry readings and workshops, a small press and literary fair, panels, poetry slams, visual arts, and open-air performances. Panel topics range broadly from the state of poetry, poetry and gender, book publishing, and modernism in contemporary art, to the Common Threads Reading, where contemporary poets with Massachusetts ties discuss their literary connections. More than 150 local and nationally known poets engage with thousands of New Englanders each year.

This year is no different, as among the scheduled are : Rita Dove, Richard Blanco, Stephen Burt, Denise Duhamel, Nick Flynn, Regie Gibson, Jorie Graham, Richard Hoffman, Adrian Matejka, Marge Piercy, and Rachel Wiley.

For a full schedule click here.

Over 1500 friends of poetry attended last year’s festival. As Robert Pinsky, a three time U.S. poet laureate and a College of Arts & Sciences professor of English has stated, poems should be spoken, not just read. The medium is the reader’s voice

Come here to hear the voices.

For more information, go to http://www.masspoetry.org/aboutthefestival/

And as a little extra… The Top Ten “Reasons” to Attend the 2015 Massachusetts Poetry Festival:

10. Richard Blanco and Rita Dove have read to America–now they’ll read to you.

9. There are many festivals, but Mass Poetry stanza lone.

8. A poetry carnival! Step right up, readers and writers!

7. Mass Poetry: Cute as a (festival) button!

6. If it’s not like something else, then what’s metaphor?

5. Poetry Smack Down: Cape Ann vs Cape Cod Poets

4. Giant Scrabble! Mad Libs! Poems about dirt!

3. If you really dig poetry, you’ll like The Golden Shovel.

2. After this winter, you deserve a little beauty.

And the #1 reason to attend the 2015 Massachusetts Poetry Festival…

Because “This is what it sounds like when Dove rhymes.”

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