Joining 34 partners in the arts – performing arts organizations, museums, and galleries – the College will launch its summer arts season in the third annual SaratogaArtsFest this Thursday, June 11 through Sunday, June 14. One hundred events are scheduled in 54 venues around the city, here's a directory of events that spotlights:

1. events scheduled in seven venues on the Skidmore campus
2. events sponsored by Skidmore departments that are taking place off-campus
3. events in which Skidmore faculty and staff are performing or exhibiting

Murray-Aikins Dining Hall will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (closing only from 4 to 5 p.m. to set up for dinner), so you can easily transition from afternoon events into evening.


For a listing of the Tang Museum's SaratogaArtsFest
offerings, click here.

Dance

Thursday, 8 p.m.
Paul Taylor Dance Company
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Main Amphitheatre
Admission: $25; $20 with ARTSPASS

The Paul Taylor Dance Company is one of the world’s most exquisite ensembles. This special performance -- sponsored by the Skidmore College Office of the Dean of Special Programs and Saratoga Performing Arts Center -- will feature three dances, all choreographed by Paul Taylor. The exuberant Mercuric Tidings is set to the music of Franz Schubert’s Symphonies No. 1 and 2. It is followed by Changes, which revisits the turbulent 1960s through songs of The Mamas & The Papas. To close the performance, Beloved Renegade is a spiritually-influenced dance inspired by the life and work of Walt Whitman and set to Poulenc’s Gloria.

Friday, 7:00 p.m.
Company Stefanie Batten Bland
Skidmore Dance Theater

A former Bill T. Jones soloist who is now living in Paris, Stefanie Batten Bland returns home to present her bi-continental company in an evening that spans four years of work in film and dance.

Saturday, 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.
Taylor 2 Dance Company: Family Dance Performance
National Museum of Dance, 99 south Broadway
Admission: ARTSPASS only

Led by Director Andy LeBeau, this family dance performance provides a brief introduction to Paul Taylor and his company with an opportunity for audience members to ask questions afterwards.

Saturday, 8:30 – 9:30 p.m.
Skidmore Dance Showcase
Skidmore Dance Theater
Admission: $10 or free with ARTSPASS
Sponsored by: Capital Region Dance Alliance

Dance faculty choreographers Debra Fernandez, Mary Harney, and Ruben Graciani will join their student dancers and alumna Caitlin Trainor ’97 in a one-hour show of old and new work. Fernandez's works on the program include a 1993 duet performed by fellow dance faculty member Ruben Graciani and Jesse Kovarsky ’10, and a solo excerpt from her 2005 Mak Particles, performed by Emily Sferra ’09. Artist-in-residence Mary Harney will present Finding Balance, performed by six Skidmore students, and Graciani and Sferra will perform his duet, I’m Ready for the Rapture. Caitlin Trainor will present a quintet, Nature Study, which includes in the cast alumna Ann Olson '99.

Film and Literary Art

Thursday, 8 p.m.
Film Forum Movie: The Garden
Saratoga Arts Center, 320 Broadway, Dee Sarno Theater
Admission: $6; $4 with ARTSPASS or for SFF Members

Directed by Skidmore alumnus Scott Hamilton Kennedy ’87, this documentary – nominated for a 2009 Academy Award – chronicles the controversy that swirled around an effort to bulldoze a fourteen-acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles, the largest of its kind in the U.S. Started after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. (The Garden also will be shown at Friday night at 8 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Sunday night)

Saturday, 1:00 – 1:45 p.m.
The Secret Life of Bees
Home Made Theater
Tang Museum, Payne Room
Admission: ARTSPASS only

Enjoy a reader’s theatre-style presentation of the Saratoga Reads! 2009 book selection. Listen as local actors from Home Made Theater bring this novel by Sue Monk Kidd alive from their seats.

Sunday, 1 – 2 p.m.
Best of Skidmore Film Festival
Gannett Auditorium
Admission: free and open to the public. (Recommended for adults only.)

In March, student filmmakers showcased their short films and competed for prizes in the Skidmore Film Festival. Come view the best.

Music

Friday, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
Upbeat on the Roof: Saratoga Acoustic Blues Society
Tang Museum Rooftop
Rain location: Payne Room, Tang Museum
Admission: free and open to the public

Ray Giguere, Class of 1962 Term Professor in Chemistry, teamed up with Phil Drum and Dave Scheffel at Caffe Lena’s open mic several years ago. They share a love for blues of all kinds, and especially the “old-school” acoustic blues of the early to mid-20th century.

Friday, 8:00 -10 p.m.
Saratoga Chamber Players
Filene Music Hall
Admission: $18 for adults, $15 for seniors, $12 for students. Children with an adult are admitted free. ARTSPASS discount: $5.

Jill Levy, concertmaster of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, will direct outstanding musicians in a performance of Strauss’s Sextet from Capriccio, Arensky’s Quartet No. 2 in A Minor and Mozart’s Quintet in C Major.

Friday, 10:30 p.m.
Jason Domnarski Trio
SAF Jazz Club, Tiznow, 84 Henry St.
Admission: $10 or free with ARTSPASS

Skidmore alumnus Jason Domnarski takes a unique approach to songwriting and improvisation, employing effected piano, vintage instruments and innovative production. Notes from Underground, his latest release, is a true synthesis of his New York City musical experience and a fitting statement from a musician the New York Times hails as “a promising young keyboardist with a deep attunement to pop production and orchestration.”

Saturday, 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.
Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius & Heard
Saratoga Music Hall

Skidmore alumni and Filene Scholars Jeffrey Parker, a classically trained cellist, and clarinetist and saxophone player Jonathan Greene make up half this modern chamber ensemble, which performs in a wide array of styles – jazz, classical and world music. The group’s original repertoire is the work of composer-arranger-pianist Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius, an adjunct professor in the Dance Department at Russell Sage College.

Saturday, 3 – 4 p.m.
Flavor with Garland Nelson
Downtown Saratoga Springs in the parking lot between Lillian’s and Cantina restaurants

One of six bands performing in the Downtown Business Association’s Music Showcase, Flavor prides itself on combining the contemporary sound of hip hop with old school, yet progressive, jazz fusion. The group includes Skidmore graduates Garland Nelson, leader of the local band Soul Session, and bassist James Gascoyne.

Saturday, 8:00 – 9:30 p.m.
Eric Alexander Quartet
JKB Theater
Admission: $10 or free with ARTSPASS

The Skidmore Jazz Institute is sponsoring this performance. Boasting a warm, finely burnished tone and a robust melodic and harmonic imagination, Eric Alexander is one of today’s top tenor saxophonists. Joining him are David Hazeltine, piano; John Webber, bass; and Joe Farnsworth, drums.

Sunday, 1-2:15 p.m.
Lake George Opera at Saratoga
Filene Music Hall
Admission: ARTSPASS only

Lake George Opera at Saratoga presents mezzo soprano Jennifer Roderer in a recital program developed specifically for SaratogaArtsFest. Ms. Roderer has appeared with many of the country’s leading opera companies, including New York City Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, in repertoire ranging from Wagner to contemporary American works.

Sunday, 2:45 – 3:45 p.m.
Saratoga Children’s Chorus: Birdes and Beasties
Filene Music Hall
Admission: ARTSPASS only

Saratoga Children’s Chorus was established in 1992 to cultivate the musical aspirations of its young members (ages 8 and up), and to introduce them to a broad choral experience including joint performances with various children’s and adult choruses. Its eclectic repertoire, which embraces music from a broad range of ethnic traditions, extends from Praetorius to contemporary classical composers, and from Broadway tunes to jazz.

Sunday, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
Carnegie Hall Premieres presenting Ensemble ACJW
Universal Preservation Hall, 25 Washington Street
Admission: $10 or free with ARTSPASS; not handicap accessible

Ensemble ACJW features fellows of The Academy—a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. They will perform Haydn’s Piano Trio in C Major, Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G Minor, Op. 57. Skidmore has hosted four Ensemble ACJW residencies featuring new music during the past two academic years.

Theatre

Friday, 8:00 - 10 p.m.
SITI Company’s Radio Macbeth
JKB Theater
Admission: $10 or free with ARTSPASS

Late at night in the guts of an abandoned theater, a company of actors gathers to rehearse Shakespeare’s Macbeth. They soon realize that they are not alone. As they are drawn deeper into the Bard’s most magnetic play, the ghosts that have haunted the story since its inception hover and encroach. History, ambition, fortune, fate, free will, hubris, pride, indecision, the eternal male-female conflict, and madness permeate SITI Company’s production, hailed by Variety as
“a swift and bracing take that connects to the spellbinding force of this bullet of a play.”

Saturday, 4 – 5 p.m.
Mythunderstood, by No. 11 Productions
Congress Park (Rain location: St. Peter’s Parish Center)
No. 11 Productions is a New York City-based theatre company made up of Skidmore graduates dedicated to creating Theatre of the Unexpected. The group’s first production was an original adaptation of Lysistrata which premiered at SaratogaArtsFest 2008.

Sunday, 3:00 – 4:15 p.m.
Letters From a Window In The Sky
New York State Theater Institute
Tang Museum, Payne Room
Admission: $10 or free with ARTSPASS

In this tribute to Astrid Lindgren and Pippi, Cicilia dreams about being as strong and brave as Pippi Longstocking. Pippi stands courageously for fairness, justice, and the joy of youth and is unequivocally the strongest girl in the world. But where did she come from?

Visual Art

Friday, 5-7 p.m.
Opening Reception: SaratogaArtsFest Featured Exhibit
Spring Street Gallery, 110 Spring Street
Admission: free and open to the public

Regis Brodie, Skidmore professor of art, and David Miller, professor of art emeritus, have been invited to participate in this exhibit, which will offer a bold and rich mix of media, including ceramics, textile collage, and paintings.

Friday, 5-7 p.m.
Opening Reception: SaratogaArtsFest Featured Exhibit
SaratogaArtsFest Center and Gallery, 5 Spring Street (corner of Broadway and Spring)
Admission: free and open to the public

Three Skidmore-affiliated artists have been selected to participate in this invitational, which features photography, ceramic sculpture, wood sculpture, oil paintings, and paintings/mixed media. They are David Seiler, director of visual resources for Scribner Library, sculptor Courtney Mattison ‘08, and photographer Emma Dodge Hansen ’93.

Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Saturday, 12 – 5 p.m.; Sunday, 12 – 5 p.m.
Plugged
Schick Art Gallery
Admission: free and open to the public

This exhibition includes generative prints, digital photography, web design, and animation, as well as other digital media, by a diverse group of Skidmore alumni -- art educators, professional photographers, and creative directors, as well as freelancers, animators, game designers, motion graphics designers and visual effects compositors.

Friday – Sunday, 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Theatrical Space and The Design Idea
Saratoga Room at Case Center
This exhibit features scenic design materials from the portfolio of Garrett Wilson, resident scenic

Designer in Skidmore’s Department of Theater. The exhibit is an examination of the effect that theatrical space has on the conceptualization of scenic design, and the various means
by which the designer may affect the theatrical space, and the audience-actor relationship.

Saturday, 1:00 p.m.
Curator Tour: Oliver Herring: “Me Us Them”
Tang Museum

Me Us Them weaves together 15 years of work by New York-based artist Oliver Herring. His ever-expanding body of work explores many media, from sculpture and performance to photography and video. The exhibition includes several of Herring’s early knit-Mylar objects, experimental videos, complex photo-collages, and documentation of recent TASK events, which invite participants to entirely shape the work.

Workshops and Demonstrations

Saturday, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Family Saturday
Tang Museum
Admission: free and open to the public
Reservations suggested: 580-8080

Guests are invited to participate in a hands-on art activity. Suitable for children ages 5 and up with their adult companions.