MASS MoCA Announces Spring Season of Concerts & More

MASS MoCA announced its big outdoor summer concert on Monday, but there’s plenty of way-cool stuff happening at the sprawling arts campus before then.

Now MASS MoCA has announced its spring season of concerts, films, theater, dance, cabaret, workshops and more.

Tickets for all events are currently available through the MASS MoCA box office located on
Marshall Street in North Adams, open 11am-5pm every day except Tuesdays through spring 2016. Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 x1 during box office hours or purchased online.

And MASS MoCA is also offering a 25 percent discount for tickets purchased by January 4. Discounts do not include festivals, camps, tickets to The National, or $5 member tickets. Discounts do not combine.

Here the schedule of upcoming events on MASS MoCA’s spring performance calendar:

FILM: “Heart of a Dog”
Thursday, January 21, 7:30pm
Club B-10
$9; $5 students
“A goofy, lyrical paean to puppy love and an inimitable meditation on love, memory and language.” — Variety
Laurie Anderson brings us an autobiographical film about love and loss. Anderson weaves childhood memories and video diaries into a touching tribute to Lolabelle, her beloved terrier.

MUSIC: Birds of Chicago
Saturday, January 23, 8pm
Club B-10
$16 in advance; $22 at the door; $10 students; $28 preferred
Birds of Chicago takes a victory lap in Club B-10 after blowing minds at September’s FreshGrass Festival. Mesmerizing husband-wife duo J.T. Nero and Allison Russell anchors this soul-inflected, groove-based Americana.

COMEDY: Chris Gethard
Saturday, January 30, 8pm
Club B-10
$16 in advance; $22 at the door; $10 students; $28 preferred
“One of the weirdest and most exciting things on TV.” — The Verge
You might recognize him from appearances on “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Broad City” and “Louie” — but comedian Chris Gethard is most at home in the underground, doing his slightly nerdy, somewhat caustic, devilishly cerebral stand-up, and hosting his eponymous gonzo cable access show. He’ll be right at home at MASS MoCA.

DANCE: Big Dance Theater’s “This Page Intentionally Left Blank”
Wednesday, February 10 & Friday-Saturday, February 12-13, 12noon & 3pm
Galleries
Gallery admission plus $5
A work-in-progress performance-based museum audio/docent tour created by Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, this interactive event changes how we experience a museum — disrupting, confusing and ultimately reconsidering the ways we see art. Misdirection, alienation and confession reposition art we thought we already knew.

FILM: “Above and Beyond”
Thursday, February 11, 7:30pm
Club B-10
$9; $5 students
In 1948, as Europe emerged from total war, a small group of Jewish American fighter pilots returned to the battlefield for a new cause: The Israeli War of Independence. This film tells the story of their journey back to the homeland.

MUSIC: Angelique Kidjo
Saturday, February 13, 8pm
Hunter Center
$32 in advance; $39 at the door; $30 students; $49 preferred
Beninoise world music icon Angelique Kidjo arrives for an intimate acoustic performance that will change your life. “The power of Kidjo’s unflappable voice, the range of her emotional expression, the stellar, genre-bending musicians who back her and the infectious, activist energy that courses through her songs all transcend any native tongue” (NPR Music).

WORKSHOP: Kickboxing and Cellphone Photography Workshop with artist Dana Hoey
Monday, February 15, 1pm
Galleries
$15; FREE under age 18
Learn simple fight movements and combinations from expert fighters Joe Falanga and Alex Stagi, while exhibiting photographer Dana Hoey demonstrates how cell phones can capture the action. Ages 11 and up.

MUSIC: Jason Walker
Saturday, February 20, 8pm
Club B-10
$16 in advance; $22 at the door; $10 students; $28 preferred
Brooklyn vocalist Jason Walker comes from a multi-generational music family — he was cradled in the arms of Mahalia Jackson as a child, and has shared the stage with Mick Jagger, Bono, and Lou Reed. His own music is a sublime, gospel-infused soul, which should be especially affecting in the intimate Club B-10.

THEATER: “The Aging Magician”
Saturday, February 27, 8pm
Hunter Center
$12 in advance; $18 at the door; $8 students; $22 preferred
Calling this exciting work-in-progress theatrical production a musical betrays the collaborative magic of its production team, including theater-maker Rinde Eckert, composer Paola Prestini, director Julian Crouch and instrumentmaker Mark Stewart. Produced by Beth Morrison, “The Aging Magician” follows a man near the end of his peculiar life on an odd but strangely sweet journey through Coney Island, all punctuated by the lovely Brooklyn Youth Choir.

MUSIC/FILM: “Psychedelic Cinema”
Saturday, March 5, 8pm
Club B-10
$16 in advance; $22 at the door; $10 students; $28 preferred
Ken Winokur of Alloy Orchestra visits MASS MoCA with his new film/live music project, “Psychedelic Cinema,” which revitalizes cult filmmaker Ken Brown’s Super 8 films from the late 1960s, which were used as light shows for Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead, and Sly Stone. Winokur and his accomplices overlay his signature junk percussion, melodic clarinets and keyboards, recorded speeches and audio artifacts to dazzling effect.

FILM: “Love Marriage in Kabul”
Thursday, March 10, 7:30pm
Club B-10
$9; $5 students
Mahboba Rawi is a strong-willed Afghan-Australian who dedicates her life to helping orphans in Afghanistan. To help an orphan and his star-crossed lover, with one month and limited resources, Rawi must challenge traditions to make a marriage of love happen in Kabul.

COMEDY: High Mud Comedy Fest
Friday & Saturday, March 11 & 12
Hunter Center
Crazy comedians and funny films… More info TBA…

MUSIC: William Tyler, Mikael Jorgensen’s Quindar & Nick Hallett
Saturday, March 19, 8pm
Hunter Center
$12 in advance; $18 at the door; $8 students; $22 preferred
Mikael Jorgensen of Wilco teams up with art historian and curator James Merle Thomas (his partner in Quindar), performer and composer Nick Hallett, and guitarist William Tyler for a new project that blends Quindar’s intergalactic sonic waves with folk fingerpicking and Fred Engelberg film. Workshopped at MASS MoCA, the piece will debut at the Ecstatic Music Festival in NYC, then return to North Adams for a weekend performance.

CABARET: M Is Black Enough
Saturday, March 26, 8pm
Hunter Center
$12 in advance; $18 at the door; $8 students; $22 preferred
M Is Black Enough exercises spirited conversation and debate through steelpan, cello, text and voice. Cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, of Kronos Quartet fame, teams up with composer and percussionist Andy Akiho and poet Roger Bonair-Agard for a work-in-progress program of spoken word and music, both complex and aggressive.

MUSIC: Ruby Amanfu
Saturday, April 2, 8pm
Club B-10
$16 in advance; $22 at the door; $10 students; $28 preferred
Dubbed “Nashville’s next indie star” by Billboard, the astonishing soul-rock singer Ruby Amanfu is a force. Since her star turn on Jack White’s “Love Interruption” in 2012, she was nominated for a Grammy, toured with Norah Jones, and released her transcendent 2015 debut, Standing Still.

THEATER: Taylor Mac
Saturday, April 9, 4–10pm
Hunter Center
$14 in advance; $20 at the door; $10 students; $24 preferred
The inimitable theater artist presents a work-in-progress performance of the latest installment from his 24-Decade History of Popular Music, an outrageously entertaining romp through 240 years of American culture as seen through music – from Tin Pan Alley to disco and beyond. The decades du jour are 1836-1896. Come and go as you please during this six-hour performance, with half-price gallery admission for all ticket holders.

ARTIST TALK: Artist Talk with Nick Cave
Tuesday, April 12, 5pm
Hunter Center
$5 in advance; $8 at the door
In October, artist Nick Cave will transform MASS MoCA’s Building 5 with “Until,” his most ambitious exhibition to date. Known for his Soundsuit sculptures and performances, at MASS MoCA Cave turns his art inside out to create a dazzling, immersive environment provoking vital exchanges about class, race, identity and guns. Hear Cave share his vision to convert our football field-size gallery into a seductive, performative gathering space, in dialogue with curator Denise Markonish.

MUSIC: Debo Band
Saturday, April 16, 8pm
Club B-10
$16 in advance; $22 at the door; $10 students; $28 preferred
The 11-piece Debo Band expands upon the repertoire of Ethiopia’s golden era of Afro-pop. The band’s 2012 debut, released on Sub Pop to huge acclaim, offers some of the most infectious groove-based Ethio-funk ever recorded. You will dance!

FILM: “How to Dance in Ohio”
Thursday, April 21, 7:30pm
Club B-10
$9; $5 students
Get to know three young women on the autism spectrum as they prepare for a spring formal dance. This is a sharp, forensic revelation of all the anxieties associated with finding dates, dressing up, and the strange tradition of crowning a prom queen.

DANCE: ZviDance: “On the Road”
Saturday, April 23, 8pm
Hunter Center
$12 in advance; $18 at the door; $8 students; $22 preferred
This multimedia production examines the general upheaval of the 1960s and the Beat Generation’s startling notions of social rebellion. As society today still grapples with the change of that era, this work-in-progress performance reminds us why it matters.

MUSIC: Boom Tic Boom!
Saturday, May 7, 8pm
Club B-10
$16 in advance; $22 at the door; $10 students; $28 preferred
Allison Miller, “a drummer of fierce clarity and bold imagination” (London Guardian) who was here last summer with Toshi Reagon, returns with her smoking hot band — which includes Jenny Scheinman, Myra Melford, Todd Sickafoose, Ben Goldberg and Kirk Knuffke — for a night of propulsive rhythm and melody.

EVENT: Projet Situ: The Round
Thursday & Friday, May 19 & 20
Galleries
$10
French duo Projet Situ presents an experimental, site-specific work combining movement, technology, participatory theater and sound installation, a performative answer to “The Space Between,” a museum-wide exhibition focused on transitional spaces. Audience members get earbuds to use with their cell phones, then follow instructions that uncover a choreographed journey through MASS MoCA. Purchase tickets by phone: 413.662.2111 x1.