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A Seder to savor in Sheffield
Apr 17, 2024
Zivar Amrami
On April 23, Race Brook Lodge in Sheffield will host “Feast of Mystics,” a Passover Seder that promises to provide ecstasy for the senses.
“’The Feast of Mystics’ was a title we used for events back when I was running The New Shul,” said Rabbi Zach Fredman of his time at the independent creative community in the West Village in New York City.
He has since relocated with his family to Germantown and founded Temenos, “a home for ritual and creativity that honors the wild humanity of all people,” as the website explains (temenosnyc.com). At these feasts, Fredman and his brother, a chef, would create a menu to highlight the symbolism and mythology of certain Jewish holidays.
“People loved it,” explained Fredman. “It’s kind of a two-pronged approach, a way to engage and digest symbolism through the belly.” The Seder (which means “order” in Hebrew) at Race Brook will be such an immersive experience: a four-course meal conducted in four parts, echoing the four cups of wine consumed during the ceremony.
Alex Harvey, arts programmer at Race Brook, and his wife, Sophia Akilova, have known Rabbi Fredman through various communities and music circles for many years. After moving to the Hudson Valley from Brooklyn, Akilova was “looking everywhere for some kind of Jewish community that was dynamic. There’s plenty of progressive Jewish communities,” Harvey continued, “but she was looking for something way more particular, a community that is rediscovering active prayer, actually somatic spirituality.”
Fredman spoke of Passover as an opportunity to reconnect with tradition while investigating present day reality through the core liberatory framework of the holiday. He said, “One of the major successes in Judaism is that the tradition was conceived as living. There’s the written material that’s passed on, that’s unchanging, but it’s always accompanied by oral teachings, teacher to student, teacher to student. And so there is a sense that tradition is alive and dependent on people making it fresh, making it new.”
The tradition will be made new once again with the addition of music at Race Brook by the powerful and virtuosic Duo Andalus with vocalist Lala Tamar. Tamar and Fredman, who is an incredibly accomplished musician as well, have been collaborating through Fredman’s group Epichorus for many years. Fredman will join Duo Andalus throughout the evening and the following evening (April 24), Epichorus featuring Tamar and Yacouba Sissoko, who plays the African Kora, will perform.
Lala TamarProvided
There are four questions that are asked during a Passover Seder, traditionally by the youngest person at the table. One of those questions is: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Much of the rest of the Seder is in response to this question. When asked this particular question, Rabbi Fredman offered, “It’s been so overwhelming to watch the news cycle. It’s been a year where Judaism, Jewish identity, Jewish ethics, all of these things are completely different from what we thought they were even a year ago.” Fredman went on to speak about the fracturing that is occurring within the Jewish community and offered, “One of the functions of ritual, especially a ritual like this one, is to create space for people to have the conversations that we need to have.”
Creating a safe container for difference and for questioning is a tall order and one that Fredman meets with humility and curiosity. Of the Passover Seder he shared, “I’m hoping that in addition to the elements of food, and music, and teachings that there’s also space for people to be vulnerable and sift through some other profound experiences, painful experiences of the last six months and then, you know, investigate, turn things over and find something about themselves that helps us make sense of a disorienting moment.”
Reservations for Feast of Mystics, and The Epichorus featuring Yacouba Sissoko and Lala Tamar can be made at rblodge.com.
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Patrick L. Sullivan
Legendary American artist Jasper Johns, perhaps best known for his encaustic depictions of the U.S. flag, formed the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 1963, operating the volunteer-run foundation in his New York City artist studio with the help of his co-founder, the late American composer and music theorist John Cage. Although Johns stepped down from his chair position in 2015, today the Foundation for Community Arts continues its pledge to sponsor emerging artists, with one of its exemplary honors being an $80 thousand dollar scholarship given to a graduating senior from Housatonic Valley Regional High School who is continuing his or her visual arts education on a college level. The award, first established in 2004, is distributed in annual amounts of $20,000 for four years of university education.
In 2024, the Contemporary Visual Arts Scholarship was renamed the Warren Prindle Arts Scholarship. A longtime art educator and mentor to young artists at HVRHS, Prindle announced that he will be retiring from teaching at the end of the 2023-24 school year. Recently in 2022, Prindle helped establish the school’s new Kearcher-Monsell Gallery in the library and recruited a team of student interns to help curate and exhibit shows of both student and community-based professional artists. One of Kearcher-Monsell’s early exhibitions featured the work of Theda Galvin, who was later announced as the 2023 winner of the foundation’s $80,000 scholarship. Prindle has also championed the continuation of the annual Blue and Gold juried student art show, which invites the public to both view and purchase student work in multiple mediums, including painting, photography, and sculpture.
HVRHS students who have received the scholarship from the Foundation for Community Arts have continued their education at notable institutions like Pratt Institute, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Parsons School of Design at The New School, Florence Academy of Art in Rome, The Fashion Institute of Technology, San Francisco Art Institute, Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, The Rhode Island School of Design, and The Savannah College of Art and Design.
HVRHS students can receive application forms for the scholarship from their teachers or councilors and the winner will be announced shortly before the end of the school year. The deadline for the scholarship application process has been extended to April 24.
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Foraging around in Falls Village
Apr 17, 2024
Patrick L. Sullivan
Andy Dobos of Forest Wolf Programs led a group around the perimeter of Great Mountain Forest’s chestnut orchard on Undermountain Road in Falls Village on a chilly Saturday morning, April 13, in search of edible plants.
He started with Queen Anne’s Lace, also known as wild carrot.
This was a good plant to start with because it’s common and relatively easy to identify, he said.
“Relatively” easy.
Dobos said when he was first learning about plant identification it took him a year to learn how to identify Queen Anne’s Lace in all four seasons.
“It took another year to be confident about it.”
Throughout the presentation, Dobos stressed caution in ingesting wild plants.
He said most plants that are toxic to humans will be easy to identify by the taste.
“Most toxic plants taste really bad,” he said cheerfully. “You’re going to know.”
Except for mushrooms, where toxic varieties are harder to differentiate from edible varieties by taste.
The rule of thumb: “Know what it is before you swallow.”
Walking with the group of about a dozen people, Dobos spotted and delivered impromptu lectures on mustard garlic and trout lily, passing samples around and encouraging the participants to examine them closely without actually eating them.
He had some advice for the group on sources of information about plants.
He said he uses Peterson Field Guides, saying they are good for identifying plants, but the information on edibility is sparse.
He also recommended Samuel Thayer’s “Forager’s Harvest” and “Nature’s Garden.”
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Songs for Smiles
Apr 17, 2024
Maud Doyle
Musicians from The Hotchkiss School raised $1,000 for Corner Food Pantry of Lakeville April 14. Bluenotes, who introduced themselves as Hotchkiss’s “best-looking, best-sounding and only all-male a cappella group," opened the program at the Salisbury Town Grove with “Life Could Be a Dream.” Left to right: Gunn Pongsivapai, Hayden Scott, Anthony St. Clair, Alejandro Zheng, Tyler Rosenblum, Ethan Choi, Philip Lee.
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