Profound puppetry
You generally don’t think of puppets as being elderly or concerned with their past lives or their impending deaths; nor do you usually find them interacting with their god-like human manipulators. But that’s what they are and do in “Autumn Portraits,” a 1980 work by pioneering puppeteer Eric Bass of the Vermont-based Sandglass Theater that has been seen around the world, won awards on several continents and been performed in three languages.
After 30 years, Bass is passing the puppets from his signature piece into the hands of his daughter, Shoshana Bass, who has marked the pivotal moment of generational transition for Sandglass Theater with a new work that builds on the premise of puppets as vessels of memory. Titled “When I Put On Your Glove,” the piece is an exploration of what it means for a daughter to slip into her father’s art – in this case, literally — and of how an art form endures and transforms as it is handed to the next generation, questions that also involve such larger matters as belonging, childhood and fear of loss and death.
Presented as part of the Ko Festival of Performance, “When I Put On Your Glove” will be performed Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m. in Amherst College’s Holden Theater, which is located behind the more prominent Kirby Theater. $20 general; $16 seniors and students. 542-3750, kofest.com.
Sister Act
SHELis the acronymic name for sisters Sarah, Hannah, Eva and Liza Holbrook, 20-something women born in a five-year span and raised in a bohemian, art-loving family in Fort Collins, Colorado. Each sibling found an instrument to master early on, studying classical music while composing and arranging singular works for the anomalous combination of violin, mandolin, piano and drums. Homeschooled by their mother, they were educated in music by their father, who taught them vocal as well as instrumental harmonization.
They grew up, released an eponymous debut album in 2012, and developed a DIY attitude to their career, taking time to design their own performance wear, take their own promotional photos and make their own music videos in locations ranging from New York to San Francisco and Amsterdam to Ireland.
The result of their collaboration is “a full, rich, shimmering, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes steamed euphoric indie pop (Vogue), with “deceptively thoughtful songwriting that recalls another group of famously proud auteurs, The Beatles” (Denver Post). Their just-released sophomore album, “Just Crazy Enough,” is what you might call ”a playful fusion of indie, folk and pop, that sees the four sisters blend their styles together into a cohesive, enchanting, high-spirited, whimsical and somewhat mischievous unit” (The Daily Telegraph).
On July 28, the quartet will be at the West Whately Chapel for a special Thursday edition of Watermelon Wednesdays. 7:30 p.m. $20 includes watermelon during intermission. The West Whately Chapel is located at the intersection of Williamsburg and Conway Roads, West Whately Chapel in Whately. watermelonwednesdays.com
— Dan DeNicola