Call for artists
Gallery A3 in Amherst invites artists to submit work for its third annual open juried show, which will be on view July 7-30 at 28 Amity St. in Amherst.
The juror will be Mara Williams, chief curator of the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Vermont. Williams received a bachelor’s degree in theater from Boston College and a master’s degree in museum studies from Syracuse University. She pursued doctoral work at New York University before beginning work at BMAC.
Williams is a former chairwoman of the Vermont Arts Council and a former board member of the New England Museum Association. She owns Arts Bridge LLC, a curatorial and exhibition consulting firm.
The gallery will accept paintings, sculptures, photography and mixed media arts. Deliver submissions to the gallery on Saturday between 9 a.m. and noon, or Sunday from 4 to 7 p.m. The fee is $20 for one entry, $5 for additional entries, with a maximum of three.
Complete submission guidelines are available on the gallery’s website, www.gallerya3.com.
The Pikeys will perform Saturday at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, 130 River Drive in Hadley as part of the museum’s “A Perfect Spot of Tea” program. Seatings are at 2:30 and 3:30 p.m.
Members of The Pikeys (Patrick Fyfe, guitar and mandolin; Fred Higgins, fiddle, guitar, vocals; Rose Higgins, concertina; and Phil Grant, mandolin) hail from Scotland, Ireland, England and the United States. They perform a wide repertoire of songs, mixing traditional Irish and Scottish music, and their sets range from instrumentals to ballads.
Pastries will be served, along with Earl Grey tea.
Admission is $12. For information, visit www.pphmuseum.org.
The Ko Festival of Performance presents its 25th season Monday through Aug. 7 at Amherst College. Included will be five weeks of original performances, three six-day intensive workshops and one outdoor special event.
Here’s the performance lineup. For information about workshops, visit www.kofest.com
July 8-10: KO KABARET: KoFest brings back favorite artists for three variety shows, with a different lineup each night. See website for details.
Tickets cost $25; $21 for students and standing room; $5 off if you see more than one.
July 10 at 4 p.m.: THE LITTLE FARM SHOW/NACL Theatre. An all-ages musical extravaganza about farming, food and taking care of Earth. It’s “the greatest show on dirt” according to The New York Times. On the Amherst College Observatory Lawn off Snell Street.
Tickets cost $9; $7 under 12
July 15-17: IF I CAN’T JUGGLE, IT’S NOT MY REVOLUTION/ A compendium of favorite bits plus new material from solo artist Sara Felder.
July 17 at 8 p.m.: KOFEST STORY SLAM AND PARTY; First-person stories of celebration, told, perhaps, by you. Visit kofest.com to see how to participate. Tickets $15. Cash bar and prizes.
July 22-24: WHEN I PUT ON YOUR GLOVE/ Sandglass Theater
After 30 years, Eric Bass will pass the puppets from his signature piece onto new hands: his daughter, Shoshana Bass, who will weave “Autumn Portraits” matarial into reflections about the complexity of navigating generation artistic legacy.
July 29-31: FREEDOM PROJECT/ Everett Company
Multimedia physical theater, interweaving stories, imagery and choreography about the current “incarceration epidemic in the Land of the Free.” The performance will be followed each night by a Freedom Cafe, with speakers, performance and discussion.
Aug. 5-7: TENDERNESS/ The Performance Project’s First Generation Ensemble
Young theater artists from the Springfield area contrast the dehumanization at the core of violence, racism and the “school-to-prison pipeline” with the power of human tenderness.
Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. in Holden Theater at the college, unless otherwise noted. Tickets, unless otherwise noted, cost $20; $16 for students and seniors.
“The Professor: Tai Chi’s Journey West,” the first major feature documentary about tai chi and one of its masters, Cheng Man-Ching, will be shown Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Amherst Cinema, 28 Amity St. in Amherst.
Cheng Man-Ching is an important but overlooked figure who brought tai chi and Chinese culture to the West during the 1960s. The film tells his story and presents tai chi as a martial art and spiritual practice.
Regular admission. To reserve, visit amherstcinema.org.
Miranda Roldan, who grew up in Florence, has snagged a plum role in a new Off-Broadway play, “Phoenix Rising: Girls and the Secrets They Keep,” which opened last Friday at the Lion Theatre. The play continues through July 18.
Her role, Carmen, is a Latina high school junior. Battered and abused by her alcoholic father, she is a mother to her younger siblings. Carmen uses her artistic talents to cope with her emotional struggles.
Roldan, who is also a dental hygienist, studied dance at the Hackworth School of Performing Arts in Easthampton, and has appeared in stage productions as well as on screen and in commercials and dance productions.
For information, visit phoenixrisingtheplay.org.
At the Hosmer
“Venice,” photographs by Carol Duke, and “20 Matches/40 Lives Changed: Portraits of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County” will be on view Friday through July 29 at the Hosmer Gallery, in Forbes Library, 20 West St. in Northampton. There will be a reception Wednesday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
For Duke, Venice was a longing which was finally satisfied in 2012, when she visited the city for 16 days. The exhibit of 25 photographs comes from the more than 4,000 images she took during her stay.
Big Brother Big Sisters of Hampshire County made its first match in 1975. Since then, more than 2,000 youths ages 6 to 16 have been matched with mentors through the program.
The exhibit presents a view of 20 of those matches.
Gallery hours are Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 5 p.m.; Fridays from 9 a.m .to 5 p.m. The gallery will be closed Saturdays in July and August and is also closed Sundays and holidays.
For information, visit forbeslibrary.org.