Dr. Michael Sakamoto, a longtime arts administrator, interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and arts professor from California, has been appointed associate director of programming at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Fine Arts Center, a new position in which he’ll help lead the curatorial and outreach activities for all FAC presentations of the performing arts.
Sakamoto, who has an MFA in dance and PhD in culture and performance from UCLA, will also serve as director of the FAC’s Asian Arts and Culture Program, succeeding Ranjanaa Devi, who retired last year after over 25 years as the founding director.
In a statement, Sakamoto, whose family was incarcerated in World War Two for being Japanese, said he’s thrilled to join the FAC. “UMass has made a bold statement in the American performing arts world by integrating Asian arts and culture within the core mission and function of its world-class Fine Arts Center…. This job couldn’t be more important to me.”
According to press notes, Sakamoto’s work as an interdisciplinary artist and curator in dance, theater, performance, media and photography has been presented in 14 countries throughout Asia, Europe and North America.
Northampton’s Media Education Foundation (MEF) will host a 40th anniversary celebration on Thursday, Sept. 19, of “Killing Us Softly,” a landmark documentary film featuring the work of Jean Kilbourne, a pioneering activist and cultural critic who has showcased the links between advertising and other representations of women in the media and women’s self-image, eating disorders and other issues.
The event, which takes place at the Weinstein Auditorium at Smith College at 7 p.m., will feature presentations by Kilbourne and a number of media analysts, filmmakers, women publishers and others. In addition, clips from other films and videos examining how women are depicted in the media — including additional “Killing Us Softly” videos, produced by MEF — will be shown.
The event is co-sponsored by Safe Passage of Northampton and the Smith College Program for the Study of Women and Gender.
Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares begins its eighth season with a performance on Wednesday, Sept. 25, by the Ingrid Laubrock Quartet, an ensemble led by composer and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, who explores “the borders between music and multi-layered, dense and evocative sound worlds,” according to press notes.
Laubrock, based in Brooklyn, New York, writes for a variety of musical settings; her orchestral piece “Vogelfrei” was named one of the 25 best classical tracks of 2018 by the New York Times, and she won the 2019 Herb Alpert Ragdale Prize in Music Composition. She was also voted best tenor saxophonist in the 2018 Downbeat Critics’ Poll, according to press notes.
At her performance, which takes place at 7:30 p.m. at the 121 Club in Eastworks, 116 Pleasant St. in Easthampton, she’ll be joined by Brandon Seabrook on guitar, Michael Formanek on bass and Tom Rainey on drums.
Single tickets ($15) will be available at the door and can also be purchased in advance at jazzshares.org.
The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum has opened a new exhibit that celebrates nearly 30 years of collaborative printmaking, showcasing the processes and techniques of leading women artists who traveled to Mount Holyoke to work among students and faculty. “In the Making: The Mount Holyoke College Printmaking Workshop” will run through June 21, 2020.
Established in 1984, the printing workshop was an artist-in-residency conceived and run by Nancy Campbell, a printmaker and professor of studio art at the college. According to press notes, Campbell invited women artists such as Elaine de Kooning, Kiki Smith and Faith Ringgold, and printers Norman Stewart and Carol Weaver, to create limited-edition works and give public lectures on campus.
The exhibit includes a rich trove of special prints, as well as preparatory drawings and proof states, which document the artists’ creative processes. For more information, including related events, visitartmuseum.mtholyoke.edu.