Performance | MASS MoCA

The captivating nordic duo My Bubba “sound like their generation’s Simon and Garfunkel. With just a guitar and vocals, they are mesmerizing in their softer than soft, lilting songs.” (No Depression)

Bennington singer-songwriter Jacqui Alpine opens the show.

What to expect
This event will be “up in the club” with cabaret-style seating. Preferred ticket seats are located by the venue stage. Lickety Split serves a special dinner menu that includes grass-fed beef “Greek” burgers, BBQ Korean beef shortrib flatbread, Reuben paninis, Thai crunch salad, tomato pasta soup, and homemade quiche. The bar is always well-stocked with Bright Ideas Brewing beers and Berkshire Mountain Distillery spirits. Be ready to make new friends — our tables seat five, and, if your party is smaller, you might find others at your table. Cheers to live events up in the club!

photo by Johan Rosenmunthe

LAVA’s unique language of feminist dance includes towering human pyramids, acrobatic wrestling, and subtle physicality. The company’s new piece, developed at MASS MoCA, is a survival story that vaults the audience from a patriarchal present into a rainbow-colored feminist future.

photo by Joseph Thompson

Co-presented with Jacob’s Pillow Dance

Choreographer, writer, and actress Okwui Okpokwasili brings her kinesthetically powerful movement style to a site-specific dance that responds to Nick Cave’s major Building 5 exhibition Until.

Seating in the gallery is limited for this intimate performance.

photo by Peter Born

Claiming the holy trinity of Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, and God as his primary inspirations, the Sierra Leonean singer Janka Nabay has almost single-handedly revived the ancient tradition of Bubu, updating a form with 500-year-old roots in magic-infused folk ceremony into frenetic, hypnotic dance music with flourishes of electronica.

What to expect
This event will be “up in the club” with cabaret-style seating. Preferred ticket seats are located by the venue stage. Our café will deliver your dinner, and the bar is always well-stocked with Bright Ideas Brewing and Berkshire Mountain Distillery spirits. Be ready to make new friends — our tables seat five, and, if your party is smaller, you might find others at your table. Cheers to live events up in the club!

photo by Sidney Schleiff and Oliver Citrin

Co-presented with Jacob’s Pillow Dance

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: A Call and Response
Conceived and performed by Bill T. Jones
Assisted by Janet Wong
Music composed and performed by Ted Coffey
Sound Design by Sam Crawford

Performing in Nick Cave’s expansive installation Until, the iconic choreographer will present a solo work created in response to the exhibition.

Tickets are currently sold out. Please call the MASS MoCA Box Office to add your name to a waiting list, should more tickets be released. 413.662.2111 x1

Seating in the gallery is limited for this intimate performance.

photo by Ian Douglas

The former Apollo Sunshine and Yellowbirds frontman Sam Cohen is a dazzling guitarist (he’s lent his talents to the likes of Bob Weir and Cee-Lo), but also a songwriter of disarming skill. Count on him and his band to bring some lazy summer afternoon vibes to a cold winter’s night.

What to expect
This event will be “up in the club” with cabaret-style seating. Our café will deliver your dinner, and the bar is always well-stocked with Bright Ideas Brewing and Berkshire Mountain Distillery spirits. Be ready to make new friends — our tables seat five, and, if your party is smaller, you might find others at your table. Cheers to live events up in the club!

photo by Shawn Brackbill

Absurdist comedy dynamo Jo Firestone, whose off-kilter talents are on display in the HBO series High Maintenance and in her writing for The Chris Gethard Show, is blazing a hilarious trail across the country, hosting over 40 different formats of live performances (e.g. NYC’s Inner Beauty Pageant and her touring show Friends of Single People). She’s everywhere! Club B10 alum Joe Pera and Dan Licata open the show.

photo by Mindy Tucker

The innovative ensemble Sō Percussion explores America’s fraught relationship with guns in this theatrically staged concert. Taking mallets to disassembled sniper rifles and assorted drums, the musicians serve as Greek chorus, commenting instrumentally on sung and spoken texts drawn from the nightmares and nostalgia of armed experiences. Obie-winning director Ain Gordon and choreographer Emily Johnson give depth to this probing work.

Museum galleries open until 7pm.

What to expect
Seating is general admission. Preferred tickets are general admission seats located in the first rows of the theater. A full bar serves Bright Idea Brewing beers and Berkshire Mountain Distillery spirits.

Planning on dinner before the show? Our museum café Lickety Split rolls out a menu of favorites including Vermont black bean burgers, Angus burgers, tasty paninis, quiche, and an array of fresh salads featuring field greens, goat cheese, and grilled pineapple, all priced at $10 or less.

photo courtesy of the artist

Presiding over consciousness-expanding arrangements of Sly and the Family Stone, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Allen Toussaint, The Band, and more — with a wicked horn section — trumpeter and bandleader Steven Bernstein whips up a blowout Free Day concert that will alter your brain chemistry.

With Bernstein on horns, the band features Duane Eubanks (trumpet), Arthur Baron (trombone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Oscar Noriega (sax and clarinet), Erik Lawrence (saxophones of all kinds), Ben Stapp (tuba), and Billy Martin of Medeski Martin & Wood on percussion.

Join us in the galleries for the museum’s annual Free Day, from 11am to 7pm.

What to expect
Dance! Dance! Some seating will be available in the Hunter Center. A full bar serves Bright Idea Brewing beers and Berkshire Mountain Distillery spirits.

photo by Michael Weintrob

Local indie-folk heroes Parsonsfield blew minds at FreshGrass 2016 playing live to an excerpt of the iconic Robert Flaherty documentary Nanook of the North. We’ve asked for the band to score the whole film, and they’re back to perform the world premiere.

Folk Alley has dubbed Parsonsfield’s songs “the most jubilant and danceable indie roots music this side of the Carolinas.” Their rowdy live performances only upped the ante, with The Bluegrass Situation falling for their “fun and frenzy” and No Depression raving that they’ll “give you rich five-part harmonies one minute, sound like bluegrass on steroids the next, and then rock you over the head with unbearably cool and raucous Celtic rhythms.”

Parsonsfield is: Chris Freeman (vocals, banjo), Antonio Alcorn (mandolin), Max Shakun (vocals, pump organ, guitar), Harrison Whale Goodale (bass), Erik Hischmann (drums)

Learn more about how the band’s FreshScores performance got its start. Tickets for FreshGrass 2017 are on sale now.

What to expect
Seating is general admission within each section. Preferred tickets are general admission seats located in the first rows of the theater. A full bar serves Bright Idea Brewing beers and Berkshire Mountain Distillery spirits.

Planning on dinner before the show? Our museum café Lickety Split rolls out a menu of favorites including Vermont black bean burgers, angus burgers, tasty paninis, quiche, and an array of fresh salads featuring field greens, goat cheese, and grilled pineapple, all priced at $10 or less.

photo by Douglas Mason

My Bubba with Jacqui Alpine

The captivating nordic duo My Bubba “sound like their generation’s Simon and Garfunkel. With just a guitar and vocals, they are mesmerizing in their softer than soft, lilting songs.” (No Depression)

LAVA’s unique language of feminist dance includes towering human pyramids, acrobatic wrestling, and subtle physicality. The company’s new piece, developed at MASS MoCA, is a survival story that vaults the audience from a patriarchal present into a rainbow-colored feminist future.

Co-presented with Jacob’s Pillow Dance

Choreographer, writer, and actress Okwui Okpokwasili brings her kinesthetically powerful movement style to a site-specific dance that responds to Nick Cave’s major Building 5 exhibition Until.

Co-presented with Jacob’s Pillow Dance

Performing in Nick Cave’s expansive installation Until, the iconic choreographer will present a solo work created in response to the exhibition.

The former Apollo Sunshine and Yellowbirds frontman Sam Cohen is a dazzling guitarist (he’s lent his talents to the likes of Bob Weir and Cee-Lo), but also a songwriter of disarming skill. Count on him and his band to bring some lazy summer afternoon vibes to a cold winter’s night.

Local indie-folk heroes Parsonsfield blew minds at FreshGrass 2016 playing live to an excerpt of the iconic Robert Flaherty documentary Nanook of the North. We’ve asked for the band to score the whole film, and they’re back to perform the world premiere.