Arts Briefs: Power of Truths Fest in Florence, dance at Smith, jazz at UMass, and more
The Power of Truths Arts & Education Festival will return for its fourth year on Friday, April 4, and Saturday, April 5, at Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity in Florence.
The event aims to use education and the arts for racial and social justice. Its lineup includes screenings of student films; a keynote presentation by Reginald Dwayne Betts, executive director of the prison literature organization Freedom Reads; a presentation about the history of racist deed restrictions in Northampton; an exhibit by youth photographers; a workshop about restorative practices; and much more.
The festival’s headline show will be “Know the Ledge: Hiphop History Live!” on Saturday, April 5, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. The show, described as a “high-energy, educational hip-hop experience,” features Black history figures like Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman, Elizabeth Key, John Brown, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more. According to a press release, the show “harnesses the power of music, dance, visuals, and storytelling to encourage all audiences to critically think about the histories and legacies of systemic racism in the United States of America.”
Tickets are $25 to $55 at bombyx.live, which also has a detailed schedule of the festival’s events.
Rapper-turned-artist Mark Guglielmo (who used to perform under the name “Vesuvio”) will be showing works about his Italian ancestors in “Portraits of My People” at 33 Hawley’s Barn Door Gallery through Wednesday, April 30, with an opening reception on Friday, April 11.
According to a press release, his life-size collages are “a vehicle to examine issues of race, class, migration, and power. Combing through thousands of old, black and white, archival and family photographs, the artist drew inspiration from his childhood growing up in New York and from those that came before him. Themes of memory, identity, family, and belonging permeate the portraits.”
Guglielmo’s sister, Jennifer Guglielmo, a Smith College professor, will also co-host a talk on the theme of Italian-American identity and whiteness with musician Heshima Moja on Saturday, April 19, from 4 to 5 p.m.
Admission is free. The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
To learn more about Guglielmo and his work, visit markguglielmo.com.
Earlier this year, poet Peter Gizzi, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, won the T. S. Eliot Prize, one of the most important prizes in poetry. Gizzi will read from “Fierce Elegy,” the book that won him the award, on Wednesday, April 9, at 6 p.m.
Much of the book is about grief. Gizzi told the Gazette in January, “Joy and sorrow, they share a very complex ecosystem. They’re actually one thing. As the world becomes constantly renewed, it’s also constantly dying, and I’m interested in having both. What I’ve discovered is there’s a majesty to grief. What I mean by that is, it allows me or us to finally understand the mystery of being. And that’s a joyful thing, right?”
Admission is free.
Florence-based artist Eva Lin Fahey, a Chinese-American adoptee who grew up in Cape Cod, will be showing works about the East Asian diaspora, motherhood, and intergenerational ties in the exhibition “Your Ghost Haunts My Shores” at UMass Amherst’s Augusta Savage Gallery from Friday, April 4, through Friday, May 9.
In a press release, Fahey said, “Growing up in an area where I felt racially isolated, drawing and art allowed me to create, and that felt really freeing. Art is a process of discovery. A lot of my work right now is focused around the idea of personal mythologies and myth making, and so there’s a lot of discovery in that process.”
“In Fahey’s paintings,” the press release adds, “ghosts are a representation of what’s missing, and they evoke a sense of loss and longing. The ghosts are a ‘shape-shifting presence’ that represent what she has lost as an adoptee: the Chinese culture, her birth family, her ancestors, and even herself as a ghost to her birth family.”
There will also be a reception and artist talk on Friday, April 4, from 5 to 7 p.m. Admission is free. To learn more about Fahey’s work, visit evalinfahey.com.
The Smith College Department of Dance will host its 2025 Senior Dance Concert at 7:30 p.m. nightly on Thursday, April 3, through Saturday, April 5, at Hallie Flanagan Studio Theatre.
The works presented will include “An Influenced Trajectory” by Evelyn Cauley (“provides a window into the process of building a world for one’s self”); “Unseelie” by Claire Dana (“explores the aesthetics of alternative communities and their focus on dark, unsightly, and supernatural themes”); “To Me It Was” by Abbey Fluet (“searches for where the dance goes when it vanishes with time”); “stabat/floreat” by Delia Haston (“presents both an overreaction and abstraction of femininity in its most contained spaces”); and “Paramita” by Grace Su (“shows the mix of searching, discovery, and the endless journey of finding one’s way”); and “Habitats (and Other Encounters)” by Taylor Zweil (“brings the viewer on a journey through a constantly changing environment to seek peace and connection”).
Tickets are $5 to $10 at smitharts.ludus.com.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst will host the 27th annual High School Jazz Festival and the inaugural New England Collegiate Jazz Festival over the weekend of Friday, April 4, to Sunday, April 6.
The Friday night performance at Bezanson Recital Hall from 6 to 11 p.m. will feature jazz ensembles from the University of Connecticut, Western Connecticut State University, the University of Rhode Island, Holyoke Community College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Smith College, Amherst College, and UMass Amherst.
Other groups from UMass and the University of Albany will perform in Benzanson and Tillis Halls between 8:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 5.
Those performances are free and open to the public.
Two high school ensembles will be chosen to open for guest artist Etienne Charles in Tillis Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, followed by UMass Jazz Ensemble I, who will play a short set at 8 p.m. before Charles performs.
Tickets to that show are $15 for Five College students and youth 17 and under or $30 to $40 otherwise via fac.umass.edu.
Nine local vocal groups will perform a benefit show for music education in public schools in Amherst and Northampton on Saturday, April 5, at 7 p.m. at Amherst Regional High School.
The participating groups include the Amherst Regional High School Chorale and Hurricanes, the Northampton High School Chamber Singers and Northamptones, the UMass Dynamics, the Smith College Smiffenpoofs, The Wise Guys, Northampton Community Music Center’s Ujima Singers, and Green Street Brew.
Tickets are $15 for adults or $10 for students and seniors, suggested donation at the door. Children under 12 are free. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
ECA Gallery in Easthampton will host “A hidden seed, a dove’s moan,” an exhibition of poetry by outgoing Easthampton poet laureate Carolyn A. Cushing, paired with images by Cushing and other artists, from Saturday, April 5, through Saturday, April 26.
According to a press release, Cushing is “a lyric poet inspired by nature, witnessing our broken open world, and focused on the places where life and death meet.” Cushing was the town’s poet laureate from 2023 to 2025.
The opening reception will be on Saturday, April 5, from 4 to 7 p.m., with 1-minute readings at 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30 p.m. The gallery will also be open on Thursday, April 24, from 5 to 7 p.m.; and Saturday, April 26, from 1 to 4 p.m.
The gallery is regularly open Tuesday and Thursdays from 12 to 2 p.m.
The third annual Academy Regional Youth Poetry Slam, featuring 10 local student competitors, will be at the Academy of Music on Saturday, April 5, at 7 p.m.
Spoken word poetry is different from written poetry – as event host Imani Wallace told the Gazette a few weeks ago, in spoken word, “there is a commanding of the stage, there is a stage presence, there is some tone” – but both can, and often do, involve vulnerable writing about heavy personal experiences.
The competition, hosted by poet Imani Wallace (stage name Lyrical Faith), will feature three rounds of competition (unless there’s a tie), and the top three winners will receive cash prizes.
The students competing in the Third Annual Academy Regional Youth Poetry Slam are: Allyson Klement, Amherst Regional High School; Zilaij’a Lewis, Holyoke High School (Dean Campus); Thanisha Martinez, Holyoke High School (Dean Campus); Melanie Rivas, Springfield Conservatory of the Arts; Maria Roblez, Holyoke High School (Dean Campus); Espin Santiago, Westfield High School; Adrianna Serrano-Rios, Holyoke High School (North Campus); Samara Thadison, Holyoke High School (Dean Campus); Izaria Thomas, Springfield Honors Academy; and Elias Vega, Holyoke High School (Dean Campus).
Tickets are $10, not including fees, at aomtheatre.com.
Daily Hampshire Gazette
