City That Drinks the Mountain Sky

“Many of our shows follow things to their sources—sources both in history and in the biosphere.”

That’s how Arm-of-the-Sea Theater founder Patrick Wadden has described the puppet-theater company’s City That Drinks the Mountain Sky, the work that will be performed this weekend at Chatham’s PS/21: Performance Spaces for the 21st Century. City “traces the path of fresh water from the Catskill Mountains to the taps of New York City.”

You might not think there’s much drama in this, but you’d be wrong: What’s more vital to human life than fresh water, and, by extension, a healthy watershed?

With story and visuals (masks, puppets, costumes) by Wadden, Marlena Marallo and Jean Whelan, City will be performed by Dean Jones, who provides all character voices and is a “one-man orchestra.”

City That Drinks the Mountain Sky will be presented Sunday (Aug. 29) at 5 PM at PS/21 (2980 Route 66, Chatham). Tickets are $12, $6 children. For more info, call 392-6121.

 

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Crosby, Stills & Nash

If ever a blurb about a SPAC show didn’t need much elaboration, it’s this one.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, who have been around forever, are touring on the strength of their mostly well-received album Mojo, and, of course, one of the richest songbooks of any band in rock & roll. Some bands sound more and more like parodies of themselves as the years roll on. Petty and company sound more and more like their true selves—these guys were old-time rockers when they were in their teens.

The original supergroup and one-time crazy Woodstock kids David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash have been around forever and a couple of weeks. CSN based their entire sound on perfectly blended voices. And, while various members’ other body parts have broken down, CSN still have those heavenly voices. Is there, locked away in a safe down below, a contract signed in blood on a long-ago midnight? Who can tell?

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and Crosby, Stills & Nash will perform tomorrow (Friday, Aug. 27) at 7 PM at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (Saratoga Spa State Park, Saratoga Springs). Tickets are $41 (lawn) to $131 (best amphitheater seats). For more info, visit spac.org or call 587-3330.

 

The Vanaver Caravan

Now it their 35th year, the multi-award-winning Vanaver Caravan describe themselves as “a global dance excursion,” and Dance magazine raves that the versatile performers “eagerly explore every cranny of their art.”

This week, the Caravan has wended their way to Jacob’s Pillow, where they will present their program Earthbeat, featuring live music, rhythm and percussion and an array of world dance experiences ranging from Romanian stick dances and Appalachian clogging to folk dances of India, Brazil, South Africa and Spain.

Pete Seeger knows a thing or two about celebrating folk, and he loves these guys: “You’ll have to see The Vanaver Caravan to believe the high professional skills they have developed to bring out the old folk traditions . . . In the end, everyone is on their feet cheering,” he says of the Caravan.

The Vanaver Caravan will perform at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s Doris Duke Theater (358 George Carter Road, Becket Mass.) tonight (Thursday, Aug. 26) at 8:15 PM; four more performances are scheduled through Sunday. Tickets are $37.50, with $10 youth tickets available for Sunday’s matinee. For more info, or to purchase tickets, call the Pillow box office at (413) 243-0745.