Arts Fuse critics select the best in music, film, theater, visual arts, author readings, and dance that’s coming up in the next week.

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

Boston Area Film Schedules – What is playing today, Where and When

Woods Hole Film Festival
July 26 – Aug 2
Woods Hole, Cape Cod

The eclectic festival continues throughout the week with many local filmmakers and subjects. Here is the full schedule. Directors in attendance include:

Sunday —
8 p.m.: A filmmaker in residence screening with Jay Craven
9 p.m.: Director John Imber (Left Hand: Filmmaker) will be in attendance to talk about this inspiring and edifying documentary on the titular painter and teacher, which chronicles his final struggle with ALS.

Monday –
7 p.m.: The Winding Stream. An added screening of the Carter family documentary with director Beth Harrington on hand.
8 p.m.: One Cut, One Life. Lucia Smalls appears with a screening of her “complex and intimate” poetic medication on life, which was done in collaboration with documentary pioneer Ed Pinkus, who was then in his final days.

Tuesday –
5 p.m.: Little White Lie. Lacey Schwartz’s story of growing up in a typical upper-middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY. Filmmaker will be in attendance.

Thursday –
7 p.m.: The God Question. A startling breakthrough in artificial intelligence at MIT produces the first super-intelligent computer capable of thinking independently. The machine’s IQ is incalculable: it is fluent in all languages and able to read a book in a fraction of a second. The director will be in attendance.

Friday –
8 p.m.: Art and Craft. The incredible story of Mark Landis, one of the most prolific art forgers of all time. Director Sam Cullman in attendance. Arts Fuse review

The Complete Fritz Lang
August 1 – 31
Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge, MA

In collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Boston, Harvard University presents some of the most important and hard to find films made by the great German director. He made many ‘social-problem’ and anti-Nazi pictures in this country (Fury) as well as classics such as M and Metropolis in his homeland. A bonus: the website offers an excellent summary of the director and his work.

— Tim Jackson

---

Visual Arts

The 81st Annual League of NH Craftsmen’s Fair Mount Sunapee Resort, Newbury, NH.
August 2 – 10

Established in 1932, the League of New Hampshire Craftsman helped kick off a state-wide crafts movement, instigated originally by summer people and designed to preserve traditional regional crafts and provide much-needed income for Depression-strapped New Hampshire families. The organization opened its first official shop in 1932 and, a year later, organized its first Craftsman’s Fair in the White Mountains. It was an unexpected success. The league, its shops, and the fair have all thrived ever since, attracting an ever-growing community of craftspeople to the state.

In 1964, the fair moved to Mt. Sunapee State Park at the foot recently-opened ski slopes. There is has been an annual event ever since, growing like the local wildlife in post-agricultural New Hampshire. The 2014 edition, the 81st, will feature over 350 craftspeople, daily demonstrations, workshops, tours, strolling performers, and a Sculpture Garden for outdoor crafts.

Although the aesthetics of American crafts sometimes seems to have gotten stuck somewhere in the late 1960s, both the quality and variety of the work at this fair is high. The exhibitors are professionals and just about anything that can be made by hand — pottery, furniture, clothing, jewelry, rugs, games, glass, wood carvings, ironwork, embroidery, pewter. paper, and more — is represented. Most things you can see you can buy. The craftspeople come from all over the state, though these days relatively few are likely to be native-born, with other participants from around New England and beyond.

Presented in a series of tents pitched over green lawns, the fair is truly enormous and can be a bit overwhelming. Fair organizers have thoughtfully offered a discounted ticket for those who wish to explore for a second day. Many visitors make a week of the fair, local restaurants, Lake Sunapee and surrounding lakes and rivers, and the laid-back, non-commercial atmosphere of the local villages and towns. For day trippers, the fair is a bit under two hours from Boston.

— Peter Walsh

---

Roots and World Music

Noura Mint Seymali
Wednesday, July 30
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

A burgeoning star from Mauritania, Seymali performs the kind of desert blues that have been made famous by the likes of Tinariwen and Bombino. A master of the nine-stringed harp known as the ardine, she’ll appear with a band that features her fiery guitarist husband Jeiche Ould Chighaly. Based on her appearance at Globalfest earlier this year it’s likely that the MFA show will be Boston’s hottest African music event of the summer.

Pederito Martinez Group
Thursday, July 31
O’Day Park, South End, Boston, MA

Percussionist and Cuban expat Martinez has made a lot of fans in New York with his sleek Afro-Latin combo. This year he released two albums, the flamenco influenced Rumba De La Isla and an eponymous disc which highlights the versatile quartet he’ll be bringing to Boston for a free concert as part of Berklee’s Tito Puente Music Series.

Journeys in Sound 1st Anniversary
Thursday, July 31
Arts at the Armoy Café, Somerville, MA

This scrappy independent concert series celebrates its first year of adventurous programming with a typically eclectic night featuring Ruby Rose Fox, Vessela Stoyanova, Yakir Arbib, Rachel Panitch & Abby Swidler performing everything from indie folk to improvised piano.

Choro das 3
Friday, Aug 1
Club Passim, Cambridge, MA

This family group finds three sisters and their father performing the Brazilian acoustic swing known as choro. Joining them is American swing master guitarist Howard Alden, who, 15 hours later, will be appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival.

— Noah Schaffer

---

Jazz

Arturo Sandoval
July 27, 3:15 p.m.
Copley Square, Boston, MA

The dynamic Cuban trumpeter Arturo Sandoval is the one standout jazz act of the Boston Summer Arts Weekend in Copley Square. The two-day free event also features Los Lobos, the Soul Rebels, Ricky Skaggs, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra (with violinist Anne Akiko Meyers), and more.

Andy Voelker and Jeff Galindo
July 27, 8 and 10 p.m.
Lily Pad, Cambridge, MA.

Saxophonist Andy Voelker (Gypsy Schaeffer, Clear Audience) and trombonist Jeff Galindo (Charlie Kohlhase and too many others to name) combine for a formidable double bill with their respective bands at the Lily Pad.

Lisa Thorson
July 29, 7 p.m.
Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge, MA

Long one of Boston’s finest jazz singers – as well as educator (at Berklee College of Music) – Lisa Thorson celebrates the release of her new Lisa Thorson Quartet LIVE with pianist Jiri Nedoma, bassist Dave Clark, and drummer George Schuller. All this and the show is free!

Newport Jazz Festival
August 1-3
International Tennis Hall of Fame at the Newport Casino and Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI

The 60th Anniversary of the venerable music gathering.

Claire Dickson Quartet
August 5
Ryles, Cambridge, MA

Claire Dickson, “a jazz singer known for her fluid, burning scat singing and her depth of repertoire” brings her quartet” to Ryles.

— Jon Garelick

---

Dance

Quarry Dance Three
August 1-2
Deep Pit Quarry 111 High Street
Lanesville, MA

The ledges, cliffs, terraces and water of a Gloucester quarry originally owned by American sculptor Walker Hancock is the unique setting for a dance created by choreographer Dusan Tynek and his company that honors the “Monuments Men” who preserved Europe’s art treasures during World War II. Free, with small fee for passenger shuttle to the site. As associated exhibit of Hancock’s work runs all this month at the Flatrocks Gallery.

Vincent Mantsoe|Yin Mei
July 29 (lecture demonstration) and Aug 1-2
Bates Dance Festival
Lewiston, Maine

South Africa/French choreographer, Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe, who is the descendant of a long line of spiritual healers, shares a program with Yin Mei, who grew up under the shadow of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, in a program of compelling solos exploring exile and national identity. The lect-dem is free.

Circa
and
Dance Heginbotham and Brooklyn Rider in Chalk and Soot
July 30-August 3
Jacob’s Pillow
Becket, MA

A reinvention of circus arts from down under, as well as the world premiere of a new collaboration between this year’s Pillow awardee, choreographer John Heginbotham, who danced with Susan Marshall and Mark Morris, with exciting quartet Brooklyn Rider, make this a particularly edgy week at the Pillow.

— Debra Cash

---

Theater

Finding Neverland, directed by Diane Paulus.
Through September 28.
Staged by the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, MA

The world premiere of a musical based on the Miramax film by David Magee. The show follows “the real-life relationship between James Matthew Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies family that inspired the revolutionary 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, one of the most beloved stories of all time.” This Broadway/ West End bound production features music and lyrics by Gary Barlow and Elliot Kennedy, a book by James Graham, and choreography by Mia Michaels.

4,000 Miles, by Amy Herzog. Directed by Eric C. Engel.
July 31 through August 17
Staged by the Gloucester Stage Company, Gloucester, MA

A promising cast (including Nancy E. Carroll and Tom Rash) takes on a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. “After suffering a major loss while he was on a cross-country bike trip, 21-year-old Leo seeks solace from his feisty 91-year-old grandmother Vera in her West Village apartment in New York City. Over the course of a single month, these unlikely roommates infuriate, bewilder, and ultimately reach each other.”

The Old Man and the Old Moon, directed by Stuart Carden and the PigPen Theatre Co.
August 6 through 17
Staged by Williamstown Theater Festival at the Nikos Stage, Wiliamstown, MA

This imaginative company brings a critically acclaimed production to the Berkshires. The production is a “luminously low-fi spectacle that elevates traditional storytelling to high art. Their fantastical, song-filled tale takes us to the end of the world, when an old man abandons his duty of filling the moon with liquid light to search for his missing wife.”

— Bill Marx

---

Classical Music

Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 28, 8 p.m.
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox

This is something of a bittersweet program: Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos was slated to lead it, sharing conducting duties with TMC fellows. But he passed away last month after a battle with cancer and Marcelo Lehninger has stepped in to assume Frühbeck’s place. The program remains the same: music by Beethoven (which is not in short supply this summer) and Sibelius (which rather is), including the latter’s marvelous Luonnotar.

Longwood Symphony Orchestra
Presented by the Boston Landmarks Orchestra
July 30, 7 p.m.
Hatch Shell, Boston

Ronald Feldman and the LSO make an appearance at the Hatch Shell with an all-French program of 19th-century favorites. Cellist Natasha Farney is the featured soloist in Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto no. 1, while the remainder of the program includes Debussy’s Nocturnes, Faure’s Pavane, and Bizet’s two Carmen Suites.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival
Tuesday, July 29 at 7:30 p.m.
United Methodist Church, Orleans, MA

The Boston Cello Quartet plays the music of Mozart, Mendelssohn’s Scherzo from Midsummer’s Night Dream, Debussy’s Reverie, Popper’s Suite for Two Cellos, Op. 16, Chabrier’s España, and John Williams’s theme from Angela’s Ashes.

Halcyon Music Festival
Wednesday, July 30 at 7:30 p.m.
Community Church of Durham, 17 Main St., Durham, N.H

The “Delights in Durham” program presents Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54, No. 2, Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in g minor, K. 478, and Grieg’s Sonata for violin and piano No. 3 in c minor, Op. 45.

Yinfei Wang
Thursday, July 31, 7:30 p.m.
Walnut Hill School, 12 Highland St. Natick, MA

The acclaimed pianist performs a program of music that includes three sonatas by Scarlatti along with Schumann’s Toccata in C major, Op. 7, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.28 in A major, Op. 101, Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 4 in F-sharp major, Op. 30, and Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit.

Halcyon Music Festival
Saturday, August 2 at 7:30 p.m.
St. John’s Episcopal Church, 101 Chapel St., Portsmouth, N.H.

An All-Mendelssohn program: music from “Songs without Words” in D Major for cello and piano Opus 109; String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 12; Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor; Octet in E-Flat Major.

— Susan Miron

---

Rock

Nine Inch Nails & Soundgarden
July 29
Xfinity Center, Mansfield, MA

Honest question…which band is the headliner on this tour? Back in the ’90s, when both groups were in their prime, Soundgarden probably would have been the obvious choice. As the years have passed though, the music of Nine Inch Nails has arguably aged better. Perhaps the fairly recently reunited Soundgarden are too associated with grunge, while Nine Inch Nails have always stood one their own (by “their” I of course really just mean “Trent Reznor”). Either way, the show is sure to be heavy, and with both bands releasing new music recently, more than just a trip down memory lane.

Upcoming and On Sale…

Echo & the Bunnymen (8/14/2014, Paradise Rock Club); Arcade Fire (8/19/2014, Comcast Center); Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (8/30/2014, Fenway Park); Boston Calling Music Festival feat. The National, Lorde, The Replacements (9/5-7/2014, City Hall Plaza); Bombino (9/5/2014, The Sinclair); Justin Townes Earle (9/10/2014, Royale); Bob Mould (9/12/2014, Paradise Rock Club); Jack White (9/17/2014, Fenway Park); Willie Nelson (9/20/2014, Indian Ranch); The Black Keys (9/21/2014, TD Garden); Kasabian (9/26/2014, Paradise Rock Club); Neil Young (10/5-6/2014, Citi Performing Arts Center Wang Theater); The Orwells (10/9/2014, Brighton Music Hall); J Mascis (10/18/2014, The Sinclair); Temples (10/24/2014, Paradise Rock Club); Peter Hook & the Light (11/8/2014, Royale); Randy Newman (11/19/2014, Wilbur Theatre); Julian Casablancas + The Voidz (11/26/2014, House of Blues)

— Adam Ellsworth

---

Author Events

Nell Bernstein
Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison
Porter Square Books
August 1 at 7 p.m.
Free

Incarceration is in the news quite a bit these days, propelled by fictional portrayals such as Orange Is The New Black and disturbing statistics about how America locks up more people than anywhere else in the world. But what about the children? Award-winning journalist Nell Bernstein talks about the social and political consequences of juvenile detention. She will be discussing the issues with Lisa Thurau, executive director of Strategies For Youth.

Matthew Gilbert
Off the Leash: A Year at the Dog Park
Brookline Booksmith
August 4 at 7 pm
Free

The Boston Globe‘s TV critic takes on the world of dog lovers, guided by his very social Yellow Lab, Toby. Gilbert explores the nooks and crannies of Brookline’s Amory Park, a public space that has become a second home to strange, eccentric, and endearing dogs as well as their human counterparts.

Lev Grossman
The Magician’s Land
Brookline Booksmith
August 7 at 7 p.m.
Free

Time Magazine’s book critic has completed his bestselling trilogy about modern-day magicians and reads from the wrap-up volume.

David Adams Cleveland
Love’s Attraction
Porter Square Books
August 7 at 7 p.m.
Free

The action in David Adams Cleveland’s latest novel ranges from Concord to Venice. When his checkered past is brought to the forefront in new and disturbing ways, political fixer Michael Collins flees a political scandal that could ruin his reputation. The best-selling arts historian and author reads from his book, which draws on his award-winning research on art history. The book has been picked up by Wolf Films (Law & Order) for an HBO mini-series.

Norman Miller
Boston Beer: A History
Brookline Booksmith
August 12 at 7 p.m.
Free

Since the revolutionary days of Sam Adams and company, beer has played a considerable role in Boston history, from the Boston Tea Party, which was planned over a pint at the Green Dragon Tavern, to the first beer license (in 1630) and the current craft beer boom. Miller talks about Boston’s rich beer history.

— Matt Hanson