438 North Street Pittsfield, MA
missionbarandtapas@gmail

Poetry Slam
It was an honor to win last night's slam and be in the company of so many fine poetic voices.
You can hear a lot of different voices from the community all in one night in a poetry slam. You can hear your own work in a new way as you speed up or slow down the rhythm of the spoken word.
Thank you to Mission Bar and Tapas on North Street in Pittsfield for keeping the word alive.

Thank you to Matt McFadden, poet extraordinaire, for his hosting of the event.

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Ahab Rap
After doing my "Me & Melville " show awhile, I taught music improvisation to teachers (How to Make Herman Melville Come Alive in the Classroom.) When I spoke to the then-head of curriculum in Pittsfield, MA about teaching Melville he said:
'He's a dead white male, with a dead white whale." And he liked Melville! So I wrote an Ahab Rap and give credit to Bill Irwin for the first few lines.


Ahab Rap
He's a dead white male, with a dead white whale
Why should I care? Why should I care?
I never saw a whale, I never saw a ship
I never saw a spirit spout, what's so hip
about a guy with a headhunter for a friend
who builds his own coffin for a watery end
what's it to me, if there's a guy named Ahab
He should have been doin' his meds in rehab
Ahab, rehab, Ahab, rehab
It's a guy thing, revenge and such
Get off of it, Ahab, get a new crutch
Get a job at a desk, get a job sellin' blubber
Get off of that ocean, you be a landlubber
You made them die with your crazy obsession
Forget about it, man, learn your lesson
Ishmail, bishmail, tish-mo-ya
Melville and the classics, rah, rah, rah

c 2009 JoAnne Spies

Another song from 'Me & Melville' called 'Check-Out Line' has become a favorite in my work with Alzheimers groups. Originally the song was about what I might say to Herman if I met him in the Big Y supermarket (Le Grande Porque.) Now it's an invitation to make a shopping list for your favorite dinner and then remember what everybody ordered. Using boomwhackers and shakers, we have a lot of fun with this song.

Mission: Imagination - Annual Performance & Gala

The Founders' Theater, Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, MA

Community Access to the Arts presents “Mission Imagination” at the Founders’ Theatre in Lenox on Saturday, May 2nd at 6pm and Sunday, May 3rd at 1pm. From uproarious improv and cheeky modern dance, to joyful jazz and techno-tap, the show will amaze, inspire and celebrate the creativity of people with disabilities.

The show includes a music video produced by singer, JoAnne Spies featuring residents of six Berkshire Health Systems facilities, Youth Alive, and Berkshire County students, “Perpetual Dialects,” a collaboration between Tap artist, Stefanie Weber, and James Daher using technology to turn a dance floor into a multi-faceted canvas, scenes from Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale” directed by Barby Cardillo and Diane Prusha, and “you who,” a new work by award-winning choreographer, Dawn Lane. Juggler and mime artist, Roger Reed, performs with CATA participant, Pam Tuliebitz, in a duet of improvisational foolery with a cast of props. Singer, Vikki True, collaborates with longtime accompanist, Peter Schneider, and guitarist, Sam Rosen, in a new arrangement of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s ‘Pure Imagination.’”

For information, please call CATA at 413-528-5485.

reflections on making the 'red red robin' video:
Video means 'I see' and the medium allowed me to look with new sight at people I've been visiting for years.

By focusing frame by frame, connections between people are re-framed and become larger.

What is going on in any particular moment defies capture.

I learned patience and the malleability of time.

I appreciate more the beauty in a face.

International Women's Day

Kristin Jones' work with rivers and light and community is large in scope and inspiring:
http://www.tevereterno.it/index2.html

The First Annual Berkshire Festival of Women in the Arts

The First Annual Berkshire Festival of Women in the Arts http://www.thewomenstimes.com./
which will kick off March 1, 2009 and run throughout the entire month, now boasts more than 60 events at 30-plus venues throughout Berkshire County. Presented by The Women’s Times, the festival will feature exhibits, film, music, performance, talk and more, and will include diverse programming that ranges from historical to contemporary, traditional to radical, political to apolitical. Venues run the spectrum from the Berkshires’ most established cultural organizations to new and improvised locations. There are opportunities for festival-goers to examine the role of women in the arts, celebrate the achievements of women artists or simply enjoy a diverse cross-section of artistic work. Two signature events will mark the Festival: The Power of Women in the Arts, the Eighth Annual International Women’s Day conference will be held on March 6-7 at Bard College at Simon’s Rock College; and She’s Got Moxie!, the First Annual Festival Awards to be presented at a March 13 gala at Shakespeare & Company

The Women's Interfaith Institute in the Berkshires http://wiiberkshires.blogspot.com/

is a co-sponsor of "Power of Women in the Arts" March 6-7 at Bard College at Simon's Rock.

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JoAnne Spies performing at Berkshire Art Kitchen Thursday, March 5, 7:30pm

http://www.thewomenstimes.com/events-detail.php?record=41

JoAnne Spies at Norman Rockwell March 10 at 1:30pm

I'm honored to be a part of the celebration and will be presenting a performance and talk at the Norman Rockwell Museum on Tuesday, March 10 at 1:30pm
http://www.thewomenstimes.com/events-detail.php?record=55

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pictures for upcoming cd "North Avenue Honey"

"father" collage j. spies

writer and song by j. spies
or song and writer (imagine arrow above heads)

" motorboat" monotype by j. spies

greed mask / Earthdance performance

in Storefront Artists Project window

Rivermass Song
Twelve thousand years of tears are standing in my throat

A hundred million fears are woven in my coat

Illusion and memory are all the same

Can you tell me, what is my name?

Beyond the mountains I move along

My voice is hidden, then my voice is strong

After so much silence and separation

Will you praise my beauty, my reparation?

Rising, falling, known, unknown

My water blossoms in your bone

I am the heart of tree and bird

I am the river, a holy word

c 2007 words and music by JoAnne Spies

Watershed Waltz

Come on, let’s dance
Can we skip? Can we prance?
I’ll try not to step on your toes
I saw you there with the clouds in your hair
In your shimmering, glimmering clothes
I didn’t know how the steps go
But you showed me every day

When the eagle flies back to her nest
Where the blue heron stands for her rest
When the salmon jump early in spring
Dance with me

In the river where the deer drink
In the middle of the woods by the muddy creek
In the way we listen and the way we speak
Dance with me

Come on, let’s dance
Can we skip? Can we prance?
I’ll try not to step on your toes
I saw you there
With the clouds in your hair
In your shimmering, glimmering clothes

I didn’t know how the steps go
But you showed me every day
When the eagle flies back to her nest
Where the blue heron stands for her rest
When the salmon jump early in spring
Dance with me

We’re doing the watershed waltz

c 2007 words and music by JoAnne Spies

By Water I Am Led

I am standing by the riverside

Lost and rambling in my pride

Never knowing in my heart and my head

That I am water and by water am led

Let the memory of the soft green ground

And the majesty of each simple sound

Hold me when I’m tumbling down

I am water, I am missing and found

Landlocked, full of fear

Sound your torrent that I may hear

Where I am stubborn, let me flow

Where I am ignorant, let me know

Let the spirit of the earth and sky

Keep me when I die

Carry me to the river and sea

I am water and I am free

c 2007 words and music by JoAnne Spies

Red Red Robin Singalong for CATA

January 30 2:30 pm

where: Crispina ffrench's studio (old Notre Dame church) 40 Melville St. Pittsfield

http://www.crispina.com/crispina_site/about.html

Who: Anyone who'd like to join in singing or humming "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along"

What: "Red, Red Robin" Video Project

Mission: Create a music video of CATA Art Cart participants (who are predominantly elders) singing this song. Residents sing this song with gusto (and their own lyrics!) every time I play it on the guitar. The goal is to videotape a number of participants,including family, staff and other local participants and artists, edit a 5-8 minute video, and premiere it at the May 2/3, 09 CATA GALA weekend.

Here's a link to Doris Day singing "Red, Red, Robin" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ScH-X91qmo

I prefer Steve Goodman's version, but you get the idea how the song goes.

Thank you to Crispina, Youth Alive and Stefanie Weber for making this taping special!

Erica Spizz, Rodelinde Albrecht, Will Curtiss and Keith Emerling: crew extraordinaire!

Sing, Giovanna, Sing!

My Sicilian grandmother from Chicago, Rosaria Dolce, instructed me to sing whenever I could. If I felt blue in the back seat of the car as we headed out on a Sunday drive, Grandma Dolce would boom out: "Sing, Giovanna, sing!" If I was cross at the kitchen table while she cooked pasta and I set the dishes: "Sing, Giovanna, sing!" No matter how rotten things were, "Sing, Giovanna, sing!" was the cure-all.

See the NPR link below for more on the power of song.