The Northampton Arts Council works to support and nurture the arts in the city of Northampton. The Council awards grants twice each year to artists and arts groups from both state and locally-raised funds, and seeks to improve public awareness of the arts. Its' goals include maintaining and preserving the rich and diverse cultural heritage of Northampton, programming such annual events of interest to the community as First Night Northampton and Transperformance.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

KidsBestFest 2014 Day #4: Maidentrip


KidsBestFest 2014 Day#4
Thursday, February 20th at 1pm

Feature film starts after the YouthFilm shorts---please check this schedule to get exact times.

Tickets $3 Available at the door
Maidentrip a film by Jillian Schlesinger (USA, Ages 10+)
14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out—camera in hand—on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to be the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. In the wake of a year-long battle with Dutch authorities that sparked a global storm of media scrutiny, Laura now finds herself far from land, family and unwanted attention, exploring the world in search of freedom, adventure, and distant dreams of her early youth at sea. Jillian Schlesinger's debut feature amplifies Laura's brave, defiant voice through a mix of Laura's own video and voice recordings at sea and intimate vérité footage from locations including the Galapagos Islands, French Polynesia, Australia, and South Africa.

Winner Audience Award Canadian Film Festival 2013, Winner Audience Award Visions SXSW Film Festival 2013, Festival Directors Award Winner Mountain Film in Telluride 2013.  
Run Time - 82 minutes, Language - English, Dutch w. English Subtitles, Format - BluRay, Year - 2013, Genre - Documentary

YouthFilm 2014 selections will start at 1 PM (YouthFilm schedule link here)



KidsBestFest 2014 Day #3: Ricky, Three’s a Crowd


KidsBestFest 2014 Day #3
Wednesday, February 19th  at 1pm

Feature film starts after the YouthFilm shorts---please check this schedule to get exact times.

Tickets $3 Available at the door


Ricky, Three’s a Crowd a film by Kai S. Pieck (Germany, Ages 10+)
Life isn't easy for 10-year old Ricky - his cooler, bigger, brother Micha, who just dropped out of school, is always giving him a hard time. Together with his friends Dennis and Justin, Micha uses every chance he gets to makes Ricky's life miserable. Their parents' business is also in trouble, and with emotions running high, Micha's conflicts with his father threaten to boil over. Things change when the tough and headstrong girl Alex and her huge mastiff Loco move to town. Micha has the hots for her, but she plays very hard to get, so he gets Ricky to spy on her for him. In return, Micha agrees to protect his little brother from his two bully friends. Ricky befriends Alex and passes on valuable information to Micha about her. Ricky finally again has the long-wished-for closeness to his brother, who at some point stopped needing him as a playmate. But he also starts to feel a special kinship with Alex, and even shows her his secret retreat, a huge tree with an unfinished tree house in the middle of a cornfield. Soon, however, Ricky must decide where his loyalties lie. With his brother? Or with the girl who could very well be his first true love? Not even the Chinese novice monk, Xi Lao Peng, who exists only in Ricky's imagination and who is there when everyone else has abandoned him, can help him. When Micha finds out Ricky lied to him, tempers flare. And when the relationship between Micha and his father, who have the same temperament, once again takes a turn for the worse, Micha decides to run away from home and forces Alex, who hates her new hometown, to go with him.
Run Time-88 minutes, Language German with English Subtitles, Format BluRay, Year 2013
Genre - Drama

YouthFilm 2014 selections will start at 1 PM (YouthFilm schedule link here)







KidsBestFest 2014 Day #2: An Afternoon of Mo Willems animated shorts



KidsBestFest 2014 Day #2
Tuesday February 18th at 1pm

Feature film starts after the YouthFilm shorts---please check this schedule to get exact times.

Tickets $3 Available at the door
An Afternoon of Mo Willems animated shorts (USA, All Ages)
Join KidsBestFest and The Eric Carle Museum to celebrate An Afternoon of Mo Willems animated shorts.  Mo Willems’ works in children’s books, animation, television, theater, and bubble gum card painting have garnered him 3 Caldecott Honors, 2 Geisel Medals, 6 Emmy Awards, 3 Geisel Honors, a Helen Hayes nomination, and multiple bubble gum cards. He is best known for his characters Knuffle Bunny, The Pigeon, and Elephant and Piggie. He is worst known for his characters in Sheep in the Big City and The Off-Beats. More information about Mo’s past, present, and future can be gleaned at www.mowillems.com

The Eric Carle Museum will be on hand to give out Free family passes to ‘Seriously Silly: A Decade of Art and Whimsy by Mo Willems’

Run time- 90 minutes, Language English Format DVD,
Genre - Childrens

YouthFilm 2014 selections will start at 1 PM (YouthFilm schedule link here)

KidsBestFest 2014 Day #1: Matilda


KidsBestFest 2014 Day #1
Monday February 17th at 1pm

Feature film starts after the YouthFilm shorts---please check this schedule to get exact times.

Tickets $3 Available at the door

Matilda (USA, Ages 7+)
Based on the book by British children's author Roald Dahl, Matilda Wormwood (Mara Wilson) is an extremely curious and intelligent little girl who is very different from her low-brow, mainstream parents (Danny DeVito, the films director, and real-life wife Rhea Perlman), who quite cruelly ignore her. As she grows older, she begins to discover that she has telekinetic powers. Not until a teacher shows her kindness for the first time does she realize that she can use those powers to do something about her sufferings and help her friends as well. Look for Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) in a small part as an FBI agent investigating Matilda's shady father.
Run Time-102 Minutes, language English, Format-BluRay, Year 2006
Genre - Fantasy 

YouthFilm 2014 selections will start at 1 PM (YouthFilm schedule link here)



Monday, January 20, 2014

If you value Northampton Community Television, this is the time to help


Perhaps you, or an organization of which you are a part, are a member.
Perhaps you have produced content utilizing our resource, our staff, our equipment, our space.
Perhaps you have appeared in a story or had an event covered through us.
Perhaps you watch us on television, or online, or read our local news stories.

There is a public ascertainment hearing, please attend!

Tuesday, January 28 at 6:30pm
JFK Middle School Community Room

At that hearing the public is invited to speak to the value of Northampton Community Television, and to the needs of the community in a new contract with Comcast. The majority of the funding for NCTV, your community resource, comes from an agreement between the City of Northampton and the cable company, Comcast. We are an organization independent of both that runs the community media center through this funding.

The demand for NCTV is higher than its capacity.
We have grown in usage 2000% since 2007.
We've won numerous national awards for excellence in our field.

Please come and tell your story about us.
Attached is an infographic explaining some of the ways you cam support us.

You may also submit your comments via email to 


or via snail mail to 

Clodagh Parker
Chair, Northampton Cable Access Board
Room 12 - City Hall
210 Main St.
Northampton, MA 01060

Over the years we've worked to give you a voice.

Now you can help be our voice.

Between the Lines: Some Books & Writers & Characters Re-Viewed in Collage


Between the Lines: Some Books & Writers & Characters Re-Viewed in Collage


Collagist (and owner of Meetinghouse Books in South Deerfield)
Judith Keefer Tingley is presenting a multi-space exhibition
of pictures at each of six Northampton Bookstores this January,
National Book Month. Her intention is to support the fine independent
bookstores of Northampton while at the same time offering the public a
different way of reading and thinking about literature through
her satiric though serious  collages.

There will be six collages displayed at the six shops listed below through
January 23, at which point these pictures will be replaced by six
different book-related pictures (for an exhibition totaling 12 pictures
in all). The second set of pictures will be on display through
February 2.

Judith is particularly interested in investigating the role of
women in literature, and in this project she has used many thought-provoking
images of writers, their characters, and their readers toward this end.

Judith is grateful to the Northampton Arts Council for its help
in sponsoring this project, as well as to these bookstores
of the City of Northampton who participated in this project
& to all book-lovers everywhere!
For more information please contact Judith at

Please call individual shops for hours.
Phone numbers provided  below:

A: RAVEN USED BOOK STORE
4 Old South Street
(413) 584-9868

B: BROADSIDE BOOKSHOP
247 Main Street
(413) 586-4235

C: OLD BOOK STORE
32 Masonic Street
(413) 586-0576

D: GABRIEL BOOKS
21 Market Street
(413) 586-5596

E: METROPOLITAN BOOKS
9 ¾ Market Street
(413) 586-7077

F: BOOKENDS
80 Maple Street

(413) 585-8667

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Workbench Dance presents works in progress by local choreographers


Workbench Dance presents works in progress by local choreographers.
Saturday January 18th, 2014 8PM
Wild Life Sanctuary Studio
Arts and Industry Building
221 Pine St. #349
Florence, MA
 Suggested donation $5-$15.
  _______________________________________________________________________________

Workbench is a choreographic works-in-progress series in Northampton, Massachusetts. Each month the work of 3-5 emerging to professional choreographers will be showcased. The performances will be followed by a Q&A lead by local artists, and scholars. For our first showing on January 18th Workbench is featuring Paul Matteson with collaborator Sarah Hook, The Telephone Dance Project, Ailey Picasso and Claire Maurey. Performances will be followed by an open discussion led by Kathy Couch, installation artist and resident lighting designer at Amherst College.

For more information and to submit work for upcoming Workbench events please visit workbenchdance.wordpress.com.
Workbench is supported in part by a grant from the Northampton Arts Council, a local agency that is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 


Tuesday, January 14, 2014

“Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay”


Four Sundays in February Event #2

Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay

February 9th  - 2 PM, Academy of Music

General Admission: $8 Advance/$10 Door

The Really Big Show



Four Sundays in February Event #4

The Really Big Show

February 23rd  – 2 PM, Academy of Music

General Admission: $8 Advance/$10 Door

This year Mike Flood, Indie Rock Guru/Sub Pop recording artist, will introduce some of the best talent the Pioneer Valley has to offer. Crawling out of the UMass theater department with former “Ed” Tom Mahnken in the eighties, Mike cut his teeth playing Sheehans Café with 5th Business alongside Local Faves like Rockin Dave and the Rent Party and Ed Vadas. Mike has since established himself as a Indie Rock Guru of Local Favorites Sebadoh. He is an accomplished Musician/Producer and new father. Mike Flood is one of the funniest storytellers you will ever meet and with all the valley history he brings to the show we just can’t wait to see and hear him as our Ed Sullivan.  Councilman at Large Bill Dwight and Local Hero DJ Monte Belmonte will serve as Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show. They will be keeping Mike on his toes all afternoon.  Also on the bill will be Local Sensations “And the Kids”. They are tearing up the club scene right now and their fresh new local grown sound is soon to be a National Favorite.  

Purchase Tickets Online: reallybigshow.brownpapertickets.com


Sponsored by Daily Hampshire Gazette


Mumbai in Massachusetts


Four Sundays in February Event #3

Mumbai in Massachusetts

February 16th  – 2 PM, Academy of Music

General Admission: $15 Advance/$18 Door

An Afternoon of Indian Classical Music

Four Sundays in February 2014


Monday, January 13, 2014

KidsBestFest 2014



KidsBestFest 2014
Day #1
Monday February 17th at 1pm
Feature film starts after the YouthFilm shorts---please check this schedule to get exact times.
Matilda (USA, Ages 7+)
Based on the book by British children's author Roald Dahl, Matilda Wormwood (Mara Wilson) is an extremely curious and intelligent little girl who is very different from her low-brow, mainstream parents (Danny DeVito, the films director, and real-life wife Rhea Perlman), who quite cruelly ignore her. As she grows older, she begins to discover that she has telekinetic powers. Not until a teacher shows her kindness for the first time does she realize that she can use those powers to do something about her sufferings and help her friends as well. Look for Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) in a small part as an FBI agent investigating Matilda's shady father.
Run Time-102 Minutes, language English, Format-BluRay, Year 2006
Genre - Fantasy


Day #2
Tuesday February 18th at 1pm
Feature film starts after the YouthFilm shorts---please check this schedule to get exact times.
An Afternoon of Mo Willems animated shorts (USA, All Ages)
Join KidsBestFest and The Eric Carle Museum to celebrate An Afternoon of Mo Willems animated shorts.  Mo Willems’ works in children’s books, animation, television, theater, and bubble gum card painting have garnered him 3 Caldecott Honors, 2 Geisel Medals, 6 Emmy Awards, 3 Geisel Honors, a Helen Hayes nomination, and multiple bubble gum cards. He is best known for his characters Knuffle Bunny, The Pigeon, and Elephant and Piggie. He is worst known for his characters in Sheep in the Big City and The Off-Beats. More information about Mo’s past, present, and future can be gleaned at www.mowillems.com
The Eric Carle Museum will be on hand to give out Free family passes to ‘Seriously Silly: A Decade of Art and Whimsy by Mo Willems’
Run time- 90 minutes, Language English Format DVD,
Genre - Childrens
Day #3
Wednesday, February 19th  at 1pm
Feature film starts after the YouthFilm shorts---please check this schedule to get exact times.
Ricky, Three’s a Crowd a film by Kai S. Pieck (Germany, Ages 10+)
Basically, 10 year old Ricky knows no fear - but the world around him is rough. He struggles with his 15 year old brother who is always giving him a hard time and telling him to “piss off.” Things change when a headstrong 13 year old girl and her huge Bull Mastiff move to town.
Run Time-88 minutes, Language German with English Subtitles, Format BluRay, Year 2013
Genre - Drama
Day#4
Thursday, February 20th at 1pm
Feature film starts after the YouthFilm shorts---please check this schedule to get exact times.
Maidentrip a film by Jillian Schlesinger (USA, Ages 10+)
14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. Winner Audience Award Canadian Film Festival 2013,
Winner Audience Award Visions SXSW Film Festival 2013, Festival Directors Award Winner Mountain Film in Telluride 2013.  
Run Time - 82 minutes, Language - English, Dutch w. English Subtitles, Format - BluRay, Year - 2013, Genre - Documentary
Day #5
Friday, February 21st at 1pm
Feature film starts after the YouthFilm shorts---please check this schedule to get exact times.
Youth Reel: Paradigm (International, Ages 13+)

A favorite at this years Children’s Film Fest at Mill Valley Film Festival Selected by a jury of teens from California Film Institute’s 6th annual Summerfilm course, this year’s youth reel draws from 160 national and international entries—including, say the jurors, one of the scariest shorts they’ve ever seen. Shorts made and selected by youths.

CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTHFILM 2014 SCHEDULE

Brought to you by Florence Savings Bank & NCTV



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