Past Transperformance

A crowd at the Pines Theater, Look Park (A. Burns)

In addition to administering the state of Massachusetts Local Cultural Council  program, the Northampton Arts Council were one of the first cultural council in the Commonwealth to raise money for a second round of funding every spring, with only a few other LCC's recently following our lead. The Arts EZ Spring Grant round is made possible by two major fundraising events produced by the Arts Council.Our two major fundraising events include:

TRANSPERFORMANCE creates the opportunity for local performers to assume the personas of well-known and well-loved musicians. The performers are chosen for their talents and for the creativity they bring to such role-playing, regardless of whether their gender, race, age, ethnicity or sexual preference/orientation matches that of the musicians they choose to imitate.

TRANSPERFORMANCE is a humorous musical celebration of the diversity of our population and an acknowledgment of the profound influences various artists have had on each other and on the rest of our society. The Northampton Arts Council, who also shared in the profits from the past Transperformances, has been able to use the money raised to provide a second round of funding for local artists. These rounds of funding support the work of many, many artists and performing groups.

• 2010 - Body Parts, Tuesday, August 31, 2010

• 2009 - LookStock

• 2008 - Letters and Numbers

• 2007 - Colors

• 2006 - All in the Family

• 2005 - New York: A Bite from the Big Apple

Transperformance 19: LookStock, 2009

Logo by Arnold Skolnick and poster layout by Alexis Neubert

• 2004 - Animals and Insects

• 2003 - Southern Fried Transperformance

• 2002 - Oh! Canada

• 2001 - Cali-Faux-Nia-Dreaming

• 2000 - Look Punk

• 1999 - Limeypalooza

• 1998 - Oy Vegas

• 1997 - Tuesday Night Fever

• 1996 - Night at the Opry

• 1995 - Way Off Broadway

• 1994 - Rock and Roll Heaven

• 1993 - Dick Clark Look Park

• 1992 - Beyond Karaoke

• 1991 - Woodstock: the Performance Peace

FSF '10

Poster design by James McDonald

Our FOUR SUNDAYS IN FEBRUARY series called by the Daily Hampshire Gazette, "the showpiece of indoor winter entertainment in Northampton," is an example of our vision of artistic excellence. The annual series, started in 1993, begins and ends with two shows that have become enormously popular community arts events--The Silver Chord Bowl, a collegiate a cappella showcase, and The Really Big Show, a local variety show. Through the support of series and performance sponsors, program ads, and tickets sales, we are able to experiment with innovative programming during two remaining Sundays in the series. Every year we kick off the series with the Silver Chord Bowl. This show sells out every year and is especially popular with seniors and with what is euphemistically referred to as "old Hamp", those long-time community members who remember the Bowl from when it was part of the Chamber of Commerce's now defunct Winter Carnival. The event has become so popular we moved it from the 800-seat Academy of Music Theater to the 2,000-seat John M. Greene Hall on the campus of Smith College. The Really Big Show, based on the old Ed Sullivan Show, is our annual salute to local artists, and closes out the Feb Series. This event works to showcase the talent in the Pioneer Valley. Each year, a different individual MC's the show by impersonating Ed Sullivan. Past shows have included artists such as musician Beverly "Guitar" Watkins, choreographer Anthony Rodriguez', visual artist Eric Carle, Tsidii Le Loka, Broadway phenom from South Africa, and dancer/choreographer/actor Richard Move.

Other annual events that coincides with February Series is KIDSBESTFEST, Children’s Film Festival featuring international, classic, long and short films for children, and YOUTHFILM featuring films crafted, written, and produced by local children and teenagers viewed on the big screen at the Academy of Music Theater.