Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.
concerts

Down County Jump returns for year two

Down County Jump returns for year two

Rosy and the Bros at the Down County Jump, Sept. 30, 2023.

Kip Beacco

The second Down County Jump Music Festival will take place at Race Brook Lodge in Sheffield on June 28 and 29 and promises to be two days of jubilant, spirit-lifting, feet-tapping fun.

Musical worlds will collide, cultures will meet and merge, and roots that are tangled and intertwined will be unearthed in the most beautiful patchwork of sound. Imagine New Orleans Funk dancing cheek-to-cheek with Old Time Crooning, or early jazz forms sharing a secret with traditional Hawaiian music. It’s like finding a letter in a bottle that’s traveled the world before it reached your hands.

“The Jump is a patchwork quilt of musical styles that all have one thing in common; they are forms of culture-based music that are rooted in some kind of blending/evolutionary process,” said artistic programmer, Alex Harvey. “Sure, we call this all roots music, but the roots are all intermingled, often in ways that are shocking and revelatory.”

Racebrook will be partnering with Brooklyn’s historic Jalopy Theatre for this event, a venue known for its authentic approach to music programming. “Jalopy is a performance venue, record label and school that prizes the handmade, the analog, the authentic face to face experience of participatory musical traditions transmitted across generations,” said Harvey.

This year’s highlight includes a Sacred Harp Singing event led by Tim Eriksen, famed for his contributions to the “Cold Mountain” soundtrack. This antique form of open-throated singing, known as shape note singing, will be an open community sound installation under the pavilion on the river from 2 to 4 p.m. on June 29. Guests are invited to witness or participate in this unique musical experience.

The name “Down County Jump” has its own serendipitous story. Dave Rothstein, the original visionary of Racebrook Lodge, coined “Down County” to capture the essence of the area’s vibrant music scene. Matt Downing, Kip Beacco, and Alex Harvey, brought together by a shared love of dance music and a whimsical nod to Mark Twain’s celebrated jumping frog, knew “Jump” was the perfect fit. It’s a name that invites movement, joy, and a bit of whimsy.

So, pack your curiosity and your dancing shoes. Let yourself be swept away by Gypsy Waltz, Swamp-Pop, Son Jarocho, Olde Time Rags, Hawaiian Hapa Haole, post-war New Orleans R&B, and more. The Down County Jump Music Festival is where you’ll find some of the most danceable shuffles, where every beat tells a story, and every step is a leap into the unknown.

For a complete schedule and to purchase tickets, visit: https://www.viewcy.com/e/down_county_jump_2024

Natalia Zukerman
Arts, Lifestyle and Enagement Editor
Natalia Zukerman is arts, lifestyle and engagement editor for The Lakeville Journal and The Millerton News. She writes about the region's vibrant cultural life, produces the weekly What To Do newsletter and contributes a weekly cartoon to the newspapers. Beyond journalism, Natalia is an accomplished musician, painter, educator and cultural diplomat. Her boundless passion for the arts enriches communities worldwide. She lives in Millerton with her dog, Georgie.
concerts

Latest News

Doug Tallamy’s work in progress: saving the planet one backyard at a time

Doug Tallamy’s work in progress: saving the planet one backyard at a time

Windacre, a 25-acre property in Millerton will be the site of “Work in Progress,” an afternoon with acclaimed entomologist, New York Times bestselling author and Homegrown National Park co-founder Doug Tallamy.

Provided

For nearly three decades, Doug Tallamy, a professor at the University of Delaware and co-founder of Homegrown National Park, has studied the intricate relationships between native plants, insects, birds and the ecosystems that sustain them. His books, including “Bringing Nature Home” and “Nature’s Best Hope,” have helped shift the conversation about conservation from something that happens primarily in parks and preserves to something ordinary people can practice on the land around them.

On Sunday, Oct. 4, Tallamy will bring that conversation to Windacre in Millerton for “Work in Progress: Toward Native Fields,” an outdoor gathering exploring both the possibilities and the complications of restoring private land for biodiversity.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

Celebrating Dick Hermans’ life built around community

Celebrating Dick Hermans’ life built around community

Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton\u2019s Main Street in 1985.

Provided
No matter what I’ve done, I’m trying to be useful to the communities I’m associated with.
— Dick Hermans

When Dick Hermans receives the Estabrook Community Leadership Award on Oct. 11, he will accept it for a lifetime of work that has taken many forms: bookseller, radio host, school board member, advocate for the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, business owner, volunteer and, perhaps most importantly, a person who has consistently looked for ways to be useful to the communities around him.

The Lakeville Journal and The Millerton News will present Hermans with the 2026 award at the annual Jubilee celebration at the Sharon Playhouse. The award honors outstanding leadership in community service and was inspired by Mary Lou and Robert Estabrook, former owners of the newspapers who believed that strengthening a community extended well beyond the work of publishing a newspaper.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Tending the Fire: Homelands PowWow brings Mohican culture home to the Berkshires

Tending the Fire: Homelands PowWow brings Mohican culture home to the Berkshires

Members of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe at Homelands PowWow in 2025.

Joeseph Plante New Media Storytellers
Our goal is to continue building an annual gathering that honors the history, culture and traditions of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans in their original Homelands.


For the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican people, the Berkshires are not simply a place to visit. They are ancestral homelands.

Keep ReadingShow less
community
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Ancram Center’s “A Number” doubles questions of identity

Ancram Center’s “A Number” doubles questions of identity
Ledbetter (left) and Wojda (right) on the set of “A Number” at Ancram Center for the Arts.
Jeff Mousseau

How would you feel if you found out you weren’t the only you — if there was an exact replica of you? What if you found out that you’d been cloned? Would you believe that you’re the real you? Would you suspect you might be a copy of the original? How could you be sure anything about your life was real? These are some of the questions posed in Caryl Churchill’s play “A Number,” opening at the Ancram Center for the Artson Oct. 1.

Churchill was born in London in 1938 and has been hailed by the theaterl world as one of the strongest voices of her time to take on sexual politics and feminist themes. Her works garner pointedly considered analysis from the highest levels of theatrical intellectualism. Basically, it’s about as far from “The Lion King” as you can get. While she’s experimented with dance theater in the past, “A Number” is much more stripped down, highlighting Churchill’s chosen themes and the skills of both actors on stage.

Keep ReadingShow less
performances

Dispatches from the Farm

Dispatches from the Farm

Adamah Farm crew members planning out the day’s tasks on a late September day.

Janna Siller

“Dispatches from the farm” is a new, periodic column offering a firsthand look at the rhythms, challenges and rewards of farming through the eyes of a local farmer.

The thing about plants is that they can’t get up and move. When a storm like last weekend’s nor’easter threatens to roll through, you can’t just round everybody up and settle them safely on the sofa for movie night.

Keep ReadingShow less
dispatches from the farm

Found Footage Festival brings laughs to The Triplex

Found Footage Festival brings laughs to The Triplex

Pickett and Prueher on stage.

Provided by Found Footage Festival

On Sunday, Oct. 4, the Found Footage Festival makes its way to the Triplex Theatre in Great Barrington with a treasure trove of lost and forgotten VHS tapes scraped from the piles of distant memories and discarded physical media.

The Found Footage Festival is a “celebration of the videos that time forgot” hosted by two Brooklyn-based comedy writers and childhood friends, Joe Pickett of The Onion and Nick Prueher of The Late Show.

Keep ReadingShow less
film festival
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.