The Saratoga arts scene is ready to get back to business this summer. Thanks to a recent collaboration, the season is slated to start with All Together Now: Arts Celebration Weekend. Running from June 2-5, it’ll feature around 40 arts events all around Spa City, as arts organization leaders and elected officials announced on Tuesday.
It’s organized by a coalition of arts and culture not-for-profits including Caffè Lena, Saratoga Arts, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum & Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Yaddo, Opera Saratoga, Pitney Meadows Community Farm, C.R.E.A.T.E. Community Studios, and Home Made Theater. Coordinating with Mayor Ron Kim’s Arts Commission, the venues will offer a broad range of programming for residents and visitors of all ages.
“We all know that we live in an exceptional place but there is still a lot of work to do to raise our reputation nationally, and even internationally, as an incomparable, year-round cultural destination,” said Elizabeth Sobol, president and CEO of SPAC. “All Together Now celebrates this incredible cultural richness. What is amazing about it is nothing was specially produced for it. It is literally a snapshot of all the amazing things that were already happening in the city and the county on a particular weekend in June. Our aim was to capture this moment to shine a light upon it.”
The event comes on the heels of two years of curtailed or canceled events because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Caffè Lena was able to remain active throughout the pandemic, but we were limited in what we could offer because artists were not touring,” said Sarah Craig, executive director of Caffè Lena. “This celebration weekend shows us back to normal with exciting bands coming in from Los Angeles, Montreal, New York and New England. We want to show visitors the full breadth of what they can experience here at Lena’s year-round.”
“We were all figuring out how to survive as presenters in a fast-changing environment,” said Ian Berry, the Dayton director of the Tang Museum. “Now, we’re celebrating how we’ve thrived with this unprecedented way of working together.”
The Tang will feature a variety of free art exhibitions throughout the weekend-long event, including “Robert Tracy on Dance,” with photographs from Tracy’s seminal book “Balanchine’s Ballerinas: Conversations with the Muses” that explored the experiences of well-known ballet stars of the era.
At SPAC, Live Nation will present Zac Brown Band on Thursday, June 2, followed by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on Friday, June 3.
SPAC will also host the Adirondack Trust Company Festival of Young Artists on Sunday, June 5, with presidential inaugural poet Richard Blanco serving as a master of ceremonies and a headlining act, leading hundreds of young Capital Region artists in a display of creativity that combines music, song, poetry, visual art and dance.
Visitors can also take a tour of SPAC’s newest building, The Pines at SPAC, and view an exhibit of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s photographs of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
At Yaddo, the gardens will be open to the community for the first time in two years for a poetry and dance event on Saturday, June 4 and Sunday, June 5. Registration is required for the event and the gardens will officially open for the season on Monday, June 6.
There will be an All Together Now kick-off celebration at Saratoga Arts from 5-6:30 p.m. Friday, June 3. Following that, the organization will host the first-ever Saratoga Arts Community Talent Show on Saturday afternoon at the Saratoga City Music Hall. For the full schedule of events visit saratoga.org/arts.
“After two very long years filled with hardship and heartache, the re-opening of Saratoga’s beloved cultural destinations and the opportunity to rejoin and reconnect with one another is fantastic news,” said Senator Daphne Jordan (R, C, I-Halfmoon). “Saratoga Springs remains the premier destination for the arts and entertainment, culture and community, and we’ll all be together, again, to celebrate this wonderful event.”
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