PUTNEY \u2014 Next Stage Arts is preparing to welcome poet and playwright Court Dorsey, along with Grammy winning cellist Euegene Friesen on Saturday, Jan. 31 for \u201cPoems with Wings,\u201d a collaborative evening of poetry and cello.<\/p>\n
The performance in Putney is the second of three planned shows, and will include selections from Dorsey\u2019s poetry collection \u201cTiger Stripes: Poems of Shadows and Light,\u201d along with a newly released poem by Dorsey, and selections by Pablo Neruda, Billie Collins and William Blake. Dorsey\u2019s poetry performance will be accompanied by improvised cello performances by Friesen, following his recent tour with rock and folk powerhouse Paul Simon.<\/p>\n
The Next Stage performance is the second of three, with a final performance taking place on Sunday, Feb. 1 at The Workroom in Northampton, Mass. According to Dorsey and Friesen, the first performance at the Wendell Meetinghouse in Wendell, Mass. on Saturday, Jan. 24 was well received by audiences, and that each performance will be unique.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time we do this feels like opening night, because it is not the kind of thing where we have a bunch of rehearsals or a strict set list. It is very much a creative and spontaneous outburst each time we do it,\u201d said Friesen. \u201cEvery time we do this, it will be a surprise for us, as much as the listeners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dorsey\u2019s poetry selections will be accompanied by Friesen\u2019s cello performances, which Friesen said will be improvised based on the flow and feel of each reading.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Court Dorsey\u2019s] performance energy really is what informs what I do musically for each performance. Ninety-eight percent of this show is improvised,\u201d said Friesen. \u201cIt is just like The Grateful Dead, where you have to go to every show to get the full picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we did our first show in Wendell, people were very moved and a lot of people told me that they liked the poems, but hearing them done live and with music addresses a different part of the mind and the soul,\u201d said Dorsey.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt opens up the heart, and instead of just reading it and having it happen in your mind, hearing it out loud with music adds entirely new dimensions to the experience. It opens up a whole person, so that the connection between the material and the listener is full and whole,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dorsey said that his experience as a performer and actor will turn the experience from a standard reading into a deeper artistic experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve done music and theater my whole life, starting early in my performing career. Actors have movements and words that the musicians work off of, so it becomes an integrated whole of music and language and movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am an actor, and I read with an actor\u2019s body as well as an actor\u2019s voice. The reading and the rhythm of the words are somewhat danced, mostly through gesture but it is still there,\u201d Dorsey said.<\/p>\n
Dorsey will have copies of his poetry for sale at the performance, which begins at 2 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $15 in advance at http:\/\/www.courtdorsey.com\/events<\/a> and $20 at the door.<\/p>\n For more information, contact Court Dorsey at courtcdorsey@gmail.com<\/a> or 413-325-7587.<\/p>\n