Admission to the game is free, with concessions, raffles and players soliciting funds through “bases for bucks” to raise money. Train rides from Westbrook Lane depart every hour from 1 to 4 p.m., and anyone wearing a baseball hat will get $1 off their train fare. And Mayor Sottile is going to be the umpire! “We needed somebody with a big voice, somebody that we could yell at, and he was up for it,” says Joe Baganz of the Washington Guards (also proprietor of the famous deli on South Manor Drive).

Vintage baseball hearkens back to the game’s origination when pitches were strictly underhand, and players didn’t wear protective gloves to catch a “lemon peel” stitched ball whacked by a large milled-hickory bat. Baganz explains the differences in the game: “The ball has a little bounce and a lotta hurt. Instead of a pitching mound there’s a box, fair/foul balls are called differently and pop flies you can catch on one bounce.” There are no strikes or balls, but according to Baganz, “You pretty much hit it – it’s hard to miss.”

He describes how baseball started on the East Coast and became popular during the Civil War. There are stories about games breaking out between Rebel and Union soldiers during lulls in battle, and Baganz mentions a game lasting three days before a left fielder was ambushed and the serious fighting resumed. He says that Kingston had organized teams as early as the 1870s. “I took the name [of our team] from an actual troop headed by General Sharpe, who built the monument at the Old Dutch Church to honor his boys. In fact, his house was where the Governor Clinton Hotel stands, and [Herzog’s] baseball field was actually a part of his property.”

Angels in the Outfield have been raising funds for Relay for Life for 15 years, reaching goals of thousands of dollars per year. Joe Beez Deli is active in the community donating time, money and food to various events, and will celebrate its tenth anniversary in March of 2011. “We want to close down the street, get some music going, hold some sandwich competitions,” says Baganz.

With a broad clientele of blue- and white-collar workers, students and families, the Deli has become a favorite – if not downright funky – eatery in Kingston. And the Washington Guards team reflects that same spirit. Coached by Steve Maden and managed by Charlie Moore, the team includes Paul Gallo, Steve McCardle, Rich VanKleeck, Kris VanKleeck, Tom Keegan, Jay Scanlon, Greg Gattine, Joe Biechert, Greg Maden, Nick Warren, Quinn Baganz, Cliff Tremper, Dan Schermerhorn, John Stote and Joe Baganz.

Games start at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. See Kingston Washington Guards Vintage Baseball Club on FaceBook and check out Joe’s website at www.joebeez.com. Call (845) 334-9501 for details about the event. Catskill Mountain Railroad fare is $6 for adults, $4 for children; call (845) 688-7400 or visit www.catskillmtrailroad.com for more information.

The Victory Garden Project launched an organic garden at Kingston City Hall on Earth Day, 2009, installed by students as a part of their science curriculum; and as former chair of the Garden Committee, Martin has generated multiple ways for people to be involved in gardening and seed cultivation. Kids at the Boys and Girls Club have grown food and given it away to needy folks. In one year, 13 Kingston schools created gardens. Now led by Arthur Zaczkiewicz, the Project continues to connect students, volunteers, master gardeners and educators in sharing knowledge, traditions and produce as they experience working together.

Meanwhile, Martin has also grown a baby, recorded a new album, When I Was Long Ago (to be released by Sunnyside Records at the end of this month) and just returned from teaching at the Stanford Jazz Workshop, where she headed the songwriting program for the 2010 summer season. A professional musician, Martin has seven critically acclaimed albums to her credit and has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Village Vanguard, amongst many other venues.

When I Was Long Ago highlights the singer’s adept ability to take on old jazz standards in an intimate and refreshing way. The album features tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry and bassist Larry Grenadier backing Martin’s vocals. Jazz critic and blogger Will Layman says that she “owns the material more like she wrote the songs than as if she just loved her old records.”

Now this singer/songwriter has made Kingston her own. She says that the process has been an organic one, walking the streets with her infant son, getting to know the neighbors and aldermen. “Once you get the bug, you just keep going,” she says. “I’m always searching for ways to bring people together – educational ways. Meetings are not fun for everyone, but I’m good at finding ways to get work done.”

KingstonCitizens.org is one way that people can be in involved in helping to shape the city. A buying club and community gardens came out of it. And the Kingston Land Trust, as a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, is committed to the protection and preservation of open space, historic sites, wetlands, scenic areas and forests in the City of Kingston and the surrounding region, to include the Town of Ulster and the Town of Kingston.

Martin maintains that community gardens are the heart and soul of any urban environment, and creating a Victory Garden at City Hall sends a strong and clear signal to the people of Kingston that gardens need once again to become an important part of their daily lives. “As executive director, I want to help residents rediscover Kingston’s uniqueness as an urban community set in a rural region.”

See www.rebeccamartin.com for details about Martin’s music; and visit www.kingstonlandtrust.org to learn more about getting involved.

Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl/Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger

In the six years that Jenny Brown and Doug Abel have been rescuing farm animals and caring for them on their 23-acre sanctuary in Willow, they have attracted the attention of a growing crop of supporters who have the capacity to reach an even-greater audience with the couple’s message: that our use of animals as a food source has become abuse. When Jason Fine, executive editor of Rolling Stone Magazine, and his wife singer/song writer Tracy Bonham discovered the Sanctuary earlier this year, they were impressed with Brown and Abel’s compassionate commitment to animal rights and with the effort being mounted at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary to ease the lives of a few animals. Their commitment to educate the public about how these gentle creatures are treated by existing agribusinesses is also paramount to the Sanctuary’s efforts, and both sides of the endeavor are achieved at a cost.

To help defray those monetary costs, Fine has coordinated with Brown and Abel to produce a first-annual concert series, to bring musicians to the Catskills for the purpose of entertaining us and raising money for the Sanctuary. It came about serendipitously, as things often do. Fine and Bonham happened to visit the Sanctuary one afternoon after having read an article about Brown in The New York Times. He says, “She’s doing something really ambitious and important for the world. As part-time residents up here, we wanted to get involved with people doing interesting work. It’s incredibly inspiring to see what they do here.”

Fine describes sitting on the back deck and talking about Brown’s plans to produce a large fundraising concert next summer. “We got excited about doing something this summer to lead up to that. The deck looks out over the mountains and the farm; you can see the chickens from there, and the pigs. And we said, ‘This back deck is like the perfect stage! Why don’t we just do it?’ I just started bringing it up with people I was talking to anyway. For a lot of musicians who are touring, coming to Woodstock is a thrill. I’m finding that everyone is open and willing to do it.”

Everyone may not be ready to consider going vegan, but understanding the devastating effects of producing and processing animals for the food industry might inspire an attitude of moderation and respect for them as sentient beings who share our world. Fine reiterates that everyone to whom he has reached out wants to learn more about the important work done by Brown and Abel, whether they are curious about eating less meat for health reasons or because of the damage to our environment wrought by meat production. He says, “Spending an hour at WFAS will change the way you think about eating meat forever.”

Brown’s mission is clear when she explains, “We strive to be a voice for farm animals everywhere. No laws protect them. That’s an injustice. This is the social justice movement of our time. Farm animals are the most exploited and abused animals in the world. People would have to change their habits if they thought about it. We try to raise awareness with the over 200 rescued animals here – helping people to learn about the animal food industries and the grotesque cruelties involved in raising them. We [humans] have a schizophrenic behavior with animals: Some are in our bed, and on the other hand we torture farm animals.”

She mentions the statistic thrown around since Frances Moore Lappé published Diet for a Small Planet in the 1970s – that it takes 30 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef, an amount of vegetation that could instead feed hungry people directly – and I wonder how many such inefficiently produced meals I’m guilty of consuming these past 40 years. I don’t even want to think of how many animals have been slaughtered in that time.

But instilling guilt is not the mission at hand. Creating a bucolic, fun and informative forum in which to examine one’s food habits – to take a serious look at what is in one’s refrigerator and on one’s plate – is the purpose of the concert series, which has already brought big names into the mountains to play recently. And now Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl’s the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger is slated to appear on the stage at Woodstock Animal Sanctuary on Saturday, August 21 at 6 p.m. Their new album Acoustic Sessions is due out in October on their own label, Chimera Music. Opening for GoaSTT, there will be an acoustic set from Undersea Poem, followed by Woodstock locals Jonathan Donahue of Mercury Rev and Amy Helm of the Levon Helm Band and Ollabelle, performing as a duo that they call Love Is for the Birds.

Local independent station Radio Woodstock 100.1 WDST is supporting this show. The concert will be held on an open lawn at the Sanctuary, rain or shine. Bring blankets and lawn chairs. The gate is open at 5 p.m. Tickets are $30 in advance, $40 at the door. All proceeds will go directly to the care of over 200 formerly abused, abandoned and discarded farm animals. Find the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary at 35 Van Wagner Road in Willow (in the Town of Woodstock), and check out its website at www.woodstocksanctuary.org. Call (845) 679-5955 for more information.

Pokoik and Vandenbroucke dare us to explore the meaning of art and art-making. Their exhibitions are primarily artist-curated: a distinction that they say makes for a slightly different perspective. Artists offer the inside-of-process perspective, the differing relationships of living connections. Residencies are given to up to ten artists at a time throughout the year, for lengths of time from three nights to three weeks, during which time they have full access to the studio space.

The churchlike studio was designed to be a large rehearsal space and a small performance space. Vandenbroucke says, “The space is given over to one group at a time, with 24-hour access. For New York artists, this is so rare; nobody disturbs them. We support whatever they need to do in their process.”

Pokoik emphasizes that this is an artist-run center. Almost everything presented at the Festival is, in part, worked on here, which he says forms a cohesive whole – the importance of solitude for the process of making art and the public aspect of presenting it. The couple describes how the work in which they’re each involved in the City becomes a direct through-line to this community. Pokoik says that the artists who spend time at MTA represent the newest “downtown” work being made, even though Downtown has moved to Brooklyn or Berlin. “We’re trying to bring the best and strongest work up here, the most exciting voices.”

The third annual Summer Arts Festival opens with a free extravaganza event this Saturday, July 10 on the communal grounds of MTA, with a truly extravagant lineup of artists and performers. From 3 to 7 p.m., enjoy a multiplicity of works that includes NOX by Merce Cunningham Dance Company members Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener; ETHEL, a string quartet performing work by Terry Riley, John King, Phil Kline and Julia Wolfe; Event, performed by MCDC members; and at 6 p.m., a pig-roast. For $15, visitors can enjoy the succulence of the summer with portions of pork and/or terrific vegetarian dishes straight out of the garden.

This event is billed as kid-friendly; other exhibitions should be screened by parents. And did I say how important it is for them to elicit audience interaction? They want viewers to abandon fear of new work, and they even invite reviews from audience members (check their website for this opportunity).

MTA’s impressive lineup of exhibitions, including contemporary dance, theatre, music and visual art, runs on Saturdays through August 15, with the opening reception for Seven Summits to be held on Friday, July 16 from 6 to 9 p.m. A group photography exhibition curated by Matthew Porter, the show features 14 pieces by seven artists: Michele Abeles, Shannon Ebner, Roe Ethridge, Miranda Lichtenstein, Arthur Ou, Michael Vahrenwald and Hannah Whitaker, each artist being represented by two works that reframe the tradition of expedition photography within their independent creative visions.

On Saturday, July 17 at 8 p.m., groundbreaking dance and music artist Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People present Untitled Project with Jenny Holzer but I’m not allowed to give it a name yet and HEAVENS WHAT HAVE I DONE. On Saturday, July 24 at 8 p.m., it’s the world premiere of Census by Will Rawls, named as one of the best dancers of 2008 by The New York Times. Rawls explores the idiosyncratic origins of movement, sound and language to see how these expressions formulate larger patterns of perception, meaning and storytelling.

Karinne Keithley performs a cycle of spoken tales with songs, dances and video productions in Montgomery Park, or Opulence on Saturday, July 31 at 8 p.m. A tribute to three fallen greats of dance is presented by Foofwa d’Imobilite in his Pina Jackson in Mercemoriam, to be performed on Saturday, August 7 at 8 p.m. and again on Sunday, August 8 at 3 p.m. This US premiere honors Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham in a choreographic comedy. Lastly, Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly’s Moving Theater performs Trio Triage on Saturday, August 14 at 8 p.m. Their collaborative work straddles contemporary dance, experimental theater and visual art performance.

Not the least of Pokoik and Vandenbroucke’s offerings, their “Friday Night Food for the Arts Barbecues” will give visitors the opportunity to meet and greet the artists in residence at MTA over a community meal made fresh from an organic garden on the grounds. Weather permitting, these 7-to-9-p.m. gatherings will include a sunset watch and campfire. On Friday, July 23 meet Karinne Keithley of 53rd State Press, Ursula Eagly and Sara Smith, who will share their writings on the new wave of sincerity in dance. On July 30 the Katie Workum Dance Theater will stage excerpts from its work-in-progress, Herkimer Diamonds.

The first Friday in August will feature a choreographic duel between Cory Nakasue and Aynsley Vandenbroucke, plus a musical performance by new-media artist, writer and theorist Alan Sondheim. And on Friday, August 13 Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly discuss their work in relation to critical questions of contemporary performance practice.

Exhibits are open to the public by appointment and on Sundays after all events from noon to 6 p.m. Tickets for most events are $15, and are available in advance at www.smarttix.com, toll-free at (877) 238-5596 or at the door. A season pass offering admission to all performances and all Friday Food for the Arts Barbecues is available for $90. Mount Tremper Arts is located at 647 South Plank Road in Mount Tremper. For extensive details about the Summer Festival and other information, visit www.mounttremperarts.org or call (845) 688-9893.

(Not the author!)

I don’t run or jump. There are some activities that a post-menopausal body of rather bulky stature should simply avoid, I say. A nice walk satisfies me, and my favorite sport is reading. This fascinating bit of personal information is offered as preface to a report about one writer’s bulky body flying through the air with the greatest of ease at the Trapeze Club outside New Paltz last Saturday. It was, as the Club promises in its advertisement, thrilling.

For ten years, a small group of professional and amateur trapeze artists has been setting up shop in the middle of an idyllic meadow at the base of the Shawangunks, where they train enthusiasts of all levels of competency to climb atop a precariously perched board (that’s all it is) and jump off. The rig is quite strong and impressive – actually not at all precarious – and numerous safety measures are constantly and consistently implemented. Flyers are kept safe by a double-belay safety line system, which is managed by an experienced spotter on the ground.

The instructors are adept at coaching flyers literally every step of the way in how to stand, grab the bar, bend their shaking knees and swing out to be suspended over a giant net. Falling into the net after an exercise is likewise a coached process. This precision in working with people allows flyers of all ages to enjoy the challenge and push their own limits. Class sizes are kept to a maximum of ten people, so that everyone gets the full attention of a whole team of instructors, beginning with a bevy of vital directions for first-timers and a trial knee-hang on a low bar.

Three of us were trapeze virgins that day. James Gibson, a/k/a J-Bird, cinched our belts and reviewed how to stand and lean in preparation for the leap: a feat “intimidating, but overcome-able.” He suggested that we try swinging up to hook our knees on the bar and let go with our hands. One of us managed that trick. The other two of us did well to climb the narrow ladder to the launching platform.

Hoisting oneself onto that foot-wide board to stand up and get hitched to a safety belt can be tricky for anyone with an ounce of vertigo in them. I happen to pack around a few pounds of vertigo, so when it was my turn, I didn’t look down. At the top, Megan Loggia and Cindy Sweeney spoke in calm and encouraging voices as they shifted me around and had me poise for takeoff. The view was spectacular; but the time was nigh to “just do it,” scared as I was. I expected that my hands and arms and shoulders would simply give up, and I’d drop to the net. Instead, the strength to hold on for dear life surprised me. And swooshing back and forth in the sparkling sunshine was truly enjoyable. I might have even come away with a few ounces of confidence.

Owner and program coordinator Carisa Borrello has gathered a fun-loving staff with years of flying experience under their safety belts. They offer two-hour-long classes designed to meet the needs of individual participants, from first-time flyers to well-practiced enthusiasts. Each individual is fully supported in the journey toward reaching his or her greatest potential. Experienced flyers can stretch the limits of their abilities, while beginners can discover levels of courage and physical prowess of which they didn’t know they were capable!

Trapeze classes are $45 for one class, $390 for ten classes. Special kids’ and teens’ spring and summer sessions are now available, as are private classes for groups like birthday parties, corporate team-building sessions, schools and camps. The Trapeze Club is located at the Center for Symbolic Studies at Stone Mountain Farm at 475 River Road Extension in Tillson, near New Paltz. It’s a glorious place to fly. Call (845) 255-4375 or see http://trapezeclub.org/index.html for inspiring photos and further information.

"These pictures were shot while I was lying on my belly hiding from sniper fire. I was with a marine platoon just south of Da Nang. We were looking for a company of Viet Cong believed to be in the area. After the shooting stopped, the Marines rounded up all the villagers and questioned them. They got a few answers. No one would tell where the men of the village were - a typical reaction. The picture of the woman holding the child has become my favorite." -- Eddie Adams in The Bergen Record, November 13, 1965. April 25, 1965.

As a world-class history museum dedicated to scholarship and interpretation of the 1960s, the Museum at Bethel Woods explores Vietnam as being one of the most significant events of the era by hosting The Wall That Heals from Thursday, May 13 through Sunday, May 16 and by exhibiting 50 black-and-white images from Vietnam, as seen through the lens of legendary photojournalist Eddie Adams. This special photographic exhibition runs from Thursday, May 13 through Sunday, July 11.

Eddie Adams amassed 500 photojournalism awards, including the 1968 Pulitzer Prize, during his 45-year career in which he covered 13 wars for the Associated Press, Time and Parade. Also among the photos in the collection are Adams’ highly influential images of the Vietnamese boat people, which were presented to Congress and subsequently influenced the government’s decision to admit 200,000 South Vietnamese refugees to the United States.

Museum director Wade Lawrence says, “There are some great photographers out in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan now, but I think after Vietnam, war journalism changed. Nobody was ‘embedded’ then – a euphemism meaning you’ll be at the base camp and you can report on what we say you can. In Vietnam, photographers had unlimited access. They were uncensored, and they went out on their own right next to soldiers. Today the military controls are tight.”

Citing Adams as “the real thing: a cigar-chomping ex-Marine who laid his life on the line for the story and the picture,” Lawrence notes the artistic beauty of these poignant images of somber subject matter. “His Vietnam photos are personal, human, compelling and real. He didn’t stand on a political soapbox, but his images influenced the public’s opinion on more than one occasion.”

Adams’ widow Alyssa Adams has written, “In 1976, eight years after returning from his last stint for the Associated Press in Vietnam, Eddie made Sullivan County his second home. While known for his Vietnam images, he took many indelible images for publications worldwide. As part of his legacy, we created an annual photojournalism workshop held every Columbus Day weekend in his barn in Jeffersonville. Now in its 23rd year, Sullivan County graciously becomes the photographic subject of 100 photographers for the weekend. So it is very fitting that the show ‘Eddie Adams: Vietnam’ be presented here in Sullivan County at the Museum at Bethel Woods.”

Admission to the Adams exhibit is included in the regular Museum admission: adults, $13; seniors, $11; youth aged 8 to 17, $9; children aged 3 to 7, $4; children aged 2 years and under, free with an adult. US military veterans with sign-in and US military active duty, retired and reserve troops with ID and sign-in will receive complimentary admission for the duration of the exhibit.

The Wall That Heals is a half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, DC, designed to travel to communities throughout the US for four-day-long exhibits. The Wall is made of aluminum panels embossed with more than 58,000 soldiers’ names on which visitors can do rubbings. Jan Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Fund, says, “In 1969, while many Americans were enjoying the music at Woodstock, I was serving in Vietnam. Those were the two big influences on our generation, reflecting the choices we made as young people coming of age in America. The Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial was created to bring the disparate sections of our population together, so it is fitting that The Wall That Heals is coming to the site of the Woodstock Festival.”

Lawrence recalls that in the late ’60s, America did not embrace the returning vets. They were vilified and spat upon – the recipients of very vicious attacks, even by people in the Peace Movement; they turned their backs on the soldiers. “Now we recognize that you can hate the war and not hate the soldier,” he says. Pointing out that there were audience members at the Woodstock Festival who were on their way to Vietnam and some who were just returning, he remarks on the poignancy of bringing together both sides – the antiwar activists and the soldiers, the longhairs and the shaved heads, the Counterculture and the Establishment – in recognition of the great tragedy of war in which all were entangled. “We embrace the sacrifice they made. Even after 40-plus years, there are some vets out there that haven’t come to grips with their war experience. This will help them.”

An information center and traveling museum provides a comprehensive educational component to the exhibit. Organized by the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Fund, the exhibit is being made possible by local sponsors A & J Hometown Oil and the Vallone Family of Companies. National sponsors of the tour include Disabled American Veterans’ Charitable Trust, Federal Express, Geico, New Century Transportation, Harley-Davidson Foundation and Target Corporation. Bethel Woods is working closely with the Sullivan and Orange County Veterans’ Service agencies, New York State Police, Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department, Rolling Thunder, US Military Veterans’ Motorcycle Club, Ironworkers’ Motorcycle Club 580, Chapter 66 of the Special Forces Association, Mobile Medic, Sam’s Towing and veterans from Bethel Woods’ volunteer staff, who will donate their time to be part of this educational and emotional historic tribute to all American servicepeople who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our nation. Additionally, representatives from the Vet Center in Middletown will be on-site to provide information on their readjustment counseling and outreach services offered to all veterans who served in any combat zone.

There is no admission charge to visit The Wall, which will be on display on Bethel Woods’ Great Lawn directly behind the Museum, 24 hours per day from noon on Thursday, May 13 through 6 a.m. on Monday, May 17. For more information about any of the Museum’s events, including a Speaker Series, a Film Series and a special Family Day celebrating Vietnamese culture, visit www.BethelWoodsCenter.org.

Each year Ensler dedicates V-Day to a certain group of women in strife. Ninety percent of the proceeds that V-Day Woodstock raises this year will go to Family Domestic Violence Services, a branch of Family of Woodstock. The remaining ten percent will go to Ensler’s V-Day Organization, which she has focused on the women and girls of the Democratic Republic of Congo this year.

Written in 1996 and originally performed onstage by Ensler alone, The Vagina Monologues is shocking, funny, poignant, terrifying, sad and brash, to suggest but a few possible audience reactions. It focuses on that heretofore-unmentionable female body part and all the ways that women feel about themselves, depending on the ways in which they’ve been raised, used and abused.

The text has been added to and revised in worldwide performances over these 14 years, and Ensler’s addition of a piece that reflects the atrocious experiences of Congolese women and girls, caught in a war said to be the deadliest conflict since World War II, will be included in this performance. She reports that advocates on the ground approximate that 500,000 women and girls have been raped and sexually tortured in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and that a systematic destruction of the female population is taking place there. “A Teenage Girl’s Guide to Surviving Sex Slavery” is her new monologue addressing this horrific situation.

All is not atrocities and horror, however. Ensler has said, “Women’s empowerment is deeply connected to their sexuality.” Additional monologues are “Introduction to Hair,” “The Flood” and many others, performed by 17 voices including: Lynda Herbeck, Holly Graff, Julie Kirkpatrick, Marcy D. Thorn, Marcia Albert, Julia Boylan, Terri Mateer, Ellie Arons, Emily Cahill, Maria Toldero, Melita Greenleaf, Dorothy Penz, Jacqueline Denise and Jenny Lang, plus three members of Actors’ Equity Association: Donna Jean Fogel, Barbara Sicuranza and Bekka Lindstrom.

Co-directed and co-produced by Mateer and Carol Fox Prescott, the show’s purpose is to bring local awareness to violence against women and to help end it. Mateer says, “I watched men laugh hysterically during the show last year…it was as if they were getting a glimpse through a peephole at us in a locker room….they really took in the things we were saying that were a bit more on the painful and insightful side. Three personal male friends were so affected by what they learned about women that they are totally different people today. One of them got married. One of them stopped referring to us as ‘girls,’ and the other, I feel from observation, is kinder to his daughter. I myself learned that verbal abuse is violence.” She reiterates that change comes through knowledge, and says that Ensler has created the bravest, funniest and wisest writing imaginable to effect change.

Family of Woodstock develops programs supporting people in need. Its Domestic Violence Services program provides advocacy, education, counseling and shelter to primary victims of violence and their family members, including preventative resources. For more information visit www.familyofwoodstockinc.org or call (845) 331-7080. Admission to The Vagina Monologues is $20 advance (at Golden Notebook in Woodstock) and $25 at the door; plus, $21 e-tickets can be purchased at www.vdaywoodstock.com.

This year the Folk Arts Program, headed by folklorist Polly Adema, features a Korean Children’s Day on Saturday, April 3 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the East Fishkill Community Library in Hopewell Junction. During this interactive program, kids will learn about Korean children’s culture with activities such as playing traditional Korean games like kongki noli (a Korean version of jacks, traditionally played by girls) and yut nori (a traditional board game that uses beautiful wooden sticks in place of dice); making paper crafts; learning about important social customs like bowing to elders; and tasting traditional Korean snacks like mandu (savory dumplings) and bori cha (roasted barley tea). Young adults from the local Korean community will lead area children in lots of fun things to do!

The Children’s Day program is part of an ongoing DCAC series exploring how people from countries whose populations are represented in the mid-Hudson Valley celebrate and honor their children. Previous programs have focused on the customs of kids in Japan, Russia and India. The event is free and open to the general public.

The Folk Arts Program works with mid-Hudson Valley-based folk artists and traditional bearers of culture to preserve and present the rich heritage and diversity of area residents. We’re talking about traditions that may be simple, yet so ingrained that practitioners – you, your neighbors and friends and your family – might not consider them to be particularly special, but that are valued as a basic part of daily life amongst community members, affirming and passing on your shared identity. Traditions are considered “folkways” when they have to do with the community’s art, lore and life practices and when they are passed down from one generation to the next within the communal group. Examples cited on the DCAC webpage include material elements, like quilts made by a quilting bee or traditional Chinese knots; intangible elements, like the knowledge of where to source edible wild mushrooms or superstitions about predicting the weather; and practices that might be culturally or regionally specific, like music and dance styles.

Folk traditions are forms of creative expression of the people who practice them – a distinction wholly different from traditions dictated by religious institutions and governments in that they are much more flexible and dynamic, recognizing that change happens in communities. The inherent fact of change brought on by emigration or social modernization is a part of folk tradition. Folkways are absorbed by transitions, but maintain elements of the past that were of importance to the community. So, for example, a family might celebrate Christmas with a special recipe handed down from revered ancestors, but produce it using modern kitchen techniques and ingredients. The fact that a tradition continues indicates that it is meaningful to the people who practice it, even in its altered form.

Adema and other staff members of the Folk Arts Program work to identify the various arts and traditions practiced among different communities living in the mid-Hudson Valley by doing ethnographic fieldwork. They explore how communities celebrate themselves and document their findings by taking pictures, conducting interviews and attending formal and informal community events. Based on this research, they collaborate with pertinent community organizations to present free public programs, ranging from festivals to library interactive events to lectures and demonstrations.

With a Master’s degree in Folklore from Indiana University at Bloomington and a Doctorate in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, Adema recognizes the challenges of balancing cultural traditions with the homogenizing effects of an ever-shrinking global community. And the technological influences of modern living – commercial television, mainstream media, the Internet – can intrude on traditional ways or they can benefit them.

Adema cites the importance of supporting communities who wish to maintain and share their culture in any way, using any medium that she can. “It’s not my job to keep something alive; it’s more to recognize things that are done within the community. I go to find out what people are doing and ask, ‘Do you want to share it?’ It’s the sharing of folkways that reduces prejudice and stereotyping. By engaging in personal interaction, you break down the barriers of negativity.”

On Friday, April 16 the Folk Arts Program will present a Taiko drumming concert with master Taiko drummer Koji Nakamura, with a koto performance by the classically trained Yukiko Matsuyama. Nakamura is a world-renowned performer and teacher who holds Taiko drumming to be a spiritual pursuit – one that creates harmony amongst people. The program will be held at Locust Grove on Route 9 in Poughkeepsie at 7 p.m. (seating is limited to 120, first-come first-seated). And on Saturday, April 17 a “Japanese Tea Ceremony Experience” will be held in the main parlor at the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center on Vassar Street. In two hourlong demonstrations of Chado, at 1 and 2:15 p.m., the nuanced movements and discipline required by Japanese tea masters and guests can be enjoyed by youth and adults.

The DCAC Folk Arts Program receives substantial funding through the New York State Council on the Arts, and is the grateful recipient of various community- and private-based support. For further information call (845) 454-3222, e-mail info@artsmidhudson.org or visit www.artsmidhudson.org/html/folkarts.html.