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2022 Season

2023-12-13T10:23:47-05:00

From Artistic Director, Sabrina Hamilton

KOFEST’S 2021 HYBRID SEASON TO CENTER

JUSTICE, ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY, AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The Ko Festival of Performance’s 30th season will feature two different productions centering the themes of Justice, Environmental Safety and Climate Change, With Amherst College’s COVID-driven cancellation of all outside summer programs, the Ko Festival will be presenting our shows online, and our collaboration with Serious Play Ensemble Theatre will also have an option for live attendance.

PERFORMANCES

FLUSHING (Make Room for Someone Else)

FLUSHING (Make Room for Someone Else)

SANDGLASS THEATER & PARRIS-BAILEY ARTS

July 22 & 23, 2022, Fri. & Sat at 8 p.m. | Sun. July 24 at 4 p.m. in the Mainstage Theater in Emily Dickinson Hall on the Hampshire College campus.
Conceived and Written by Linda Parris-Bailey and Eric Bass, with original songs by Linda Parris-Bailey and Eric Bass. Performed by Linda Parris-Bailey, Eric Bass and Kirk Murphy. Directed by Kathie deNobriga. Puppets by Ines Zeller Bass.
It begins at the Brink, where two theater directors are passing the leadership of their ensembles to the next generation. This moment sparks a reflection on what it means to retire and what it might mean to inherit. For those stepping down, what do we leave and who do we become? And for those stepping up, how do we take what is given and make it our own? A story told with puppets, with songs, and with a . . .
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KoFest Story Slam & Celebration 2022

KoFest Story Slam & Celebration 2022

KoFest STORY SLAM & CELEBRATION

Sun., July 24 at 8 pm. ONE NIGHT ONLY You’ve heard of poetry slams – competitive poetry events. This is one is for first person, true stories – told live and without notes, 5 minutes or less — and on the theme of “STEPPING UP/STEPPING BACK” A benefit to keep Ko going strong, this event typically sells out, so reservations are highly recommended, and if you've got a story to tell . . .
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Actor Bob Martin as Ezell

EZELL: Ballad of a Land Man

CLEAR CREEK CREATIVE

July 29 & 30 at 6:15 pm arrival; July 31 at 10:15 am arrival. Rain Cancellation Date: Sunday at 6:15 pm
Join us outdoors at Hampshire College Farm Center for this environmental, cultural and spiritual parable of domination & resilience that explores the complexities of climate change, indigenous erasure, and environmental extraction (fracking) — and is based on the artists’ lived experience in their rural Appalachian community. This immersive experience features a contemplative walk through the woods to the performance site with live music, the play, a return walk and a post-show dialogue with the artists and a panel of local experts . . .
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EARLIER IN 2022

Piti Theater's Jonathan Mirin in a still from Canary in a Gold Mine

CANARY IN A GOLD MINE

Now available directly from Piti Theatre. Visit ptco.org/canary . PITI THEATRE COMPANY Written and performed by Jonathan Mirin First seen ...
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2022 WORKSHOPS

FIRST PERSON: Crafting Your Story for Performance

FIRST PERSON: Crafting Your Story for Performance

with GERARD STROPNICKY,
Co-Founder, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble
July 18-23, 2022 - SOLD OUT
Why do some stories – some performances – spark your imagination, set fire to your soul, and leave you transformed, while others just sit there? Is it the content, or the telling? The framing, or the style? Can story be employed to bring laughter, or tears, or understanding, or lasting social change, or ...
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2022 Season2023-12-13T10:23:47-05:00

2021 Season

2023-03-24T16:01:45-04:00

From Artistic Director, Sabrina Hamilton

KOFEST’S 2021 HYBRID SEASON TO CENTER

JUSTICE, ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY, AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The Ko Festival of Performance’s 30th season will feature two different productions centering the themes of Justice, Environmental Safety and Climate Change, With Amherst College’s COVID-driven cancellation of all outside summer programs, the Ko Festival will be presenting our shows online, and our collaboration with Serious Play Ensemble Theatre will also have an option for live attendance.

PERFORMANCES

Woman storyteller in jeans and plaid shirt points to herself as she leans in to the attentive audience

FIRST PERSON FRESH – Women’s Solo Performance Festival

presented by PAULINE PRODUCTIONS, in association with KoFest

April 28, 29 & 30, 2023 Program A: Fri. at 7:30 p.m. & Sat, at 3 p.m.  Program B: Sat. at 7:30 p.m. & Sun. 3 p.m.

CITYSPACE - The Blue Room Old Town Hall, 43 Main St. Easthampton, MA

A weekend festival featuring seven women debuting new "first person" solo theatre pieces that run the gamut from comic to serious, and poetic to music-filled, with themes that include mental health, love, loss, family and showbiz. Program A features: Sue Tracy with "An ADHD Girl's Guide to...WHOA!," Alice Barrett with "Stories Gone
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2021 WORKSHOPS

TRANSFORMING YOUR WRITING BY RESTING YOUR MIND

TRANSFORMING YOUR WRITING BY RESTING YOUR MIND

A meditation and writing workshop with JUANITA ROCKWELL
MAY 15-16 & OR JULY 10-11. 
Whether we write for our own pleasure or for others, to be read on the page or to be spoken aloud, we want our writing to reflect our experience of the world. But our habitual thinking and the ways we tell these stories become a kind of spell of doing, of busy-ness; a spell that binds us, separates us from others, and limits our authentic expression. If we release this imprint of Doing, what might happen if we can rest in the stillness, silence and spaciousness of our Being? In this two-day, small group workshop, you will learn practices that will ...
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TRANSFORMING YOUR WRITING BY CLEARING YOUR MIND (level 2)

TRANSFORMING YOUR WRITING BY CLEARING YOUR MIND (level 2)

A meditation and writing workshop with JUANITA ROCKWELL
JULY 17-18
A spacious and lively restfulness can be more elusive than we might think. In this workshop we will explore practices that work with breath and body to refresh and clear obstacles of aversion, attachment and confusion. These energetic practices can facilitate a more open and aware resting of your mind in stillness, silence and spaciousness. They can also stimulate memory, imagery and imagination that can enrich our writing and our lives. The first day of this small group workshop focuses on ...
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2021 Season2023-03-24T16:01:45-04:00

2020 Season

2023-03-24T16:04:25-04:00

From Artistic Director, Sabrina Hamilton

It was a devastating process, but early in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that the responsible thing to do was to postpone the exciting “Eco-Justice” season we had curated, along with “ENSEMBLE: Seeding the Future,” a conference/mini-festival we were co-hosting with a group of Valley theater ensembles and the Network of Ensemble Theaters.

Instead we gathered digitally to continue our practice of presenting performance with  post-show discussion and offering artist training workshop. We  were also doing the work to necessary sustain Ko Theater Works and the Ko Festival of Performance, looking rigorously inward and outward to address issues of racial injustice, access and equity, and working hard our nurture and support our community of artists, both local and national

PERFORMANCES

Photograph of Deletta Gillespie, a middle-aged Black woman looking at the camera with a slight smile. She has shoulder-length dreads, and is wearing a necklace of grey and amber beads with above a bronze spiral. She is wearing a raspberry-colored shirt with gold bead edging around the scoop neck.

THE MAGIC CITY MASSACRE • Streaming online June 19, 2020 at 7:30 EST

selections of the play by DELETTA GILLESPIE Post-show discussion will follow and include DARYL DAVIS, noted for his work convincing ...
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2020 WORKSHOPS

WRITING FROM STILLNESS, SPEAKING FROM SILENCE: Contemplative Practice for Writers

WRITING FROM STILLNESS, SPEAKING FROM SILENCE: Contemplative Practice for Writers

with JUANITA ROCKWELL
FOR 2021, 2 NEW 2-DAY VERSIONS OF THIS ONLINE WORKSHOP WILL BE OFFERED MAY 15-16 & AND JULY 10-11, WITH AN ADVANCED TRAINING JULY 18-19.  More info coming soon.
The world is begging us to find new ways of being together, being in the world, being creative, being with ourselves. In this online workshop, you will learn contemplative practices of body, energy and mind, and how to integrate them with writing prompts structured to undo restrictive habits of writing and thinking. Together, these new habits can become a daily practice of access to the stillness and
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2020 Season2023-03-24T16:04:25-04:00

2019 Season

2022-05-06T14:46:47-04:00

ko-festival-amherst-ma

From Artistic Director, Sabrina Hamilton

In the summer of 2019  we had 5 weeks of performances curated on the theme of “HABITAT (human).” We were thinking about transplants, displaced persons & the effects of sudden habitat change. About endangered & vanished cultures. About cracking open the past by re-examining the habitat one grew up in. Entertaining & thought-provoking, it was all original work – created by the artists who came to us from across the US.
And for those who wanted to get their own creative juices flowing — we had 3 exciting 6-day workshops.

PERFORMANCES

THE LAST RAT OF THERESIENSTADT • July 5 & 6 at 8pm; July 7 at 4pm

THE LAST RAT OF THERESIENSTADT • July 5 & 6 at 8pm; July 7 at 4pm

Lead Writer/Performer/Deviser: HILARY CHAPLAIN & Company
A show about a Weimar cabaret star who finds herself transplanted from Berlin to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. There she forges an unlikely friendship with Pavel, a rat (played by a puppet) who, despite the lack of food that has driven away the rest of his kind, remains out of love for her and her art...
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OK, OK • July 12 & 13 at 8pm; July 14 at 4pm

OK, OK • July 12 & 13 at 8pm; July 14 at 4pm

created and performed by KATIE PEARL
OK, OK is a performance reckoning with the racism of today through the lens of what Katie Pearl learned—and didn't learn—about Oklahoma history while growing up in her native habitat of Tulsa, OK. Performed by Pearl with an ensemble of four, OK, OK weaves together personal biography and civic narrative to crack open closed surfaces and get at what’s underneath. Hilarious, heartbreaking and...
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KoFest STORY SLAM 2019 • Saturday, July 20 at 8pm

KoFest STORY SLAM 2019 • Saturday, July 20 at 8pm

WE ARE CLOSE TO SELLING OUT & ARE NO LONGER SELLING TICKETS ONLINE! PLEASE CALL THE BOX OFFICE RE. LIMITED AVAILABILITY. (413) 542-3750. You’ve heard of poetry slams – competitive poetry events. This is one is for first person, true stories – told live and without notes, 5 minutes or less — and on the theme of “HABITAT (human)” A benefit to keep Ko going strong, this event typically sells out, so reservations are highly recommended, and if you've got a story to tell . . .
Read More
SPECIAL ALL AGES EVENT: The Mettawee River Theatre Company in THE RING DOVE • Sunday, July 21 at 8pm

SPECIAL ALL AGES EVENT: The Mettawee River Theatre Company in THE RING DOVE • Sunday, July 21 at 8pm

BECAUSE OF THE EXTREME HEAT WE ARE MOVING THIS PERFORMANCE TO THE AIR-CONDITIONED HOLDEN THEATER. RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED. Directed by RALPH LEE, this allegorical tale about friendship it is drawn from THE PANCHATANTRA, a collection of stories whose origins reach back over 2,000 years, to ancient India.  The production will incorporate an array of giant figures, puppets, and masks and will be performed out under the stars in a landscape permeated with live music, song and a spirit of celebration...
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(dis)Place[d] • July 26 & 27 at 8pm; July 28 at 4pm

(dis)Place[d] • July 26 & 27 at 8pm; July 28 at 4pm

A fool'sFURY production, written and performed by DEBÓRAH ELIEZER. Directed by BEN YALOM
This show integrates video, movement and song to crack open Debórah's assumptions about her own identity through the story of her father, Edward Ben-Eliezer, an Iraqi Jew born in 1930, a member of the Zionist underground, a refugee, an Israeli spy, and an immigrant to America. The result: a multilayered experience about the nature of home, the politics of place and the claiming of...
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LESSONS OF HUMANITY • August 2 & 3 at 8pm; August 4 at 4pm

LESSONS OF HUMANITY • August 2 & 3 at 8pm; August 4 at 4pm

Created and performed by SAMITE
A performance tailor-made by Samite to fit KoFest's 2019 season theme of "HABITAT: human" using a rich blend of traditional African music and personal stories that draw on his own experience of war in Idi Amin’s Uganda, and his life as a refugee who finds his new home in rural upstate New York to be a place from which he can...
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2019 WORKSHOPS

TOY THEATER

TOY THEATER

with JOHN BELL & TRUDI COHEN
Great Small Works
July 8-13, 2019
Participants will be shown basic techniques and materials used in Toy Theater (also known as Paper Theater). After discussing image and text selection and dramaturgy, our workshop will offer a chance to construct a toy theater stage and scenery and figures, and to put together a multi-scene story...
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FIRST PERSON: Crafting Your Story for Performance 2019

FIRST PERSON: Crafting Your Story for Performance 2019

with GERARD STROPNICKY, Co-Founder, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble
July 15-20, 2019
Why do some stories – some performances – spark your imagination, set fire to your soul, and leave you transformed, while others just sit there? Is it the content, or the telling? The framing, or the style? Can story be employed to bring laughter, or tears, or understanding, or lasting social change, or…
Read More
UNLOCKING INSPIRATION: The Vital Act

UNLOCKING INSPIRATION: The Vital Act

with DEBÓRAH ELIEZER
Co-Artistic Director foolsFURY Ensemble
July 29-Aug. 3, 2019
This fun, participatory workshop will explore embodied creation methods that will remove your inner critic and allow your uninhibited creativity to flow. Through free writing, movement meditation, kinetic storytelling and vocal improvisation, we will unlock inspiration, discover untold stories and turn the idea of narrative on its head...
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TICKETING AT KO

Ko’s workshops and performances are offered at three different pricing levels: PATRON, STANDARD and DISCOUNT.

We are a proud participant of the Card to Culture program, a collaboration between Mass Cultural Council and the Department of Transitional Assistance, the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) Nutrition Program, and the Massachusetts Health Connector.

Though the program does not subsidize arts presenters, its goal is to broaden accessibility to cultural programming by advocating for lower ticket prices for people with EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare cards.

Most arts organizations require that you show your card at the door, but but we do not. Ko recognizes that not all people needing a discounted price are enrolled in these programs, and that one’s financial situation can change in a heartbeat. Therefore, we invite those in need to avail themselves of our DISCOUNT level tickets. And if you are able to help us provide this access to those in need, please consider purchasing your ticket at the PATRON level.

See the full list of participating organizations offering EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare discounts.

2019 Season2022-05-06T14:46:47-04:00

SPECIAL ALL AGES EVENT: The Mettawee River Theatre Company in THE RING DOVE • Sunday, July 21 at 8pm

2020-03-03T10:20:34-05:00
SPECIAL ALL AGES EVENT: The Mettawee River Theatre Company in THE RING DOVE • Sunday, July 21 at 8pm2020-03-03T10:20:34-05:00
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