Annual Boar's Head Festival offers up secular revels, song
Take a half-dozen fur-clad Barbarians and pack them into a tavern with a horde of horn-wearing Vikings, classy Celts, dainty druids, perky elves, and Swedish gnomes, and mayhem (or at least a few insults) seems a sure bet. But at the annual Boar's Head Festival in Hopedale, nary a barb is flung. Rather, the boisterous bunch breaks out in Renaissance songs, shares a few tales, and even juggles a little.
This Revels-like performance, produced by the Milford Performing Arts Center, is now in its seventh year. The Boar's Head tradition, however, dates back to pagan times. ''It's based on the seasonal cycles and the life, death, and rebirth around the time of year when winter ends and spring comes," said Carol Devendorf, director of the arts center.
Lore has it that the festival took on a Yuletide tone in 1340, when a student in Oxford, England, killed an attacking wild boar by choking him with a book -- by Aristotle, no less. He brought the head home, prepared it with mustard, and over time, the tradition evolved into a celebration of Epiphany at some churches.
Aside from a few Christmas carols, the center's version is secular. They perform at the Unitarian Parish Church in Hopedale due to the somewhat period look of the space. Each year the show is framed by an original script by Tom Arena of Waltham, who also performs with the Cambridge-based Revels. This year's story, ''The Northlands," takes place in a medieval tavern. As the rather diverse crowd of characters enters the pub to escape the cold, each group offers a story or a song about life.
''Tom puts a lot of time into researching the story, and finding out interesting facts, and trying to give us a real feel for what was going on in that part of the world at the time," said Devendorf, who lives in Milford.
The cast then fills in the blanks. ''People add a lot of their own ideas to their characters, and if they're good, we keep them," said Devendorf. ''It's exciting for the cast to try to go back into this past and re-create this life that was so vibrant." This year's performers include 45 local talents, ranging from 8-year-old Alexi Miguel of Milford to 74-year-old Brenda Almeida of Bellingham.
Returning fans may be familiar with some of the period tunes sung each year, such as ''Ale, Ale, Glorious Ale" (hmm, what could that one be about?). What's new this year, though, is the food. For the first time, the show will include a four-course Medieval-style feast with the requisite legs of fowl, as well as skewered vegetables, chowder, fruit, cheese and bread, and dessert.
The Boar's Head Feast and Festival will be held at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday and at 5:30 p.m. Sunday at Hopedale Unitarian Parish Hall, 65 Hopedale St. Tickets are $20, $15 for seniors and students, $10 for age 7 and younger. Call 508-473-1684, or visit www.milfordpac.org. Wheelchair-accessible.
SYMPHONY REACHES OUT -- ''Multimedia" doesn't begin to capture the many surprises Symphony Pro Musica builds into its annual weekend of family concerts. To engage and excite young listeners, the program uses a big bag of tricks.
Youths play with the adult orchestra, drama students mime the plot of a ballad, and children's art about the music is projected onto the stage during the show. Meanwhile, the violin soloist is just 12 years old.
First and always foremost is the music itself. ''Children are some of the most mature listeners in the audience, because they are open and receptive in a way that adults have lost. So we take this concert very seriously," said conductor Mark Churchill, who is the associate conductor of the Boston Ballet.
On Churchill's carefully culled program for this year's shows in Hudson and Westborough are works that fit the theme ''Myths and Legends." Each piece is ''either about or evocative of a story or atmosphere of folklore," he said. ''These are symphonic works that are lesser known but very appealing and intriguing."
Music students from Westborough and Hudson schools will take their talent to the big stage as they join the orchestra to play the famous Can-Can Overture from Offenbach's ''Orpheus in the Underworld."
Each year, Hudson High School's advanced drama class prepares a mimed presentation to accompany a work. For this concert, students will be the ghouls and witches from George Chadwick's symphonic ballad ''Tam O'Shanter," about the Scottish ghost story made famous by poet Robert Burns.
Younger students will add a little visual flair to the show. The symphony put out a call for artwork depicting the ''Paul Bunyan Overture" by Benjamin Britten and Liadov's ''Baba Yaga," which is based on a Russian folk tale. Those pictures will be projected as the pieces are played, and the originals will be on display in the lobby.
Finally, this year's soloist, 12-year-old Erin White of Lexington, will play Wieniawski's ''Legend for Violin and Orchestra." White began playing violin at age 4, gave her first solo recital at 10, and is a prize winner of the New England Conservatory Concerto Competition. She is now studying at the conservatory's preparatory school.
Churchill says one side effect of all this effort to engage young ears is that the adults get drawn in, too.
''Listening to classical music requires a distinctive kind of focus, a practiced focus," said Churchill. ''Relating music to visuals or literary ideas can, for most of us, help to focus us on what is happening in the music, and that's more and more a mission of our orchestra."
Symphony Pro Musica presents ''Myths and Legends" Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday show is at 7:30 p.m. at Hudson High School, 69 Brigham St. The Sunday show is at Westborough High School, 90 West Main St. Tickets are $17 the day of the concert, $14 for seniors, with a $2 discount for advance purchase. All students free. Call 978-562-0939, or visit www.symphonypromusica.org. Wheelchair-accessible.
SURREALISM AND ART FILMS -- In the days when New York City mattered less to the modern art world, one Big Apple street was looking toward the ateliers of Paris. And on that street was one gallery many critics consider the most forward-looking of them all.
''Of all the gallery activity on 57th Street, where everything happened in those days, it was the Julien Levy Gallery that was truly making art history, the place where it was 'at,' " as American surrealist Dorothea Tanning once put it.
Levy opened his gallery in 1931 in the midst of the Depression and first championed surrealist photography on its walls. It was a losing business proposition. Photography was not yet firmly established as an art form, and surrealism wasn't selling.
But Levy persisted, supporting the European avant-garde by inviting surrealist painters over to show their work. Many credit him with helping to give the surrealists a foothold here, which helped lay the groundwork for the first American modern art movement, Abstract Realism, which followed in the 1950s.
''Accommodations of Desire," now showing at the McMullen Museum at Boston College, features 120 works of surrealist art on paper from Levy's collection.
''What we're bringing to the audience here in Boston is a snapshot of the importance and liveliness of Julien Levy and his gallery in the '30s and '40s. It's a way of understanding the American avant-garde during that period," said museum director Nancy Netzer of Newton.
On display are surrealist photographs by Man Ray and others, drawings and prints by Dal, Mir, de Chirico, Gorky, Matta, and more surrealist greats, as well as Levy's personal mementos.
Also showing will be a loop film with clips from the experimental films screened at Levy's gallery. In 1932, Levy founded the Film Society to raise funds to produce and show art films. Nelson Rockefeller, E.E. Cummings, George Gershwin, and Sherwood Anderson were among the members who gathered to watch films by such directors as Luis Buuel and Jean Cocteau.
''They are exceptional examples of independent, uncensored films from the time," said Netzer. ''It's a good sample of what was shown at The Film Society."
''Accommodations of Desire" runs through March 24 at Boston College's McMullen Museum, 140 Commonwealth Ave., Newton. Hours are Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., weekends noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Opening reception is from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. RSVP to 617-552-8587, or e-mail artmusm@bc.edu. For show information, call 617-552-8100 or visit www.bc.edu/artmuseum. Wheelchair-accessible.
Please send news of your arts-related events to westarts@globe.com.
