Warwick Summer Arts Festival 2006 starts July 8

Warwick - The seventh annual Warwick Summer Arts Festival will take place July 8-16, bringing music, theater, dance, art making workshops and exhibits during a 10-day celebration of the arts. The public is invited to an opening on Friday, July 7, from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Gallery at Port of Call. The Mannequin Project will be on display at the gallery, around the town and villages, in storefronts, parks and street corners. A performance of a new work by composer Stacey Rosen and choreographer Nina Stein White will be start at 7 p.m. at the gallery. • On Saturday, July 8, at 7 p.m. the festival presents Queztal at Scheuermann Farm and Greenhouses on Little York Road. Direct from Los Angeles, Queztal has been hailed as heir to Los Lobas in their musicianship, creativity and soul. •On Sunday, July 9 at 7:30 p.m., the festival heads to the Greenwood Lake Beach to present a performance in the newly designed park by storyteller and musician Bill Harley. With 25 recordings of songs and stories, five children’s books and his commentaries on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” to his credit, Harley’s work chronicles the lives of children at school and at home. • On Friday, July 14, at 7:30 p.m. Cherish the Ladies comes to Stanley Deming Park in the Village of Warwick. According to a review in the New York Times, the group “expands the annals of Irish music in America … the music is passionate, tender and rambunctious.” They have shared the stage with James Taylor, Joan Baez, Emmy Lou Harris, The Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, The Chieftains and dozens of symphony orchestras. The “Celtic Album”, their collaboration with the Boston Pops Symphony led to a 1999 Grammy nomination. • Luminescent Orchestrii will get the crowds on their feet on Saturday, July 15, at Stanley Deming Park at 7:30 p.m. with music to make you “dance, kiss and scream.” The band has been featured on NPR’s Weekend America, as part of a weekly Global Rhythm Magazine segment hosted by Tom Pryor, and on John Shaefer’s “New Sounds” on WNYC. • The festival concludes at Stanley Deming Park on Sunday, July , at 7:30 p.m. with The Carpetbag Brigade, a physical theater company from California who will perform “Mudfire,” a poem invoking the ancient relationship with the power and passion of fire. The Carpetbag Brigade fashions its choreography and characters using techniques of contemporary European physical theater, dance, mask work, acrobatics and their own unique skills in stilt-walking. Throughout the festival, The Mannequin Project will be displayed around the town. The project, an inspiration of local artist Charlie DeCesare, involves the transformation and re-creation of over 30 mannequins by 30 area artists on the theme of People and the Environment: the Impact/the Connection. The contemporary molded mannequins in various poses were donated to the Arts Festival by dressbarn Inc., the woman’s apparel company located in Suffern. • On Tuesday, July 11, join Stacey Rosen from 7-8:30 p.m. at Warwick Valley Community Center, 11 Hamilton Ave. , as part of the Mannequin Project. Participants will transform a group of mannequins using recycled and found materials. Call 845-986-0181 to register. • Artist and author Daniel Mack will teach introduction to woodlander crafts on Monday, July 10, 7-8:30 p.m. at his studio, 14 Welling Ave. Mack works in natural forms making rustic furniture, art and architectural elements. Call 845-987-9836 to register. •On Sunday, July 9, from noon to 4 p.m., Winslow Therapeutic Riding Center (328 Route 17A) is the site for a collaboration between Winslow, The Source for the Healing Arts, Orange County Developmental Disabilities Education & Training Consortium, St. Anthony Community Hospital and the Warwick Arts Festival. “Know No Boundaries” is a day of demonstrations and lectures by many Warwick area practitioners of acupressure, integrative psychotherapy, massage and music therapy, nutrition and yoga. The Warwick Summer Arts Festival was started in 1999. Festival 2006 is supported with funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, ShopRite of Warwick and The Town of Warwick with additional funding from Provident Bank, The Warwick Savings Foundation, The Village of Warwick, Orange and Rockland Utilities, WVT Communications and individual contributors. The festival is a project of Community 2000 and works in partnership with the Town of Warwick, the Village of Warwick and Scheuermann Farm and Greenhouses. For more information, visit the Web at www.warwickarts.org or call at 845-987-9836.