The Greek Easter is Different from Ours - it has Tsougrisma

In tsougrisma, if your egg stays intact, you will have a good year.
It's been 50 years since I dyed an egg or paid much attention to Easter, but not too long ago a gay friend invited me to take part in his family's Greek Orthodox customs. For the Eastern church, the resurrection of Christ is the big deal, while Christmas is just a minor holiday.

The Patriarch's vestments are amazing examples of embroidery gone wild.
For those who have attended a full tilt Roman Catholic sung High Mass, lasting more than an hour, that's the Reader's Digest condensation of the Greek Orthodox ritual. Their celebration starts at 10 PM, plenty of robes, processions and general prayer muttering in the totally impenetrable Greek language, until Midnight when the lights go out.

Slowly the light returns as a candle is passed from pew to pew to light the ones in our hands.
The darkness lasts only a couple of minutes as one-by-one we light candles, but the darkness represents the time in the crypt, and then the light slowly comes, He is Risen! Gales of Hallelujah! singing, lots more prayer mumbling, and finally...the feast with the priest! We all went to the Parish Hall where a big spread was laid out and everyone has a great time.

Getting home at 3:30 in the morning is fine with me, but the next morning there is the business with the red eggs. The Greek tradition is to dye the eggs red, the color of Christ's blood. But wait. There's more.

The Greeks are not the only ones who take part in the egg cracking game, but they take it very seriously. The person who ends up with an intact egg is guaranteed good luck for the coming year. Not many get this special blessing.

They call the game tsougrisma, meaning "clinking together" or "clashing." It is pronounced chigger-ah in English.

Basically each player holds an egg and they lightly tap the ends together. It can either involve one person holding the egg while the other taps or both players can tap their eggs together at the same time. The winner is able to successfully crack the ends of their opponent's egg.

There are plenty of Easter Eggs, so everyone can play the game.
It is fairly widespread in other cultures, too. The Netherlands calls this game Eiertikken; Germany declares it Ostereiertitschen. Croatians describe it as the egg fight or tuca. In Northern England an "egg-jarping" competition is held and the loser has to eat their eggs. If you search hard enough, you can find a similar version in some southern backwater towns. It is called "pocking eggs" and while it is similar to the egg cracking tradition in Europe, the winner has to eat the eggs of the losers.

Easter Bonnets. Provincetown's infamous Joel Brooks and Richard Riehle stared as the irrepressible Hat Sisters in the film, The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green. Photo: Bob Sebree.

In most of our country, God Bless America, we have lost touch with such quaint customs, and replaced them with new outfits to wear, chocolate and marshmallow bunnies and overeating, not as bad as Thanksgiving, but close.

Even if I no longer go to Easter mass, I still hate to see the commercialization of the religious day in tacky, superficial common culture.

So on Easter I think back to that sharing of the Greek traditions and how much they remain deeply rooted in my memory, and many people's lives. For others it is just an excuse to eat a ham dinner.

Lesbian Film Fest in Northampton April 16

Edie and Thea will be screened.

The second annual Lesbian Film Fest will be a celebration of love with three films being screened - one feature and two shorts. The three together run about two hours.

Presented by Out! For Reel LGBT Film Series, it is a rare opportunity to see films that rarely make it to theaters or television. It takes place Friday April 16, beginning with a Social Hour at 6:30 and the screenings at 7:30 at the Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton.

These events draw a good sized crowd who don't want the fun to end, so there is an After Party as well, in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Northampton. Last year there were more than 300 attendees. And some of the Out! For Reel events have drawn a capacity audience of 800. Impressive operation, led by Jaime Michaels and dozens of energetic film lovers.

She is excited about this year's offerings. I love her description of the event: "Imagine the comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer as your couples therapist, or surviving dating disasters, or being in a committed relationship for 42 years - a variety of experiences all in one night - that's the fun of the Lesbian Film Fest."

Jaime promises that those who make the trek to Northampton from the Berkshires "Will be touched deeply and you will be laughing out loud all in the same evening. We hope our Berkshire sisters Join us for the After Party at our elegant Hotel Northampton's Grand Ballroom with great music by DJ Jodi, food, and lots of Pioneer Valley women."

Edie and Thea

The makers of The Brandon Teena Story return with an empowering but intimate film centred around a 42-year passionate romance between two women - Edie and Thea. Beginning pre-Stonewall, Edie and Thea's relationship gives us an inspiring glimpse into lesbian life, love and activism since the 1960s.

Unable to achieve marriage in their home country, Edie and Thea, the latter recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, leave for Canada to legalise their vows with the country's first openly gay judge. As they face into the unknown, Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement has something to enlighten, impress and move us all. (61 minutes)

We Have to Stop Now

Couples therapy has never been this funny! Comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer stars as a couples therapist who tries to save a lesbian couple from the brink of divorce. This power couple, who wrote a runaway bestseller on the success of marriage, gives Suzanne quite a run for her money. (Best episodes from this popular lesbian web series – 36 minutes)

Falling For Caroline

A hilarious, heartwarming comedy about a cute but klutzy young woman who must overcome her dating blunders, her friend’s wrong fashion advice, and the bad lesbian habit of over-analyzing every detail. You can’t help but root for her in her quest to find true love. (20 minutes)

There's a great deal for those who buy in advance. You can get a Combo Ticket: for only $20 which includes $12.50 Fest + $7.50 Party admissions. For more information, go to  www.OutForReel.org Order now, prices are higher if you wait too long.

Queer the Census

It's time to be counted! Print this out and affix to the form.

If you are a LGBT couple, think about how to fill out the census form. Though not designed to accurately represent us, you can still make our presence count. For starters visit QueertheCensus.org

And there are ways to make sure same sex couples can be counted, even if they are not legally married. Watch this amusing video with George Takei and Brad Altman for details:



With many thanks to Greg Roach who originally published this on his blog.

John Kelly's "The Escape Artist" hits Mass MOCA Stage This Weekend

Everyone is familiar with Caravaggio and his paintings which come into play in The Escape Artist this weekend at Mass MOCA.

John Kelly is the 2010 Sundance Time Warner Storytelling fellow-in-residence at MASS MoCA. Along with the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, he will give a Work in Progress reading of his newest work, The Escape Artist, on Saturday, April 3, 2010 at the intimate Club B-10 at MOCA. It is but one work that is part of the unusual Sundance residency.

The Escape Artist is a collision of music, video and story. In a studio dubbing recording session for cinematic re-enactments of the paintings of Caravaggio, a singer hired to lay down the tracks channels the characters that populate the paintings, encounters unexpected technical difficulties, and reveals a turbulent personal history of his own.

Prior to arriving at Mass MOCA, John Kelly spent time in Rome recording video and taking photographs of the characters he takes on in The Escape Artist including Bacchus as painted in 1597 pictured above. As you can see, he has updated the "drug of choice."

His always fertile mind is ceaseless in its creativity, as evidenced by the oblique video he put together earlier today and which is embedded below for your fun and general puzzlement.

it's a promo filmed by Kelly on April Fools Day 2010. There are more photos and an informative update on Mass MOCA's blog. Brittany BIshop gives us a sneak peak at the mysterious Kelly piece and reminds us: "Although the showing at MASS MoCA is only a staged reading and will not include all of the final pieces of the show, from one theater nerd to another, this performance is going to be a night at the theater you don’t want to miss!"



There are many more details and ticket information on the event site.

Steven Petronio is Hot, Handsome and Happening April 9-10

Barrington Hinds by Sarah Silver
The innovative Stephen Petronio Company will bring its visceral and exciting I Drink the Air Before Me to MASS MoCA’s Hunter Center in North Adams on Friday, April 9 and Saturday, April 10, at 8pm. It is a joint production of Mass MoCA and Jacob's Pillow which collaborate to present one dance event at the renowned art center each year. Petronio is acclaimed for his lush, sweeping performance landscapes enriched by artful pairings of contemporary music and movement.

Comments the Pillow's executive director, Ella Baff: ”Stephen Petronio is well recognized in the U.S. and abroad as a bold, leading choreographer of his generation. He also collaborates with some of the most important contemporary artists in music, fashion, and the visual arts such as Laurie Anderson, Rufus Wainwright, Anish Kapoor, and a great painter who is especially familiar to us in the Berkshires, Steve Hannock.”

The composer Nico Muhly (L) and choreographer Stephen Petronio. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris.
The work features an original score by contemporary Nico Muhly, a composer whose work has been performed by the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the Chicago Symphony. Although in the original presentation it was played live complete with a chorus that was scattered throughout the audience, at MoCA the music will be recorded, not live.

A Trio of Petronio dancers in photo by Steven Schreiber.
Petronio's new work is titled after a quote from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest from the moment in which the sprite Ariel rushes away on Prospero’s errand: “I drink the air before me, and return / Or ere your pulse twice beat.” Moved by the character’s willingness to throw himself in the path of a raging storm, Petronio combines inspiration from forces of nature, both environmental and human. The work portrays both the calm and anger of storms, while a sailor (performed by Petronio himself) rides along.

Petronio created I Drink the Air Before Me in celebration of this year’s 25th anniversary of the company. He comments, “Instead of looking back on our achievements like photographs of old friends, I have chosen to look to the future with a new work. I wanted to give a dance that spoke of riding the awesome and unpredictable forces of now, and I hope you will receive our presentation in that spirit of adventure and pleasure.”

The performance will be followed by a post-show talk with Ella Baff and Stephen Petronio.

Amanda Wells in a photo by Sarah Silver.
Tickets in the orchestra section of the theater are $38, mezzanine tickets are $32, and student and children’s tickets are $20.
The MASS MoCA Box Office hours are Wednesday through Monday, 11am – 5pm. To purchase by phone: call the Box Office at 413.662.2111. To order online: www.massmoca.org. The Hunter Center and Box Office are located at 87 Marshall Street in North Adams, MA, 01247. MASS MoCA theaters are handicapped-accessible.

For additional information on Jacob’s Pillow or the 2010 Festival, visit www.jacobspillow.org.