Art
Ethan Stiefel, world-renowned ballet dancer and star of the film Center Stage, and his professional ensemble Stiefel & Stars, perform on Island in their annual one-night-only benefit for Vineyard Arts Project at the Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center.
The show will be held on Wednesday, August 27, at 6 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center at the high school. Tickets are available at $35, $65, $95 and $125 and may be purchased online at vineyardartsproject.org or by calling 508-413-2104.
Robert Jones had the daunting task of settling the estate of the renowned African-American artist Lois Mailou Jones after she died in 1998 at the age of 93. Imagine his amazement at rooting around in the basement of his cousin’s Washington, D.C. home and uncovering a cobweb-draped box that contained a collection of masterpiece textile designs Ms. Jones had created 75 years before.
If you weren’t one of the lucky 200 who showed up at the Tabernacle to see the first and likely-to-be annual Martha’s Vineyard Jazz Festival, then you missed out. It was the last event of the summer to be held at the Camp Ground but certainly not the least.
Author Ernie Weiss talks about his book Out of Vienna: Eight Years of Flight from the Nazis on Thursday, August 28, from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library. Admission is free.
Ernie Weiss is the son of a Dachau concentration camp survivor. He was born in Vienna in 1931. When Hitler invaded Austria in 1938 Ernie and his family fled. After eight years on the run, taking them throughout Europe to Cuba, they obtained visas and were admitted into the United States.
Africa’s Own
Founder and director of the organization Africa’s Own, Nathaniel Scott, and Aduei Riak, a refugee from Sudan’s civil war, will give a free talk on Thursday, August 28, at 7:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Center.
Ms. Riak has finished her undergraduate degree at Brandeis University, worked for a year as a paralegal and is now working on a large school construction project back in Sudan.
Africa’s Own is raising funds to help her, and other Africans, with their own development projects.
Striper Wars author Dick Russell talks about efforts to save a troubled fishery, on Wednesday, August 27, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library.
When populations of striped bass began plummeting in the early 1980s, author and fisherman Dick Russell was there to lead an Atlantic coast conservation campaign that resulted in one of the most remarkable wildlife comebacks in the history of fisheries.