Features
Out & About: The ‘active’ in ‘attractive’? Dartmouth study asks how looks relate to athletic prowess
By LIZ SAUCHELLI
In the animal world, the bird with the best feathers usually gets a mate. But why?“A lot of these animal studies, there is this general hypothesis that those showy traits will become correlated with some aspect of the individual’s (gene) quality,”...
Arts Review: ‘The Niceties’ puts racial, generational divide on display
By LUKAS DUNFORD
Set in a professor’s office at an elite Northeast university, The Niceties displays racial and generational conflicts through a brave student and her pressure-hardened history professor. This play is not for the faint of pacemaker. Directed by Grant...
Art Notes: ‘Bioplastics’ bring life to Hanover artist’s residency
By ERIC SUTPHIN
During our recent studio visit, Hanover-based artist Lia Rothstein showed me a sculpture she had made from dried animal gut.It sounds grisly, but it’s really just a thin, fibrous membrane, like rayon, but from a pig. The material was rust-colored and...
Over Easy: George Santos and me
By DAN MACKIE
I feel some sympathy for George Santos, the new U.S. congressman who made a few missteps on his resume. Who hasn’t fudged a few details when blinded by a selfless desire to enter public service? I have shared much of my life with readers, but not the...
A lively array attend WRJ workshop blending collage and stop-motion animation
By RAY COUTURE
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — At one desk, paper birds of prey pirouette while passing a platinum ball between their talons. At a table nearby, a laughing baby in a vintage orange jumper spins on his head while a muscled gymnast flexes his biceps — before an...
Children’s Chorus returns to stage after lengthy hiatus
BY LIZ SAUCHELLI
LEBANON — For Allison Pollard, there’s just something about children’s voices coming together in song.“There’s nothing like hearing kids sing,” said Pollard, a music teacher at Bernice A. Ray School in Hanover. “I’m a sucker just for children singing...
NH experiencing an ‘exceptionally snow free’ winter
By FRANCES MIZE
EAST CORINTH — The mid-December snowstorm was a head fake at Northeast Slopes, which bills itself as the “oldest continuously operating ski slope” in the country.“That snow groomed out nicely,” said Wade Pierson, ski program coordinator at the...
Art Notes: Hopkins Center events hop around Dartmouth campus amid renovation
By ERIC SUTPHIN
HANOVER — The construction fencing along East Wheelock Street signals the beginning of the $88 million expansion and renovation of the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The iconic 1962 building is anticipated to reopen in 2025. In the interim, the Hop’s...
Catching up with a food class at Billings Farm and Museum
By NICOLA SMITH
On an icy gray morning, the subject at the Billings Farm & Museum learning kitchen was, appropriately, Cozy Stews and Breads, one of a series of adult classes that are part of the farm and museum’s Backyard Workshops. For Emery Gray, the chef at the...
Sunday Seniors: Custom CDs help older music fans mix things up
By LIZ SAUCHELLI
A new program in Sharon is reconnecting older adults to the music they loved when they were younger.Music for Elders, which is run by the Sharon Health Initiative, provides older adults with mix CDs curated to their musical tastes and portable CD...
Art Notes: Longtime Upper Valley performers bring deeply personal new work to area stages
By ALEX HANSON
Two longtime Upper Valley performers are each bringing to the stage productions that are departures from their past work.First, on Friday evening, Alan Haehnel opens My Ode to Joy — a performance of spoken-word poetry mixed with music — at Parish...
Over Easy: New Year’s revelations
By DAN MACKIE
Right as 2022 was ending (on a locally sleepy note), the news dropped that Lebanon may get a casino on the Miracle Mile.What timing! It just so happened that I was dreaming up fantastic scenarios for the New Year when this whopper dropped in my lap....
Northern Stage names new leader
By NORA DOYLE-BURR
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The last time Jason Smoller, Northern Stage’s next managing director, and his wife lived in the Upper Valley 10 years ago, they lived off Colburn Park in Lebanon.This time they’ll live with their child in White River Junction,...
Bald eagles have bounced back big-time in NH, Vt.
By FRANCES MIZE
WEST LEBANON — Bald eagles are back in the Upper Valley. Once a mainstay of endangered species lists, the raptors can now fly with their beaks held high after a dramatic population comeback.While introducing Chris Martin, senior rapport biologist for...
Upper Valley Holiday Markets 2022
Please submit additions via the Valley News’ online Calendar system CitySpark, which can be found at calendar.vnews.com.Christmas Show and Sale in West Lebanon: Thursday, Nov. 3, to Saturday, Dec. 24, Upper Valley Plaza (next to CVS), 250 Plainfield...
Upper Valley fall festivals and Halloween events 2022
Please submit additions via the Valley News’ online Calendar system CitySpark, which can be found at calendar.vnews.com. Fall festivals38th Vermont Apple Festival and Craft Show in Springfield, Vt.: Saturday, Oct. 8, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Riverside Middle...
Officials try to get a grip on cyanobacteria in Lake Morey
By FRANCES MIZE
FAIRLEE — Lake Morey is suffering a cyanobacteria bloom that town officials are calling “the worst in recent memory.” The lake has struggled with the bacteria in the past. It blooms up in dense blue-green patches each summer, tangling up swimmers,...
Over Easy: Thoughts for your Penney
By DAN MACKIE
The great question of our time isn’t whether the Russian army will slink home by Halloween, COVID will fade by Christmas or Donald Trump will wear a prison jumpsuit in the New Year (please, please), it’s right here in the present: What’s going on with...
Art Notes: The complexity of simplicity in Lois Dodd retrospective
By ERIC SUTPHIN
A phrase I’ve often heard in reference to Lois Dodd’s work is “deceptively simple.” In fact, there it is, right at the beginning of the wall text for “Natural Order,” a retrospective of Dodd’s work at the Hall Art Foundation in Reading, Vt....
Quechee doughnut operation serves up treats with a twist
By BETSY VERECKEY
For April Lawrence, the art of doughnut-making can be traced back to her grandmother, who once ran Lake Shore Farm, a bucolic inn in Northwood, N.H. There were no televisions and just one telephone.“It was very rustic, but I grew up in the kitchen...
