Presents:

The Leaving Nest:  A sculptural installation, performance series, and window garden

February 12th-27th

Opening Reception:  Friday, February 12th, 7:30-9:30

Performance series 1: Friday and Saturday, February 19th and 20th 7:30pm

Performance series 2: Friday and Saturday, February 26th and 27th 7:30pm

Gallery Hours:  Tuesday to Sunday 12-5

Tickets for performance series: sliding scale $5-$15.  Doors open at 7:00, seating limited, please be prompt.   RESERVATIONS:  413.586.5553

February finds something strange and magical creeping into A.P.E.'s Main St. space when The Royal Frog Ballet presents its newest performative and sculptural installation, The Leaving Nest. Over the course of three weeks, this local collective explores themes of transformation, emergence, blossoming and home, using every medium they can get their hands on.  Dancers on a ship deck silhouetted by projections on the sails, crooners peddling songs and stories out of windows and doors, meringue hats sailing off in the wind, a crow in a crow's nest, blossoms unfurling, hinges creaking, and incremental changes at every turn mark the last days of winter, as an explosive search for home, for light, and for Springtime blooms in the gallery.

Come closer, peer in the window, open the door, sit down, and stay awhile, because what was here today won't be the same tomorrow.  The Leaving Nest is a continuously transforming installation that includes a giant, moving sculpture, wall-sized morphing murals, real budding plants and a strange cast of revolving characters.  Is this installation unfurling? Leafing out? Setting off towards the sun?  Or is it all a trick of your eye?  Come to the gallery each day to find out for yourself, and to experience art that never stands still.  Stop by each night as secretive shadows shift and turn the installation in to something new. Join us on Fridays and Saturdays for an eclectic two-part performance series of choreographers, poets, puppeteers, singers, shouters and growlers who will take the gallery by storm and illuminate this mysteriously evolving place.

The Royal Frog Ballet is an amoeba of collaborators, a producing body, a shouting household of households, and an aspiring dance team in search of parade. They create performance and installation art for community gatherings. Contact them at theroyalfrogballet@gmail.com or call (802)-461-5822.  For more information see their website at www.theroyalfrogballet.com