Posted Wednesday, December 13, 2017 5:21 am

Mass MoCA Winter/Spring Season Highlights Jan. 20, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. - Free day Jan. 20, 8 p.m. - Quindar Jan. 27, 8 p.m. - Alicia Hall Moran (work-in-progress: alt-opera) Feb. 10, 8 p.m. - Rafiq Bhatia Feb. 15, 8 p.m. - Poli a and Stargaze (work-in-progress: live music) Feb. 24, 8 p.m. - Sinkane March 3, 8 p.m. - C.J. Field March 8, 6 p.m. - Liz Glynn (artist talk at Williams College) March 10, 8 p.m. - Godspeed You! Black Emperor March 16-17 - High Mud Comedy Fest March 24, 5:30 p.m. - Opening reception for Natasha Bowdoin's "Maneater," Rachel Howard's "Paintings of Violence (Why I Am Not a Mere Christian)," "The Lure of the Dark," "Pledges of Allegiance" and Allison Janae Hamilton's "Pitch" March 24 8 p.m. and March 25, 2 p.m. - Bon Iver & TU Dance (work-in-progress: live music and dance) March 31, 8 p.m. - Sylvan Esso (show has sold out) April 7, 8 p.m. - Okwui Okpokwasili's "Poor People's TV Room" April 14, 8 p.m. - Trio da Kali April 21, 8 p.m. - Radha Blank's "Happyflowernail" (theater) April 28, 8 p.m. - Ephrat Asherie's "Odeon" (work-in-progress: dance) May 5, 8 p.m. - Zemog El Gallo Bueno TBD in early May - William Kentridge's "The Head and the Load"

NORTH ADAMS — A two-time Grammy award winner with a famous unofficial residency will partake in a formal one at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in March.

Folk artist Justin Vernon, who wrote and recorded much of his first album as Bon Iver while he was staying in a Wisconsin cabin, will be accompanied by the rest of his band and TU Dance during a one-week stint at the North Adams institution. The residency will culminate in work-in-progress shows on March 24 and 25 at the Hunter Center. The events headline Mass MoCA's winter/spring season slate, which includes performances by electronic pop duo Sylan Esso, choreographer/writer/actress Okwui Okpokwasili and artist William Kentridge as well as six new art exhibitions.

"We're always looking for the porous border between disciplines," said Rachel Chanoff, the museum's curator of performing arts and film, in reference to hosting Bon Iver and Tu Dance, a 10-person company founded by Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands in St. Paul, Minn.

The musicians and dancers will arrive in North Adams having already completed two Midwest residencies, but their Berkshires presentations will be their first public showings of the material. The evening-length piece will debut in its final state at St. Paul's Palace Theatre on April 19. Kate Nordstrum, who is producing the collaboration on behalf of Liquid Music, said Vernon had never written music for dance before this project.

"He saw this as an exciting opportunity to grow," Nordstrum said.

The piece is still in its infancy, but Nordstrum said audiences can expect a mix of vocal and instrumental sections.

"It's not one set tone," she said.

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Nordstrum has helped bring other performers to Mass MoCA for residencies before, including Daniel Wohl and Helado Negro. She is excited to usher some new acts into North Adams.

"I'm really psyched to introduce them," Nordstrum said.

About one-third of performances held at the museum are associated with artist residencies, according to Mass MoCA Director Joseph Thompson. For artists, North Adams provides an inexpensive alternative to big-city residencies that are often surrounded by distraction, Thompson said. In return, local audiences get to see new works from prominent acts that may not otherwise come to the institution. For example, Thompson said landing Bon Iver for a standard concert would've been too costly.

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"There's no way we could do it," he said.

Mass MoCA's winter/spring season isn't just driven by residencies, though. Three weeks after Godspeed You! Black Emperor brings its brand of post-rock to the Hunter Center, Sylvan Esso's electronic sounds will fill the room. Singer Amelia Meath and producer Nick Sanborn may be toting a Grammy by then; the duo's sophomore album, "What Now," was recently nominated for best dance/electronic album.

On April 7, Okpokwasili's "Poor People's TV Room" will meld music, theater and dance in a performance inspired by Nigerian women's empowerment movements and co-presented by Jacob's Pillow at the Hunter Center.

Also motivated by events in Africa, Kentridge's performance piece, titled, "The Head and the Load," will shine a light on African porters used by European forces during World War I. The South African artist, who is widely known for his animation but is fluent in a number of artistic forms, collaborated with South African composer Philip Miller to create the musical and visual experience that will be performed at a yet-to-be-announced date in early May.

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And then there are the more permanent displays of visual art entering the museum in the coming months. On view Jan. 13, Natasha Bowdoin's wall installation, "Maneater," features floral figures. Rachel Howard's provocative "Paintings of Violence (Why I Am Not a Mere Christian)" debuts Feb. 17. March brings "The Lure of the Dark: Contemporary Painters Conjure the Night," a multi-artist tribute to nighttime; Allison Janae Hamilton's "Pitch," an homage to the artist's Southern roots; and "Pledges of Allegiance," a Creative Time project that commissioned artists to create flags promoting political participation. "A Yellow Sun a Green Sun a Yellow Sun a Red Sun a Blue Sun," Etel Adnan's mix of prose, verse and abstract landscapes, opens April 7.

Overall, those associating Mass MoCA with large-scale installations might be surprised to find more paintings occupying its buildings in the near future.

"We're showing a lot of two-dimensional work," Thompson said.

But there will certainly be a diverse sampling of music, dance, theater and art being created and performed under the museum's many roofs this season. Chanoff says the museum aims to foster artistic cross-pollination in the old industrial spaces.

"We're a factory, and now we want to be — and I think we are — a factory of ideas," she said.

Benjamin Cassidy can be reached at bcassidy@berkshireeagle.com, at @bybencassidy on Twitter and 413-496-6251.