Arts and Theatre
Browse through upcoming arts and theater events in Hendersonville, NC, including musicals, plays, operas, and more.
Hendersonville Ballet Company presents The Nutcracker, an annual tradition since 2019, on Friday, December 20, 2024 at 7pm, Saturday, December 21, 2024 at 3pm and 7pm and Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 3pm at the Thomas Auditorium located on the Blue Ridge Community College campus. Hendersonville Ballet is grateful to be able to put this performance on for the community following the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene.
From wine and whiskey cups to flasks and goblets, the 6th Annual Vessels of Merriment exhibition at Grovewood Gallery will feature handcrafted drinking vessels by 17 potters from across the country. This ceramic invitational will kick off with an opening celebration on Saturday, November 9, from 2 to 5 pm, where guests can mix and mingle with some of the participating artists and enjoy complimentary offerings served by our friends at Metro Wines. This event is free to attend and open to the public. Vessels of Merriment will remain on view through December 31, 2024.
Find the perfect gift this holiday season for everyone on your list at the 10th annual 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗣𝗼𝗽 𝗨𝗽 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽! Shop local, shop small and support local artists, makers, and vintage collectors.
We’ve decked the halls of the Ideation Lab inside the Center for Craft in Downtown Asheville. Shop over 100 vendors; housewares, handmade jewelry, ceramics, apparel, vintage clothes, ornaments, candles, gifts for our furry friends and more.
WHEN:
Open Nov 29 through Dec 24
10am-8pm daily
WHERE:
The Ideation Lab inside the Center for Craft
67 Broadway St, Asheville, NC 28801
Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.
Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”
Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.
RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.
As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”
“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”
See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.
UpMarket Gallery, downtown Asheville’s newest gallery and event space, is hosting its inaugural art show– The Totem: Celebrating Family, Spirit & Culture. Ten Asheville artists offer unique interpretations of totems, exploring family, spirit, and cultural themes. Through various mediums and styles, these modern totems invite viewers to reflect on their connections to family and heritage. Runs December 11 – January 31st
We welcome you to experience this captivating show in our newly restored space. Also housed within our thoughtfully updated building is the Dog & Pony Show, a curated collection of distinctive decor and gifts—perfect for your holiday shopping!
Saturdays from 10:30 AM – 12 PM
American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection features more than 100 works of art by renowned American artists. The exhibition beautifully illustrates distinctive styles and thought-provoking art explored by American artists over the past two centuries. Though many objects from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection have been on view at other museums, ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and Saint Louis Art Museum, this exhibition features the best of the collection brought together in one location. The exhibition begins with Colonial-era portraits by masters, such as Benjamin West, Thomas Sully, and Sarah Miriam Peale, and then moves on to highlight the development of mid-19th-century landscape painting. Viewers will discover works depicting the United States from coast to coast by artists, including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Francis Copsey, and even a monumental arctic scene by William Bradford.
Bill Viola’s Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier, 1979 on loan from Art Bridges is an immersive experience that explores the ideas of death and regeneration in nature. In a darkened room, sounds from nature envelop the viewer, as a placid pool of water reflects a projected image of Mount Rainier onto a screen. The water is periodically disturbed, causing the image to dissolve and slowly recompose as the pool settles. As an active volcano at rest, Mount Rainier embodies both quiet beauty and dramatic violence. Using time as both a tool and a theme in his work, Viola visualizes the dualities of nature’s rhythms of renewal, which include moments of both fragility and strength.
Ceramic artists throughout history have become masters of all four elements—creating clay from a mixture of earth and water to shape their work, drying it in air, and hardening it in fire. Throughout this process, the artist decides which aspects of the work will be tightly controlled, and when the elements can step in to leave nature’s mark. This exhibition traces the historical, stylistic, and conceptual origins of work that either embraces or refuses the element of chance in ceramics, looking at modern and contemporary work made in Western North Carolina.
The Asheville Art Museum is pleased to present Ginny Ruffner’s Reforestation of the Imagination, organized and toured by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition imagines an apocalyptic landscape of withered plant forms that come to life when activated with augmented reality. In collaboration with animator and media artist Grant Kirkpatrick, Ruffner illuminates the delicate balance between nature and the artificial human-built world around us, putting forth an optimistic hope for the future: that technology can be a means to understand and help save the earth from environmental devastation. Visitors can download the free app “Reforestation” on their phones or use the iPads in the gallery to bring this second reality to life. When the tree rings of a stump are viewed through a device’s camera lens, a hologram of a fictional plant appears to sprout from the sculpture. These imagined fruits and flowers have evolved from existing flora, developing dramatic appendages and skills necessary to flourish in this radically different environment. In Ruffner’s fantastical reality, tulips develop stem flexibility, pears contain windows to the outside world, and flowers take on the form of birds. The installation includes Ruffner’s tongue-in-cheek descriptions of her surreal flora and their remarkable, sometimes humorous adaptations. Used as inspiration for the AR images, 19 original drawings by the artist will also be on view.
Tis the season to be jolly! The tradition continues with the same great holiday cheer to put you in the Christmas spirit. All new renditions of your holiday favorites will help you get those sleigh bells jinglin,’ and chestnuts roasting! There is truly no better way to kick off your holiday season. So, hurry on over with your family, friends, and loved ones to share in the joy and excitement of this seasonal spectacular that will have you feeling merry and bright! Ring-a-ling-a-ding-dong-ding, y’all!
Tis the season to be jolly! The tradition continues with the same great holiday cheer to put you in the Christmas spirit. All new renditions of your holiday favorites will help you get those sleigh bells jinglin,’ and chestnuts roasting! There is truly no better way to kick off your holiday season. So, hurry on over with your family, friends, and loved ones to share in the joy and excitement of this seasonal spectacular that will have you feeling merry and bright! Ring-a-ling-a-ding-dong-ding, y’all!
The Western Front, Christmas, 1914. Out of the violence a silence, then a song. A German soldier steps into No Man’s Land singing “Stille Nacht.” Thus begins an extraordinary time of camaraderie, music, and peace. A remarkable true story, told in the words and songs of the men who lived it.
“A beautiful musical retelling of a World War I ceasefire
with gifts of music, poetry, and melody.”
-New York Times
Showtimes are 7:30pm for evening performances and 2pm for matinees. Please visit our website for showtimes and tickets. All tickets for all shows are being offered at a sliding scale so that everyone in our community can enjoy professional theatre in the aftermath of Helene. If you cannot afford the lowest tier, please reach out to our box office and we will work with you.
The Western Front, Christmas, 1914. Out of the violence a silence, then a song. A German soldier steps into No Man’s Land singing “Stille Nacht.” Thus begins an extraordinary time of camaraderie, music, and peace in a spontaneous ceasefire during World War 1. A remarkable true story, told in the words and songs of the men who lived it.
“A beautiful musical retelling of a World War I ceasefire
with gifts of music, poetry, and melody.”
-New York Times
Find the perfect gift this holiday season for everyone on your list at the 10th annual 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗣𝗼𝗽 𝗨𝗽 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽! Shop local, shop small and support local artists, makers, and vintage collectors.
We’ve decked the halls of the Ideation Lab inside the Center for Craft in Downtown Asheville. Shop over 100 vendors; housewares, handmade jewelry, ceramics, apparel, vintage clothes, ornaments, candles, gifts for our furry friends and more.
WHEN:
Open Nov 29 through Dec 24
10am-8pm daily
WHERE:
The Ideation Lab inside the Center for Craft
67 Broadway St, Asheville, NC 28801
American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection features more than 100 works of art by renowned American artists. The exhibition beautifully illustrates distinctive styles and thought-provoking art explored by American artists over the past two centuries. Though many objects from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection have been on view at other museums, ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and Saint Louis Art Museum, this exhibition features the best of the collection brought together in one location. The exhibition begins with Colonial-era portraits by masters, such as Benjamin West, Thomas Sully, and Sarah Miriam Peale, and then moves on to highlight the development of mid-19th-century landscape painting. Viewers will discover works depicting the United States from coast to coast by artists, including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Francis Copsey, and even a monumental arctic scene by William Bradford.
Bill Viola’s Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier, 1979 on loan from Art Bridges is an immersive experience that explores the ideas of death and regeneration in nature. In a darkened room, sounds from nature envelop the viewer, as a placid pool of water reflects a projected image of Mount Rainier onto a screen. The water is periodically disturbed, causing the image to dissolve and slowly recompose as the pool settles. As an active volcano at rest, Mount Rainier embodies both quiet beauty and dramatic violence. Using time as both a tool and a theme in his work, Viola visualizes the dualities of nature’s rhythms of renewal, which include moments of both fragility and strength.
Ceramic artists throughout history have become masters of all four elements—creating clay from a mixture of earth and water to shape their work, drying it in air, and hardening it in fire. Throughout this process, the artist decides which aspects of the work will be tightly controlled, and when the elements can step in to leave nature’s mark. This exhibition traces the historical, stylistic, and conceptual origins of work that either embraces or refuses the element of chance in ceramics, looking at modern and contemporary work made in Western North Carolina.
The Asheville Art Museum is pleased to present Ginny Ruffner’s Reforestation of the Imagination, organized and toured by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition imagines an apocalyptic landscape of withered plant forms that come to life when activated with augmented reality. In collaboration with animator and media artist Grant Kirkpatrick, Ruffner illuminates the delicate balance between nature and the artificial human-built world around us, putting forth an optimistic hope for the future: that technology can be a means to understand and help save the earth from environmental devastation. Visitors can download the free app “Reforestation” on their phones or use the iPads in the gallery to bring this second reality to life. When the tree rings of a stump are viewed through a device’s camera lens, a hologram of a fictional plant appears to sprout from the sculpture. These imagined fruits and flowers have evolved from existing flora, developing dramatic appendages and skills necessary to flourish in this radically different environment. In Ruffner’s fantastical reality, tulips develop stem flexibility, pears contain windows to the outside world, and flowers take on the form of birds. The installation includes Ruffner’s tongue-in-cheek descriptions of her surreal flora and their remarkable, sometimes humorous adaptations. Used as inspiration for the AR images, 19 original drawings by the artist will also be on view.
- 2nd and 4th Sundays – check the calendar on our home page
- 4 pm – 6:00 pm
- Mid-Winter English Country Dance Weekend – Feb 2-4, 2024
- There is also an ECD Wednesday evening from 7:00 pm- 9:00 pm; various callers; and recorded music.
- (This is not an OFB activity) For information contact: [email protected]