Dear readers: Please believe us when we tell you we'd never inflict a mime on you in our weekend picks if he wasn't going to be brilliant. A former star of the Merce Cunningham company, Foofwa (!) d'Imobilite (!!) has set up shop in a cobwebby old corner of the art world and transformed it into a palace of genius. As for the three-year-old Mount Tremper Arts Festival, it's kicking major tuchus. We're not sure what sleepy Shandaken ever did to deserve this onslaught of talented performers, but we hope they keep it up.
Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm, Shandaken, Ulster County.
County Fairs
With just a month left in the summer, it's fair season for real. The Ulster County Fair in New Paltz kicked off earlier this week, and will be in full swing with carnival rides, 4-H exhibitions and live music throughout the weekend. Also still rocking: the Sunshine Fair in Schoharie County, which boasts a full-on, testosterone-addled Demolition Derby alongside your usual parade of show chickens and fried dough.
Schoharie County Sunshine Fair: All day Saturday, Cobleskill, Schoharie County. Ulster County Fair: All day Saturday and Sunday, New Paltz, Ulster County.
Batavia Kill Stream Celebration
First thing you'll learn at this day-long festival celebrating all things watery is that "kill" means "stream." (Those silly Dutch.) Then you'll wander through a festive pastiche of nature show-and-tells, guided stream walks, Civil War cake walks, boomerang demonstrations, and magical-realist puppet shows depicting zooplankton, all the while developing a reverence for the Batavia Kill, one of the streams supplying New Yorkers with drinking water. Our columnist Aaron Bennett will be on hand teaching landlubbers how to catch and identify critters living in the stream, too.
Saturday, 10am to 5pm, Ashland, Greene County.
