IPSWICH – Tuesday nights here are special. For two hours in July and August, residents gather to enjoy music, poetry and dance, mostly by local performers and poets.
About 250 people showed up for Ipswich Downtown Tuesday last week, including young families and seniors at the EBSCO Take Out Plaza on the Ipswich Riverwalk. Scheduled for next Tuesday, July 15, is Gigi & the Noize from Beverly, which pays Blues, Classic Rock, Funk and Rock.
During the band break at 7, Downtown Tuesday features local poets reading their work. And there is always time for some powerful dancing.
Downtown Tuesdays have been entertaining locals for 14 years. The reason, said Kerry Bates, the director of the town’s Recreation and Culture and event organizer, “People trust our continued production quality.”
This year, Bates, a creative spirit in town hall, wrote about the signature event in Ipswich
I predict the Return of Amateur Hour— A return to the unpolished, heartfelt, earnest, unmonetized, unoptimized human expression.
Where people:
Sing not to win, but to feel
Dance not for followers, but for freedom
Create not to impress, but to remember
Share not for brand, but for belonging
Where “amateur” regains its original meaning— from amator, Latin for lover— One who does it for love.
We’ve lived too long under the reign of the curated, the professionalized, the performative. The return of Amateur Hour is the return of
Homemade songs sung in kitchens
Poems scratched into notebooks
Wild untrained hands making beauty from scraps
Children choreographing dances in the yard
Elders telling stories that don’t go viral—but go deep
It is the rebellion of the imperfect, the re-enchantment of the everyday, the unpaid miracle of simply showing up to life with wonder and willingness.
Bates invites everyone to join the Revolution with her, coming together as a community, from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays in July and August. It is a free event.
Presenting sponsor of Ipswich Downtown Tuesdays is Choice Graphics, All Seasons Septic System Services and Aubuchon Hardware, Morris Plumbing and Heating, and the Greater Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce. ♦
