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06/09/2015 01:00 PMThinkers, musicians, writers, dancers, theater artists, clowns, filmmakers, scientists, philosophers, journalists. How do you combine all of these? How do Sinatra, the Mark Morris Dance Group, and Carmen de Lavallade all fit together?
The answer: The International Festival of Arts & Ideas.
In 1995, three New Haven-area women developed the idea of an arts and ideas festival drawing on the area’s eclectic intellectual resources. The first festival was just five days long, but soon the International Festival of Arts & Ideas grew. In its first years it featured a Gilbert and Sullivan production performed by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, the American premiere of the prize-winning play Copenhagen, and more.
The 20th festival, which runs from Friday, June 12 to Saturday, June 27, has grown to 16 days in length and features venues all over the city and some surrounding towns. It offers activities and events that are mostly free for people of all ages and interests.
It has become, according to Mary Lou Aleskie, the festival’s executive director, exactly what its originators wanted: a destination event that brings people from around the world to our area. Each year up to 15 percent of those attending festival events travel from out of state to enjoy the offerings. In addition, thanks to the 120,000 attendees and the more than 600 artists participating annually in the festival, there is a direct economic impact of money spent in the area of between $10 and $12 million, Aleskie says.
With approximately 80 percent of the events free of charge, the largest demographic of people attending are families earning between $40,000 and $60,000 per year.
Support for the festival comes mainly from the state of Connecticut, local corporations, national sponsors, and foundations. The ministers of cultures in many countries support their artists’ traveling to the festival.
The festival is unique because it does not focus on just one art form or one subject area.
“It has always been equal parts of arts, ideas, community,” Aleskie says. “It is the bringing together—[hence] the ampersand [in the festival name]—the intersections that makes it unique.”
Each year the festival plans its programming around one or more themes that use “extraordinary talents to connect to issues and the community,” Aleskie adds.
This year the International Festival of Arts & Ideas is combining several themes. One is the environment. Another is celebrating and connecting to the festival’s history.
Ten years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It led this year’s festival organizers to think about waterways and the environment, and “what is means to lose connection to land,” Aleskie says. Two New Orleans-based performance companies—Mondo Bizarro and ArtSpot Productions—will present Cry You One at Maltby Lakes on Route 34 in West Haven from Saturday June 13 through Sunday, June 21. It is billed as a “processional performance with music, dances, and stories from the heart of south Louisiana’s disappearing wetlands.”
Tying into this look at waterways and the environment are the canoe and kayak tours of Lighthouse Point and the Mill River, the walking tours of the Water Treatment Plant, and some of the bike tours. In cooperation with WNPR, there will be a conversation on “Waterways and Our Changing Environment,” which will be broadcast as an episode of the show Where We Live. Scientists, environmental activists, and journalists will join State Senator Ted Kennedy, Jr., for the discussion.
Several years before the festival began (in 1992, to be specific), the nation was riveted by the Rodney King case in Los Angeles. A bystander videotaped King being beaten by four Los Angeles police officers, all of whom were acquitted. Riots followed the jury’s verdict. This year, in association with Long Wharf Theatre, the festival is presenting Rodney King, written and performed by Roger Guenveur Smith. According to the press materials, Smith considers King one of the “first reality TV stars,” and his work fuses “facts and friction, motion, and emotion.”
There will also be a conversation moderated by New York Times Washington correspondent Charles Savage that will focus on “Surveillance and Civil Liberties in the U.S.” David Medine, chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and Laura Donahue, professor of law at Georgetown University, will discuss the ongoing issues of national surveillance and privacy.
Each year, the festival has several headline acts—past highlights have included performances (often on the New Haven Green) by the Metropolitan Opera and Yo-Yo Ma. This year, the headliners include Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Darlene Love (June 13); world-famous performance artist Taylor Mac and the world premiere of “The 1990s,” commissioned by the festival (June 12 and 13); Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Kurt Elling performing a concert of songs of love with the New Haven Symphony (June 20); and Lucinda Williams, whose rock and folk has a Delta overtone (Friday, June 26).
Carmen de Lavallade, a legendary dancer who taught at Yale School of Drama and performed at the Yale Rep—her Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest was magical—will be honored with a conversation as well an original performance piece, titled As I Remember It, that traces her illustrious career.
Sinatra, who frequented the pizzerias on Wooster Street, was born in 1915. In collaboration with the Grammy Museum, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the Sinatra family, the festival hosts a number of events including an exhibition of photographs from the family’s personal archives and a panel discussion on Sunday, June 21 that will include Tina Sinatra and his granddaughter as well as performer Kurt Elling.
The Mark Morris Dance Group will reference the festival’s early commitment to opera with Acis and Galatea on Thursday, June 18 and Friday, June 19, a staging of the Handel opera. Fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi designed the costumes. The work features dance, vocal soloists, and choral artists.
Family Fun Day on the Green on Sunday, June 14 will include a variety of performances and activities and will culminate in a dance party.
In the last few years, the festival has become a platform for innovative circus performers, including Les 7 Doigts de la Main (7 Fingers), which appeared the last few years. This year is no exception: Machine de Cirque, an ensemble of young acrobats from Quebec, will perform from Tuesday, June 23 through Saturday, June 27.
In addition to the official festival events, there are a number of unofficial events held during this period. For a full schedule of events with descriptions, locations, dates, and times, visit www.artsideas.org.