This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
05/31/2017 07:00 AMNo matter what your interests, you will find something to entice you to the 22nd International Festival of Arts and Ideas based in New Haven that runs Saturday, June 3 to Sunday, June 24.
Many of the events are free, many take place on the New Haven Green, and others explore the greater New Haven area.
While the first festivals focused on bringing arts (through performances and exhibits) together with ideas (lectures and panel discussions), over the years the festival has expanded.
It is now a mighty economic force for the region, fueling the local economy through tourism and purchases needed for the performers and events, and providing employment. Last year’s festival pumped more than $15.4 million into Connecticut’s economy, according to organizers. More than 100,000 people attended at least one event. More than half come from outside the Greater New Haven area; for more than seven percent of the visitors, it is their first visit to New Haven. Visitors spend on average of $140 on food, retail, lodging, and transportation.
This year’s festival is once again offering nearly 200 events; more than 150 of them are free events. Again, the festival is spilling out in to New Haven neighborhoods as well as nearby towns.
Chad Herzog, the director of programming and interim co-director of the festival, described this year’s festival as a festival “built for our region, a look back or a mirror on our region.” While earlier festivals brought the world to New Haven, this year’s festival is bringing New Haven to the world, Herzog added.
Another aspect of the festival that has changed over the years is an increased emphasis on “experiential” activities. That means connecting the lectures with other activities that give an additional perspective. Often these incorporate physical activities.
The festival is eclectic with no overriding theme, but in keeping with many of the issues that are important to the public consciousness, the festival is dealing with issues such as gun violence, self-image, the history and ethnic heritage of the neighborhoods, and more. Also, additional venues have been found to allow more Connecticut-based groups to participate.
Food, Drink & More
New Haven is known as a “foodie” city with a wide variety of outstanding restaurants; the area also features breweries and cocktail bars. Each year, food/drink experiences are extremely popular. Paul Freedman, the author of Ten Restaurants That Changed America will present a talk on Sunday, June 18 titled “American Cuisine, New England Cuisine, New Haven Cuisine.” He will talk about how we got where we are from, as the brochures states, “New England’s culinary identity created by the myth-making of Thanksgiving, to New Haven’s famous culinary specialties.”
For those seeking a more active pursuit, there will be a bike tours including one of “Food Haven” on Thursday, June 8; of the Shoreline Greenway Trail with Ice Cream on Wednesday, June 14; the Strawberry Festival at Hindinger Farm on Saturday, June 17; or 9 Squares, a History/Ice Cream tour on Wednesday, June 21.
Biking feels like too much work? Five other culinary experiences are on the schedule. A visit to No Worries Brewing Company for a tour and tasting (Thursday, June 15 and Friday, June 16); a Grand Avenue Gastronomy tour with Lee Cruz (Saturday, June 17 and Saturday, June 24); Oyster & Beer with Dave McCoart and the Black Hog Brewery (Monday, June 19); The Great Cocktail Mix-off: 116 Crown and Ordinary (Thursday, June 22); and Caseus and Black Hog Brewery: Beer and Cheese Pairing (Friday, June 23.) Reservations are required for all these and fees apply.
Altar’d Spaces: Performances in Churches
The four churches that surround the New Haven Green will be venues for a variety of performances by local and regional groups, in what is called Altar’d Spaces. Trinity Church on the Green will host a concert by Deborah Lifton, a local resident who is a well known performer of contemporary American opera and song on Wednesday, June 14; the Happenstance Theater—a clown-esque troupe—later in the evening on Wednesday, June 14; and Tere Luna & Val Ramos Duo with music and dances of Mexico, bolero, and flamenco on Monday, June 19. Center Church will host Taylor Bo Bynum & Friends on Sunday, June 11; Rap Guide to Climate Chaos by Canadian rapper Baba Brinkman on Tuesday, June 13; and Afro Peruvian New Trends Orquestra on Monday, June 19. United Church is hosting Mariachi Mexico Antiguo on Tuesday, June 13, and The Survivors Swing Band based in Wallingford, Olive Tiger, and Rolie Polie Guacamole, all on Wednesday, June 14. The First & Summerfield Church features on Saturday, June 10—Shoreline Ballet with an adaptation of Hansel & Gretel and Alison Cooke Beatty Dance from New York City, and on Monday, June 19 the word citywide high school poetry jam and Layavinyasa. These events do require tickets which are $10 each.
On the Green
The New Haven Green is the central location of the festival with many free events. On Saturday, June 17 the events range from 108 Monkeys Yoga to Box City, which allows anyone to help construct a city from boxes, Limitless is a teen dance competition connected to the New Haven Story Projects, where you can listen to stories recorded by residents on their history and experiences. The Rejuvenary River Circus (storytelling, live music, and puppets) performs on Tuesday, June 20 afternoon while on Wednesday, June 21 there is the Abbie Gardner Concert and Soro Bindi offering Ghanaian dances, songs, and stories. A highlight of Thursday, June 22 is the Open Ring Circus featuring up-and-coming circus performers from the northeast. The Bossa Nova Project Concert is at noon on Friday, June 23, and Gospelfest: Made in New Haven is in the evening. On the final day of the festival two activities focus on recycling and waste management: Sea of No Plastic where young people can create and share ocean pollution themed art and Trashion Fashion featuring local designers creating wearable art from trash.
The Headline Concerts
Once again the festival will feature a series of free concerts on the New Haven Green. This year, three evenings offer star performers. You can come early, watch the opening acts, bring food or purchase from local restaurants and food trucks, and enjoy yourself.
Saturday, June 17 will feature two Latin groups. Troker is six musicians from Mexico whose sound is described as careening “between the sublime and the dangerous. Metal riffage merges with powerhouse funk drumming and DJ scratching, a melodic horn lines pulled form jazz and mariachi traditions.” Following them is Fulaso, which is an acronym for “Funky Latin Soul.” The group comes from New York City, but features sounds from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Colombia.
The Jimmy Greene Quartet performs with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, June 18. Greene is a Grammy-nominated saxophonist as well as a composer, arranger, and Connecticut native. His album Beautiful Life celebrated his six-year-old daughter who was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
The final evening of the festival (Saturday, June 24) will feature The Wailers, who brought reggae to the world and elevated Bob Marley to superstardom. They’ll be joined by Rusted Root, billed as a “quintessential live band” featuring its own vision of roots music and world rock.
Talks and Tours
The variety of walking tours and exhibitions and talks may all be free, but you should make reservations. The size of the groups is limited and these are very popular. Among the nine different walking tours are those that focus on gardens (Notable Trees and East Rock Park, both led by the Connecticut Botanical Society), Yale (Adam’s Center for Musical Arts at Yale, Sacred Spaces of Yale, Campus Tour, and Yale Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Design), Industry (The Industrial Heritage of River Street, Whitney water Treatment Plant), and others.
The New Haven Museum, Yale Center for British Art, Yale Art Gallery, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library are all offering talks/tours on current exhibitions. The Yale Art Gallery is offering “Made in Connecticut” on Wednesday, June 14 and June 21 as well as “Furniture Study Tour” on Fridays, June 16 and 22. On June 16 there will be a talk at the Beinecke on Vita Sackville-West.
Theater, Music and Dance
The professional theater venues in New Haven will be used to present a variety of theatrical and dance performances.
Award winning choreographer Camille A. Brown and her dances perform Black Girl: Linguistic Play at Yale’s University Theater on Thursday, June 15 and Friday, June 16. Brown has said the piece was inspired by the games she played in her childhood. She added that she hopes it helps the audience to envision the world though a black girl’s lens.
[Be]Longing will be at Long Wharf Theater, Saturday, June 17 and Sunday, June 18. It’s described as a powerful performance event reflecting our society’s collective large-scale tragedies. Composer Byron Au Yong and librettist Aaron Jaferis created the popular Stuck Elevator that was at an earlier festival. It is described as being made by and for the New Haven community.
The Manuel Cinema company will perform The End of TV that is described as a “theatrical meditation that peers through the neo-reflections of late-20th-century advertising and television culture.” It was commissioned for the festival. It’s at Yale’s University Theater from Monday, June 19 to Thursday, June 22.
The Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall will host several concerts. The world premiere of Martin Bresnick’s oratorio, Whitman, Melville, Dickinson-the Passions of Bloom debuts on Tuesday, June 20. Modeled on Bach’s St. John’s Passion, it takes the thoughts of Harold Bloom, acclaimed literary analysist and Yale professor, on three American authors.
Grammy-nominated Wu Man and the Miró Quartet will perform a festival co-commissioned work by Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye on Thursday, June 22. Wu Man, who plays the pipa, which is sometimes called a Chinese lute, appeared at the festival in 2012 with the Kronos Quartet.
Also part of the festival are performances at the Yale Institute for Music Theater scheduled over two days—Friday, June 23 and Saturday, June 24. Three new musicals-in-progress and their creative teams will have spent two weeks in New Haven in an intensive lab atmosphere developing their works. The culmination is open rehearsal readings with a team of professionals—musical directors and a company of actors and singers. Cowboy Bob is about a woman in a small Texas town who was a successful “male” bank robber. Gumbo features a jazz and R&B inspired score in a story of a woman and her husband who must help save a city from a massive hurricane. REB+VoDKa+Me is about a teenager girl who is part of the Colombiners Pact, a group sympathetic to the Colombine shooters.
Documentaries
The New Haven Documentary Film Festival now in its fourth year will offer 11 days of documentaries as part of the Arts & Ideas Festival. All the screenings are free and open to the public, though space is limited. Those who purchase festival memberships enjoy priority access to these events.
Award-winning documentarians Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker will not only screen many of their documentaries, but will be on-hand for discussions on the weekend of Friday, June 9 to Sunday, June 11. The screenings are all at the Whitney Humanities Center on Wall Street.
Hegedus and Pennebaker became known with their prizing winning behind-the-scenes look at Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign, The War Room.
Among the other documentaries of theirs that will be screened are Startup.com about the rise and fall of the Internet start-up GovWorks.com. God Spoke: Al Franken, about a year in the life of the satirist (and now U.S. Senator), and King of Pastry, about 16 pastry chefs in a distinguish French pastry competition.
They will also screen a revised version of their 2016 documentary Unlocking the Cage, about the animal rights movement. It will be followed by a panel discussion.
In addition to those, the documentaries I Am Shakespeare: The Henry Green Story, about a New Haven high school student with a double life, and Tlaxcalal Dreams, about a small Mexican town many of whose residents reside in New Haven’s Fair Haven, will be shown. Also is Food Haven, which celebrates New Haven’s culinary scene and The Passionate Pursuits of Angela Bowen, about New Haven resident and dance guru.
For information on all of the events, visit artidea.org. While many events are free, there are ticket and membership packages that offer early access or discounts. Even free events may require pre-registration due to limited capacity.