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Brian Slattery |
Mar 10, 2020 12:13 pm
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Two friends, Grace and Asta, are running through a summer house with a bundle of burning sage. It’s to drive the evil spirits from the house, says Asta’a mother Kate. Asta’s showing Grace how it’s done, as they bless walls and windows, doorways and floors. Then, in a hallway, Asta stops and screams. There’s a dead rabbit on the floor. How it got there, or what it means, is anyone’s guess. Kate brings the body outside. But the spirit seems to linger.
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Allan Appel |
Mar 9, 2020 12:14 pm
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Allan Appel Photo
A drab stretch of wall beneath the I‑91 overpass at Middletown Avenue and Front Street gives a grey, dull, cold concrete welcome — really a non-welcome — to Fair Haven. That may soon change with an artistic facelift.
Not from the state Department of Transportation, which owns the wall, but thanks to Fair Haveners who voted to spend $7,500 of public money to use art to improve the northern gateway to their neck of the city.
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 9, 2020 12:08 pm
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Tom Peterson
Dreamscape 11.
Balconies bathed in dark light under a red sky. A pale streetlight in a neon atmosphere. A window flashing yellow under an angled roof and a black cloud. These are among the images in Tom Peterson’s “Dreamscapes,” a series of photographs that take over City Gallery on Upper State Street until March 29, with an opening reception on March 12.
It happened about nine years ago — - three months after Dominick Splendorio opened his dream eatery, Zafra, a Cuban-themed restaurant and rum bar on Orange Street just above Elm.
The place was packed, having already developed a word-of-mouth following. A warm, gracious feeling spread among the guests, between the servers and the customers.
Amid the hectic serving of mojitos and ropa vieja, Splendorio’s then bartender tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Stop. Look up. See what you’ve created?”
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Thomas Breen |
Mar 6, 2020 12:04 pm
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Thomas Breen photo
Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison, with City Librarian John Jessen: Attending an HBCU was the “best decision that I made in my life.”
Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison knew almost nothing about historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) when she submitted an application to Morgan State University her senior year at Hillhouse High School.
After four years surrounded by peers, teachers, and administrators who looked like her, talked like her, and held a shared understanding of what it means to be black in America, she knew she had made one of the best decisions of her life.
Scenes shot in New Haven from Smitty Bop’s videos.
Smitty Bop boasts he is “so New Haven.” And he is telling the world in detail what that means — in song, and on video.
“I love my block,” he proclaims in one of his newer videos.
The rising rapper also has this to say about his hometown:
All I see is drug dealing, gang banging …/ Life’s a gamble, that’s why we carry eights …/ You’re Kermit Carolina and I’m Toni Harp/ Which means I’m winning and you losing …/
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 5, 2020 1:24 pm
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Brian Slattery Photos
King and Pettway.
There are fleeting moments in Skeleton Crew — playing at Collective Consciousness Theatre through March 22 — where time seems to stop. We’re in the break room of a Detroit auto plant, and though the noise of the factory is running outside, inside is where the action happens. Times are tough at the plant and the relationships among the people who work there are wearing thin. Conversations get had that can’t get taken back. Secrets are kept and then revealed. And then, at the end of several scenes, it’s just one character alone onstage — Faye, played by Tamika Pettway. The fluorescent lights blink out, and the set is bathed in blue, and the weight of the world seems to settle on Faye’s shoulders, reflected in Pettway’s worried eyes. What is she going to do?
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Karen Ponzio |
Mar 5, 2020 1:23 pm
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Karen Ponzio Photos
75 Dollar Bill
After a Tuesday that wasn’t so super for a lot of folks, Wednesday provided a much-needed respite in the form of a double bill at The State House featuring New Haven’s own Headroom and returning favorites 75 Dollar Bill from Brooklyn. Could everyone decompress and feel the music? The answer was a hearty yes.
The artistic director of a Portland, Oregon-based visual arts nonprofit will be the next executive director of Artspace as the longtime leader of the innovative Ninth Square gallery and cultural institution plans to step down later this spring.
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 4, 2020 1:15 pm
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Amanda Roberts
Lunar Spell Book.
Amanda Roberts’s Lunar Spell Book is emblematic of “Witchy” — the exhibit now running at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art through April 19 — not only because of its marriage of ancient ideas about magic possibly at play in the modern world. It’s also because it shares a wall with a dozen other pieces of art that, individually and collectively, become a celebration of feminine power in all its forms.
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Helena Chen Carlson |
Mar 2, 2020 1:13 pm
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Helena Chen Carlson Photo
Deborah Elmore at Saturday’s event.
As over 50 people gathered on the floor at Wilson Branch Library, Deborah Elmore acted out a skit in which she played the role of a hospital doctor and a television news reporter.
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Karen Ponzio |
Mar 2, 2020 8:38 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
The Olympics
Feb. 29 only comes around once every four years, and some people choose to celebrate it in a unique way. The State House not only chose to have a show on this day, but also booked one band with a long-standing dedication to that date, as well as three other bands more than ready to join in the fun. The Olympics headlined Saturday night. Along with that band was local legend The Vultures — making a rare appearance — with local punk partiers Flapjack Attack and Garbage Barge.
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Maya McFadden |
Feb 28, 2020 1:27 pm
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Maya McFadden Photo
Members of the audience taste Terry’s recipe.
While cooking up a savory carrot soup, nationally known “vegan eco-chef” and cookbook author Bryant Terry diced up a history lesson on the flavors and ingredients of African American food for Black History Month.
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Allan Appel |
Feb 28, 2020 1:26 pm
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Allan Appel Photo
Laura Clarke doesn’t know the exact number of people who have stopped in their sidewalk peregrinations to view the optical illusion art work down the Chapel Street alleyway leading to Temple Plaza. She believes it’s more than the number who attended Donald Trump’s inauguration.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 28, 2020 8:28 am
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You hear the crowd noise first in the opening seconds to “One More Dance,” the second track on Live at Brooklyn Bowl 2.7.20 — the latest in a string of recent releases by the New Haven-based band Eggy.
“What’s up, everybody?” a voice says. “We’re Eggy, we’re happy to be here.” An organ jumps into a pulsing, bubbly line. A guitar adds to the sunniness. The drums first keep time simply, then they and the bass drop into the syncopations the other instruments set up. A sung verse is just a setup for a long excursion, as guitar, keys, bass, and drums weave together with enough groove to keep things going for 12 minutes.
“Years ago they said goodbye,” the voices in the band sing. “But I still came for one last ride.”
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 27, 2020 3:26 pm
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Courtesy New Haven Museum
Guitar found in the former clock factory on Hamilton Street.
Clocks. The Sex Ball. A punk club, then an R&B club. An indoor skate park. The state’s largest LGBTQ club.
All of these are part of the past of the old New Haven Clock Company building on Hamilton Street.
In the present day, that factory complex is being cleaned up in preparation for development into housing, some of which is to include housing for artists. The reason for that concept — and the deeper history of artistic life in New Haven — is brought to sparkling, fascinating life in “Factory,” an exhibit that celebrated its opening on Friday and will run at the New Haven Museum on Whitney Avenue until Aug. 29.
Coronavirus emergency prep session Wednesday in the basement of the city government office building.
(Opinion) — For all the worth of Yale’s programs open to the public over the years, few have had the advantage of in-your-face timeliness. But one such program occurred this week, as the academic calendar collided with the worldwide health crisis.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 27, 2020 1:18 pm
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Brian Slattery Photos
Wednesday night marked the first night of a new monthly hip hop show hosted by rapper and producer Chef the Chef. It was called the Cold Quest Underground Music Showcase, and Chef had come with merch to spread the word. “Please grab some free stickers and put them in places you shouldn’t put them,” he said.
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Allan Appel |
Feb 26, 2020 1:15 pm
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Allan Appel Photo
There was no mistaking the profession of Tony Falcone behind his painterly mask.
Of course, right off the library shelves, Sam-I-Am was there in his tall floppy hat, along with Uncle Sam in his.
They were accompanied by a variety of cats and flappers. Standing tall and sleek above them Kiki Lucia was in a slinky silver dress promoting trans rights and the fundamental importance of the franchise.
“My mother always said, ‘If you don’t vote, you can’t bitch,’” she reported.
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Allan Appel |
Feb 25, 2020 9:50 pm
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Laura Glesby Photo
Shhhh! Last July 4’s fireworks atop East Rock.
“Quiet” fireworks for this July 4th?
They would certainly make the birds stay in their nests and please other animals and small children. But would it add up to a good ole Independence Day bash?
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 25, 2020 1:02 pm
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Elida Paiz Pineda took her shoes off and knelt next to them, then began banging on the floor with one of them. For the crowd assembled at 26 Mill St., it was like a judge calling a court to order.
Necks craned. An audience gathered, weaving its way among enormous sculptures of lint, bandannas, and plastic.
And as Pineda continued her performance piece, Rabia Mistica, Rabia Eterna, and more people came to take it in, it brought home that this exhibit’s opening day had created a real sense of community.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 24, 2020 11:04 pm
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The Zoo Story — a one-act, two-character play by now-canonical American playwright Edward Albee, now running at New Haven Theater Company through March 7 — is a short, sharp shock to the system. It begins when Jerry (Trevor Williams) approaches Peter (J. Kevin Smith), who is sitting on a bench in Central Park in New York City, reading.
“I’ve been to the zoo,” Jerry says. Peter, engrossed in reading, doesn’t hear him. Jerry repeats himself. Peter still doesn’t notice. Then Jerry gets a little hostile. “Mister, I’ve been to the zoo!” he says.
