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Brian Slattery |
Feb 6, 2024 10:00 am
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William Frucht
From the series Coney Island.
WIlliam Frucht’s photograph from Coney Island combines rigor and humor to make for an engrossing image. On the rigorous side, there’s the strict geometry of the workout equipment, the thin band of ocean separating tan sand from slate sky. On the humorous side, there’s something entertaining about the poses; they’re exercising, but they’re also like kids on playground equipment. More generally, there’s the juxtaposition of the handful of people working out with the multitudes in the background lounging in the sun. For every person working to get their heart rate up, there are 10 more who maybe think they’re trying too hard.
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Karen Ponzio |
Feb 5, 2024 9:21 am
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A scene from "Queen of Katwe."
How does a young girl from Uganda go from beginning chess player to champion? Disney’s Queen of Katwe documents the journey from one to the other as well as the struggles and triumphs in between. The 2016 film was the first entry in this month’s “Free Film Fridays: From Stage to Screen: Celebrating Black Yale School of Drama Alumni” at the Ives branch of the New Haven Free Public Library.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 2, 2024 9:17 am
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Gregory Crewdson
Untitled (from the series Beneath the Roses).
Gregory Crewdson’s arresting photograph is nearly five feet tall and eight feet across, large enough for a viewer to get completely engrossed in the details. The scene at its most basic is simple enough: A man standing by a river bank, shirtless; a makeshift shack behind him, lit from the inside; beyond a stand of trees, a row of houses.
But the mood, the lighting, and the details all set the wheels for any number of stories in motion. Does the man live in the shack? Or does someone else? Or does anyone? Do the people who live in the houses know someone’s down there by the river, or is the man truly isolated? And what has brought him to the water’s edge at night? Is he lost in contemplation? Is he waiting for someone else to arrive? Or, perhaps, is he watching intently as something’s happening, maybe on the opposite shore, maybe in the water itself? Maybe this is actually a scene of ferocious action, only just out of frame.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 1, 2024 9:00 am
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The Afro-Semitic Experience.
“Unity in the Community” begins with a classic hymn-like statement from Warren Byrd’s piano, carried aloft by a chorus of voices, bubbling bass and percussion, and horns passing a joyous melody from one bell to the next. “Why don’t we come together?” Byrd sings. “Why do we got to fight? / Let’s be like sis and brother / who finally got it right.”
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Maya McFadden |
Jan 30, 2024 12:03 pm
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Maya McFadden Photos
Junior Klever Chilel practices omelet making.
Friday's fresh blackberry scones and brown sugar banana muffins.
Genesis Correa flipped a farmer’s omelet onto the grill, Damani Wheeler cut thick slices of ciabatta toast, Klever Chilel delivered the fresh off the grill breakfasts, and Tracey Salazar poured customers of the Wilbur Cross Bakeshop a cold cup of fresh grapefruit juice.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 30, 2024 9:09 am
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Brian Slattery Photo
New Haven Improvisers Collective.
It was 7:30 p.m. on Monday at Never Ending Books, and Bob Gorry of the New Haven Improvisers Collective had a few instructions for the musicians gathered in the room.
The collective always started with the same exercise, of playing long tones together, “whatever that means on your instrument,” Gorry said. “It’s very important for listening and for figuring out the room. It’s really important that you hear everybody.”
The idea was to play a tone as long as possible, then pause and play another, while listening to everyone else. “If you can’t hear someone,” Gorry said, “play quieter.”
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 30, 2024 9:00 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
The Haints.
Are you the type of music fan who wishes there were more shows that started before 8 p.m., but wants the feel of a late Friday or Saturday night out? Are Sunday brunches too early for you, but you also don’t want to stay out too late? Three Sheets has something perfect for you the last Sunday of every month: a matinee that promises you an onslaught of punk music that is at just the right time for the late-to-rise-on-the-weekend, early-to-bed-for-work-on-Monday crowd.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 29, 2024 9:05 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
IfeMichelle Gardin offers gratitude.
The Bricks in Hamden was the place to be on Saturday night, as literature fans gathered to fete author and civil rights movement icon James Baldwin — and the beginning of a year’s worth of programming based on his works — helmed by IfeMichelle Gardin and her Kuturally Lit organization.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 29, 2024 8:55 am
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Mixed Company.
The band Mixed Company was doing its take on Abbey Lincoln’s “Throw It Away,” and the sound snapped into focus in the first chorus: “Throw it away / Throw it away / Give your love, live your life / Each and every day / And keep your hand wide open / Let the sun shine through / ‘Cause you can never lose a thing / If it belongs to you.”
Michael Carabello on keys, Conway Campbell, Jr. on bass, and Jonathan Barber on drums set up a strong and sultry rhythm. Taylor McCoy’s voice floated over the top.
Those in Jazzy’s Cabaret on Friday night stopped talking, paused over their meals, to listen. It was as if a signal had been sent across the room to pay attention to what was going to be a great night of songs.
Ready to fly: HSC students Jonah Rosenberg, Jazmin Rosario, Diana Robles, and Justin Welch, who worked with Japanese class to fold 1,000 paper cranes to take to Japan.
High School in the Community (HSC) junior Ty’Nique Turner will get the chance to visit Japan and try out the language she’s been teaching herself since middle school, thanks to New Haven Public Schools’ return of international adventures.
Assuming organizers can raise a lot of money fast.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 26, 2024 9:34 am
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Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove.
The return of Yale students to campus for spring semester means a new class schedule for them, but it also means a new spring screening schedule for the Yale Film Archive, one that is free and open not only to those students, but to the general public.
This week the first two films of their “Treasures from the Yale Archive” series — Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on Tuesday and Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb on Thursday — were screened to full rooms of film fans in all of their 35 mm glory. And according to managing archivist Brian Meacham, this is only the beginning. The Treasures series is one of three film series the Archive presents each semester.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 26, 2024 9:15 am
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(2)
Brian Slattery Photos
New Cardiff Giants.
A Thursday night of churning rhythms, big guitars, barked lyrics, and dancing feet at Cafe Nine made the case that New Haven’s rock ‘n’ roll scene is alive and well, and possibly growing, as four Elm City bands kept people moving for hours.
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Donald Brown |
Jan 25, 2024 4:21 pm
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Contributed Photo
Sarah Kane.
The plays of British playwright Sarah Kane (1971 – 99) are notoriously difficult — for staging, and for what they put an audience through. The warning distributed by the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, for the production of Cleansed, running through Jan. 26 at the University Theater, reads: “Cleansed contains nudity; graphic simulations of sexual and physical violence, sexual intimacy, suicide, incest, death, and drug use; as well as coarse language. These actions are enacted by and on Black people. This production also contains loud sounds, extended gunfire, live flame, fog, bright lights, and strobe lighting effects.”
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Jan 25, 2024 4:15 pm
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(21)
Nora Grace-Flood Photos
Kennies Earl: Not "invisible."
Mother Juniper members Lindsay Skedgell and Christian Abbott: Jamming conversion plans.
Mother Juniper frontwoman Lindsay Skedgell unplugged from her Vox AC15 and tuned into Zoom from a “vacant” ex-factory building to send developers a message: 91 Shelton is far from empty.
Skedgell was among dozens of artists who banded together to flood the City Plan Commission’s Zoom room after hearing earlier that day that their studio space, a five-story former factory building at 91 Shelton Ave., is slated for sale to a self-storage company.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 24, 2024 9:15 am
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Howard El-Yasin
Blue Velvet Suitcase.
Blue Velvet Suitcase is simple: a wooden chair, a small suitcase, a shirt from a uniform, neatly folded. It’s unassuming enough that it almost — almost — invites the viewer to sit in the chair. But the text printed on the facing wall tells us we’re looking at so much more.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 23, 2024 8:47 am
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Kimberly Wipfler Photo
Flake singing at Stetson Library with family and Monk Youth Jazz.
“Kind of surreal” is how Marcella Monk Flake described winning a Connecticut Arts Hero award this year. But in a sense, Flake’s award is the most natural thing in the world, another step in a life steeped in the arts, education, and community since before she was a child.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 22, 2024 12:55 pm
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(2)
Brian Slattery Photo
Angel Piss.
Sounds like nature. Sounds like video games. Choirs of unearthly voices and raspy tones from a saxophone. And people listening hard to build sounds together. All of this awaited the healthy crowd that showed up at Never Ending Books on Friday evening for a triple bill of The Sawtelles, Human Flourishing, and Angel Piss.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 22, 2024 9:44 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
Jeff Fuller and Friends.
Jazz can be found practically every night of the week in New Haven: at cigar bars, alongside pizza, and amidst videos and DVDs, among other places. For a jazz fan who wishes to partake of live music even during the day, Elm City Market has brought back its popular weekly jazz brunch on Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., which means not only do you get tunes, but you can have a meal (or a muffin or a mug of coffee or both) as well.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 19, 2024 10:52 am
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(7)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Baldwin books available at Possible Futures.
Hosts Lauren Anderson and IfeMichelle Gardin spreading that "book joy" on kick-off night.
The vibe at Possible Futures was lit Thursday night — more specifically Kulturally Lit, as the literary-focused arts organization’s 100 Years of Baldwin Book Club had its inaugural meeting exploring the works of author, playwright, thinker, and civil rights icon James Baldwin.
Daniels band hits "Misty" at citywide attendance event.
Seven students showed up to school Thursday and brought clarinets and flutes to their lips — to help New Haven celebrate the fact that more kids are showing up in school.
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Babz Rawls Ivy |
Jan 18, 2024 12:43 pm
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(3)
Steven Kaffa Photo
As I’ve been reflecting this week on Dr. King and the ongoing struggle for Black folks’ rights, I had the chance to chat with legendary artist Lonnie Holley, known for his improvisational musical performances and artwork made of found objects, in advance of his time in New Haven and performance at Yale’s Schwarzman Center on Jan. 18.
Don’t listen to the new single from the Afro-Semitic Experience if you wish to remain mired in despair over the state of the world or the harshness dividing groups of people.
