Spirals Multi-genre arts event 770 Chapel St. March 30, 2025
What is protest art? What is political art?
Since the dawn of state-regulated “artivism,” artists have felt the pressures of society to either opt in to the whole label — use the right keywords on applications, categorize themselves neatly for gatekeepers and audience members, and perhaps be taken less seriously by those who espouse the ideals of “pure art” — or attempt to stay out of politics, an impossible task for someone whose existence is inherently political.
On Sunday afternoon at 770 Chapel St., artists and art-lovers alike simply chose a secret third approach.
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Jisu Sheen |
Mar 31, 2025 12:10 pm
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Fernanda Franco engaging a new generation.
Jonathan Bower, Myra, Caleb, Louise Umutoni, and Estelle gather together for a quick moment before exploring what to draw next.
Aristocratic portraits lined the walls of the Yale Center for British Art on Day 2 of its grand reopening weekend Sunday, accompanied by the low din of museum-goers walking around, pointing out famous pieces. But the kiddos knew where the real action was at. They were on the fourth floor, sitting on the carpet being mesmerized by local literacy org New Haven Reads’ art-themed storytime.
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Karen Ponzio |
Mar 31, 2025 11:36 am
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A still from "Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles."
Voulez-vous French 75? No, I’m not asking about the gin-based cocktail, but rather the latest series from the Yale Film Archive, which celebrates a trio of French films made in 1975 that are in turn celebrating their 50th anniversary this year.
The first of the series was shown Friday night in all of its three-hour and 22-minute glory. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles brought forth cinephiles who filled nearly every seat of the theater in the Humanities Quadrangle on York Street to experience the film Sight & Sound magazine ranked number one in their “Greatest Films of All Time” poll in 2022.
It would be uncouth for me to tell you what two movies I saw Thursday night at the monthly gathering of Best Video’s Secret Music Documentary Society.
The group is secret, after all. Their policy is that you can’t ask about previous titles; if you miss a screening, you have to live knowing you may never find out what the group watched in your absence. What happened there was a secret.
Thursday night’s gathering was the latest edition of the monthly society, which Faith Marek and Gorman Bechard founded this January to share unreleased, suppressed, or otherwise underground documentaries about the musicians we know and love. The group meets on the fourth Thursday of every month (except next month’s meeting, which is on Wednesday, April 23) to screen secret films and discuss secret thoughts over pizza and beer. (You can check Best Video’s event calendar for updates.)
Without mentioning any film titles or main characters, I’ll tell you what I can about the sights and sounds of the films playing Thursday evening. The first short film of the night was “compelling, even though it was Barbies,” according to audience member Jeremy Hudson.
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Lisa Reisman |
Mar 27, 2025 11:19 am
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Strega New Haven's Danilo Mongillo.
Midway through a recent conversation at Strega New Haven on Chapel Street, Danilo Mongillo paused. His phone was ringing again.
Mongillo, Strega’s owner and executive chef, was talking about the roots of his ragù sauce. “There is nothing really to it, there is no other way to do it,” he went on, after hanging up. “The roots are there. You can’t change it. You can put a different ingredient on top to finish, but in the end this is about knowing our roots.”
Earlier this month, Gambero Rosso, the world’s foremost authority on Italian food, wine, and travel, recognized the pocket-sized Chapel Street restaurant for its excellence in authentic Italian cuisine.
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Jamil Ragland |
Mar 27, 2025 8:14 am
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Alcee Chriss, Wesleyan University organist
Alcee Chriss Trinity Organ Series Trinity College Hartford March 25, 2025
Somewhere Over the Rainbow is one of my favorite songs, so I was surprised to hear Alcee Chriss describe it as a complicated piece.
“This is going to be something of an amorphous take, but we’ll see how it goes,” Chriss, one of the state’s most renowned organists, said during the annual Clarence Watters Memorial Recital at Trinity College. Again, I didn’t get it: if there’s a piano version, then it must not be that hard to play an organ version, right?
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Jamil Ragland |
Mar 26, 2025 8:00 am
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Cracked Open gallery.
Love, Loss and the Book of Walks by Deb Todd Wheeler, 2025.
Cracked Open Artspace Gallery Hartford March 24, 2025
I found the most striking piece of the “Cracked Open” exhibit currently at Artspace Gallery, to be Love, Loss and the Book of Walks by Deb Todd Wheeler, which was co-created as a community grief ritual. Her 18-year-old son died in 2017. She invited her community to share and light candles, and Wheeler played a song that she wrote. They left behind the artifacts of their ceremony, forming a collage of a life I never interacted with, yet still feel like I know in some way.
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 25, 2025 10:39 am
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Hannafin: Exploring natural, hidden connections through art quilts.
Connections and networks run through artist Rita Hannafin’s work on a few different levels.
First literally, as her chosen medium is the art quilt, which deploys thread itself in complex ways. Hannafin’s art for decades has also drawn strength and inspiration from the networks and communities of artists around her, as she finds advice from friends and fellow practitioners helps guide her work. Finally, in Hannafin’s latest show — “Whispering Forest and Other Conversations,” running now at City Gallery through March 30 — she has chosen as her subject the book Finding the Mother Tree, which details the science behind trees and how they cooperate and communicate through fungal networks running under the forest floor.
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Jisu Sheen |
Mar 24, 2025 12:50 pm
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Teo Hernandez sings his heart out.
Wally The Shop Hamden March 21, 2025
Teo Hernandez asked someone to cover his shift at Hamden’s Best Video, and it wasn’t his brother Lucas, even though they work together. Mild-mannered video store sweeties by day and New Haven indie rock stars by night, the Hernandez brothers had both accepted Saturday evening as their turn to embody the latter.
As daytime bled into night, longtime followers and soon-to-be fans alike ebbed into local recording studio The Shop to see the Hernandez brothers’ band Wally play their first full-band show in about a year.
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Adam Wassilchalk |
Mar 24, 2025 9:34 am
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Clue Shubert Theatre March 20
A colorful group of strangers gathers at a mansion. Before long, a body is discovered. Everyone has a motive, a weapon, an opportunity, and a secret. A journey full of misdirection, mishaps, and mayhem culminates in the culprit being revealed.
It’s a tried and true setup for a whodunit mystery. Of all the works in this great genre, I consider Clue, the 1985 film based on the board game of the same name, to be one of the best, and by far the campiest, there is.
It’s my pleasure to report that the stage adaptation of Clue, a national tour that played at the Shubert Theatre this weekend as part of its Broadway Series, was an experience as fun for the whole family and just as accessible and satisfying for devoted fans of the film as it was for anyone lucky enough to be experiencing the fast-paced murder mystery comedy for the first time.
You might treat her like dirt. But when the romance ends, she’s gonna write and deadpan-chant the following lyrics about you:
The silver hoop on my finger was a noose Emotional suicide whenever I was with you Why would you date me if you fucking hate me? And why would you fuck me if you think that I’m ugly?
I hope it hurts when you think of me I hope you know that you sicken me … I’m choking on all the breath I waste while blood and vomit’s all I can taste
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Jisu Sheen |
Mar 21, 2025 10:26 am
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Cover art for "What a Guy."
SB Khi, a multi-genre star of the younger, post-pandemic-onset generation of musicians in the New Haven scene, made a stop at a dive bar in Pennsylvania when he had an encounter that would end up inspiring his newest single.
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Karen Ponzio |
Mar 21, 2025 10:25 am
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The Year of X Book Club selections at Possible Futures.
“Through individual agendas that battle oppression and in the uniting of efforts, Black women have found a way, even when seemingly impossible, to give life,” writes author Anna Malaika Tubbs in the opening paragraph of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation.
Tubbs’ book is the third to be discussed this year in Kulturally LIT’s monthly series, “The Year of X Book Club.” It had a major impact on the readers who came to Possible Futures to discuss it Thursday night with its insight into the lives of three women — Alberta King, Louise Little, and Berdis Baldwin — who birthed, shaped, and influenced three of the most influential figures of the 20th century.
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Jamil Ragland |
Mar 21, 2025 7:00 am
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Jack Quaid stars as Nate in Novocaine.
Novocaine Apple Cinema Xtreme Hartford March 19, 2025
Bank assistant Nate (Jack Quaid) is a typical everyday guy, except that he suffers from a rare condition called congenital insensitivity to pain and anhidrosis, or CIPA. He hits it off one day with his coworker Sherry (Amber Midthunder), and after a great date, the next day the bank is robbed and Sherry is taken hostage. It’s up to Nate and his small but stalwart group of allies to save her from the murderous bandits.
That’s the standard plot in the new comedy Novocaine. There are one or two twists to keep things interesting, but nothing major. Instead of plot machinations, Novocaine relies on the charisma of its stars, and a genuinely funny script.
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Jamil Ragland |
Mar 19, 2025 1:54 pm
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Clayton Stephenson informs and entertains during Notes and Narratives at the Artists Collective in Hartford.
Notes and Narratives with Clayton Stephenson The Artists Collective Hartford March 18, 2025
I ventured back to my old stomping grounds in the North End of Hartford for a classical piano concert featuring Clayton Stephenson, and got so much more than I was expecting. Founded by the world renowned saxophonist Jackie McLean in 1970, the Artists Collective is one of the premier arts institutions in the state, and trains Black and brown children from Hartford in music, dance, theater and more. I went there when I was a kid, and so did my son when he got old enough.
So it made sense for the Collective to host Clayton Stephenson, the Joyce C. Willis artist in residence at the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. The residence program supports Black artists and aims to increase diversity in the arts community.
Unlike at a regular concert, Stephenson turned his performance into an educational experience. He began by showing the audience how Franz Schubert took one musical passage in his Impromptu and built an entire song around it.
Lise Davidsen as Fidelio, the courageous wife in disguise and role model for standing up to autocrats.
On our drive on toward Milford and the Connecticut Post Mall, I fiddled with the car radio, turning off the drumbeat of distressing news out of the nation’s capital.
165 Years of House, the documentary that New Haven teacher and filmmaker Raven Mitchell is carefully constructing, describes concentric circles of community working together to support young people’s development. Mitchell uses this lens, based on a model called Bronfrenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, to describe the importance of Hillhouse High School over its 165 years of existence.
From interpersonal bonds in the family to parent-teacher relationships, connections to media and beyond, according to this model, each circle of community has an impact on the other levels and, ultimately, the child at the center.
On Saturday afternoon at NXTHVN art gallery in Dixwell, several of these circles were at play as Mitchell presented a sneak peek of her documentary-in-progress to a room full of intergenerational love, support, and family of all kinds.
Gallery co-owner Inger DaSilva, art framers Jonathan Peterson and Libby Boyd, and gallery co-owner Gabe DaSilva.
Miami is Coming to New Haven DaSilva Gallery Through March 25
At Miami is Coming to New Haven, the current group show at DaSilva Gallery & Frame Shop in Westville, you can tell the pieces are full of stories, seeming to whisper among each other about who will get your ear, your eye, first.
You can also tell the show is in a working frame shop and busy gallery, with the active energy of a system that never stops.
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Aster Aguilar |
Mar 17, 2025 2:06 pm
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Syncopated Ladies Live! Shubert Theatre 247 College St. March 15, 2025
Two-thirds of the way through Syncopated Ladies Live!, Emmy-nominated lead choreographer Chloe Arnold led the audience in a tap dancing lesson. She dictated heel/toe touches until they went fast enough to be mistaken for a drumroll.
My attempt sounded more like an engine starting. I looked around the audience, and an unspoken consensus passed between us: Damn, this is a lot harder than she makes it look!
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Jisu Sheen |
Mar 17, 2025 10:05 am
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Milk, then cereal; Flores Zaldívar disagrees with the kids these days.
At the “Bad Cereal & Cartoons” event at Best Video Saturday morning, the Looney Tunes characters getting into television mischief might have seemed to be for the kids’ benefit. There were certainly many sets of young eyes up front enchanted by Tweety Bird, Tom, and Jerry, while adults hung back and chatted over iced lattes at their tables.
A closer look revealed that several of the older attendees were enjoying the on-screen high-jinks, too, perhaps just as much as the children. Some even had bowls of Lucky Charms and milk next to their grown-up drinks.
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Karen Ponzio |
Mar 17, 2025 9:52 am
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Sesame Street Live! Say Hello Shubert Theatre March 14, 2025
Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street? Friday night, it was on College Street. The Shubert Theatre to be exact. It was the place to greet and get playful with the iconic children’s show’s crew of monsters and other lovable birds and beasts in their newest Sesame Street Live! stage production, aptly titled Say Hello. This reporter, a lifelong fan, and her husband made a date to dive back into some core memories while watching a captivated and super cute crowd party with their fuzzy faves.
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 17, 2025 9:33 am
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Thin Lear.
Matt Nilsen, Thin Lear, David Wirsig, and Niagara Moon Never Ending Books March 14, 2025
There was a microphone set up, but Matt Nilsen dispensed with it, instead forgetting about the stage and standing on the floor right in front of the audience. He strummed his guitar a couple times, just to test the room.
“There’s no graceful way to do this except to just do it,” he said, and started his set. In doing so, he set the tone for an evening of music on Friday at Never Ending Books — featuring him, Thin Lear, David Wirsig, and Niagara Moon — that brought musicians and audience closer together, literally and figuratively.
The annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade filled New Haven’s streets Sunday with music, spectacle, and high stepping, including from LBS Spinnerz Arts fire breathers (top photo), Penny Farthing bicycle riders from Freewheeling Connecticut (middle), and (at bottom) Woodland String Band, which was founded in 1926 and made it all the way up from Philly.
