by | Jun 7, 2023 8:47 am | Comments (3)
Abiba Biao photo
Darlene Brumell (right) and grandson Amir at NHS fest.
Sherman Avenue brightened to the sounds of beating drums and the flavors of falafel, barbecue, and tacos at Neighborhood Housing Services’ (NHS) ninth annual multicultural festival.
by | Jun 6, 2023 8:43 am | Comments (2)
Eleanor Polak photo
At Monday's Shakespeare-in-the-schools rehearsal.
Nineteen middle-schoolers, all dressed in black, filed into the band room of Mauro-Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet School. They were preparing for the dress rehearsal of their production of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Before they took the stage, however, they partook in a light refreshment of fruit snacks, Cheez-Its, juice boxes — and grapes. When the students dangled bunches of the purple fruit from their hands, they looked for all the world like the Roman citizens they were about to embody.
Continue reading ‘Mauro-Sheridan Lends Its Ears To The Bard’
by | Jun 6, 2023 8:33 am | Comments (1)
The paper houses are perched on the ragged edges of foam cliffs. There are places in the world like it, where people have built actual houses in unlikely places, on rocks all too close to the water, on stilts over surging marshes, on the sides of mountains. But the houses in this art exhibition push it all just a little further. Upon closer examination, some of the structures are more improbable than real houses could be. Others are built high overhead; you’d have to have wings to live there. Finally, there are the houses built on a wall’s vertical face, oriented sideways. To live there, you’d have to defy gravity.
by | Jun 5, 2023 10:54 am | Comments (7)
Nora Grace-Flood photos
Hamden Academy of Dance and Music dancers ...
... and quads and motorcycles ...
.. help fill the streets for the Freddy's festive return to Dixwell Ave.
Thousands of people filled Dixwell Avenue to march and mingle in a revived Freddy Fixer parade, marking a moment of community celebration following an extended pandemic-prompted pause.
by | Jun 5, 2023 9:11 am | Comments (1)
Eleanor Polak photo
Manny James performs at Dixwell Neighborhood Festival.
The area outside the Q House on Dixwell was full of colorful clothing, gleaming jewelry, and the rumbling of drums Saturday afternoon. Children laughed as they adorned canvases with painted flowers. Adults donned their sunglasses, thankful for a day that was comfortable but not too hot. Over at one end of the space, people were setting up a stage and running sound checks. Dixwell was ready for its neighborhood festival, now also part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.
Continue reading ‘Dixwell Makes Good Company At Neighborhood Festival’
by | Jun 5, 2023 9:03 am | Comments (6)
Allan Appel photo
Valerie Richardson lives on a houseboat in the marina and makes art, often of the river and its bridges
A place of peace and sanity, almost a stay-cation; a sense of history so deep you can feel the life of people here 10,000 years ago; a place where the local beer is a beautiful amber and you can also practice tai chi, as the gods intended, in nature, down by the banks of a river.
Continue reading ‘Hundreds Hit The Marina For 15th Annual Quinnipiac Riverfest’
by | Jun 5, 2023 8:58 am | Comments (3)
Karen Ponzio Photos
WNHU's Jess Finn, Bruce Barber, and J.J. Dionisio.
This past weekend saw 88.7 FM WNHU, the award-winning venerable radio station of the University of New Haven, kicking off a yearlong celebration of its 50th anniversary with three days of alumni events that included a banquet, panel discussions, on-air reunions, and a shared hopefulness about the future of college radio.
by | Jun 5, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (0)
I finally have my first spy satellite.
by | Jun 2, 2023 8:30 am | Comments (0)
Robert Bienstock
Concentricity 3.
Robert Bienstock’s Concentricity 3 is an abstract piece, but the lines are evocative of several natural forms at once. They could be the shapes on a topographical map, depicting hundreds of square miles of land. They could also be organic or inorganic forms growing under the light of a microscope. Bienstock may make conceptual art, but the patterns point toward the real.
by | Jun 1, 2023 5:13 pm | Comments (3)
Laura Glesby Photos
Laura Boccadoro hangs up symbols of pride and "peace."
Paper cranes await a place hanging along Olmo's walls.
A flock of hand-folded, rainbow-colored paper cranes took flight inside Olmo Bagelry on Thursday morning, carrying a message of queer pride and affirmation.
by | Jun 1, 2023 10:08 am | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen photo
Welcome to the Monterey? The current condition of the historic former jazz club, five years after Ocean Management bought it.
More than $260,000 in unpaid liens and blight fines appear to be holding up the city’s planned purchase of the long-derelict former Monterey Jazz Club and surrounding Dixwell properties.
by | Jun 1, 2023 9:12 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photo
Strange Ways' Val Ruby-Omen and Alex Dakoulas.
New Haven has a way to celebrate Pride Month for all of June, thanks to a series of events organized by Val Ruby-Omen and Alex Dakoulas of Strange Ways in Pitkin Plaza.
It begins with a vendor fair and queer beer unveiling this weekend at Armada Brewing in Fair Haven and continues at the 151 Orange St. shop all month, including mixers, a pop-up market, a chance to draw a drag queen, and an open mic night.
by | Jun 1, 2023 9:04 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak Photos
Haven String Quartet at Yale Art Gallery.
“Think about the relationship between listening and looking.”
So encouraged Jessica Sack, curator of public education at the Yale University Art Gallery and organizer of “Playing Images,” at an event that combined artwork with the music of the Haven String Quartet.
Continue reading ‘Haven String Quartet Makes Painting An Experience’
by | May 31, 2023 8:53 am | Comments (2)
A strutting, triumphant anthem from Daniprobably. A sweet, country-inflected song of hope from Alexandra Burnet and the Stable Six. A rambunctious, sparking collaboration between Mightymoonchew and Dooley‑O. All these New Haven favorites and more appear alongside several other Connecticut bands in a state-spanning, 12-track compilation from Verso Records — a new nonprofit label attached to Westport Library that marketing manager and New Haven music scenester Brendan Toller hopes will become a harbinger for the future.
by | May 31, 2023 8:35 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak Photos
Robinson and unicorn.
Brian Robinson, organizer of Open Mic Surgery, the poetry open mic running for almost a year at Never Ending Books, walked into the State Street spot carrying a giant unicorn-shaped piñata. “You don’t leave a dog in the car.… I’m not going to leave a unicorn in the car,” he explained. “It could get hot.”
Continue reading ‘Open Mic Surgery Brings Poems And Piñatas’
by | May 30, 2023 8:53 am | Comments (4)
Brian Slattery photo
Isaac Bloodworth.
His characters grace New Haven’s walls and windows. His puppets appear on New Haven’s stages. Now and again, he himself appears at community meetings and labor events, helping facilitate the conversation while also keeping an eye on the goal of creating more equity, more inclusion, and more compassion. In his art and action, Isaac Bloodworth has had a hand in shaping the direction the Elm City is moving in.
by | May 26, 2023 3:19 pm | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
The McKoy family wins the day at Celentano school art auction.
Not wanting to get outbid for a third year in a row, Nicole McKoy showed up to a Prospect Hill auction ready to spend big to be extra sure she’d win the drawings made by her two favorite artists — who just so happen to be her daughters.
by | May 26, 2023 8:17 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Midnight Psychic.
Unapologetically pounding drum machines. Guitars and basses suffused with enough effects to meld with the keyboard washes in the background. Vocals floating in a sea of reverb. The sound of darkwave — a morose, sexy strain of music that rose out of punk and new wave in the early 1980s and has turned out to have a persistently long life — washed over Cafe Nine on Thursday night as three bands showed an eager audience how it was still done, four decades in.
by | May 26, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (0)
There goes an inexpensive life preserver.
by | May 25, 2023 5:01 pm | Comments (5)
Haseeb Mohammed whipped up an Indian take on chicken tacos Thursday to feed a crowd on Orange Street celebrating the enhanced rebirth of a popular fast-casual restaurant.
by | May 25, 2023 8:16 am | Comments (0)
Esmeilyn Tejeda
Herterochromia Iridium.
Esmeilyn Tejeda’s Herterochromia Iridium is the portrait of a man and an exercise in style. Tejeda’s attention to the details of her subject’s face and the abstractions she introduces work together to reveal something of the subject, his strength and his vulnerability. The painting is part of a series of Tejeda’s, and the aim of that series — “an exploration of how facial expressions give way to deeper personal insights, the challenges of removing our masks to reveal who we are when confronted with public scrutiny, and the juxtaposition between the facade we display versus the emotions we attempt to subdue” — shines through.
by | May 24, 2023 8:34 am | Comments (2)
Nicky (John Cassavetes) is squirreled away in a seedy hotel. He’s sure that the mob has a contract out on his life. He calls Mikey (Peter Falk) his childhood friend and the only ally he thinks he has left in the world. Mikey arrives to tell Nicky that he’s just being paranoid; everything’s going to be fine. The problem is, Nicky’s right. And Mikey just might be in on it.
by | May 24, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (0)
by | May 23, 2023 8:34 am | Comments (0)
Ike Abakah Photo
Trey Moore.
“Love Drugs,” the first cut from the New Haven-based musician Trey Moore’s new album Psychedelic Love Drugs, starts as a smooth number, a sultry guitar, a gentle rhythm. “Reality,” Moore sings. “I want it now.” As if in response, the song kicks into a new mode, with swirling keyboards, a dirty drumbeat, lush strings. It’s a signal for what the album has in store; as the name implies, Psychedelic Love Drugs is about expansion — mentally and musically.
by | May 22, 2023 8:51 am | Comments (0)
Mali Obomsawin.
“It’s good to be in the building where we recorded this album,” said Mali Obomsawin at the beginning of her sextet’s set at Firehouse 12 on Friday night. “Feels full circle. It’s good to be back.”