Arts & Culture

Freddy Fixer Makes A Triumphant Return

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.

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Dixwell Makes Good Company At Neighborhood Festival

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.

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Hundreds Hit The Marina For 15th Annual Quinnipiac Riverfest

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.

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WNHU Celebrates 50 Years On Air

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. 

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Reinaldo's Corner

by | Jun 5, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (0)

I finally have my first spy satellite.

Four Artists Find The Depth In The Field

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.

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Strange Ways Is Ready For Pride

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.

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Haven String Quartet Makes Painting An Experience

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.

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Verso Records Pumps Up The Volume

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.

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Open Mic Surgery Brings Poems And Piñatas

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.”

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Isaac Bloodworth Finds A Path For Joy

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.

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Cafe Nine Rides The Darkwave

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.

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Reinaldo's Corner

by | May 26, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (0)

There goes an inexpensive life preserver.

Painters Find The Point In The Abstract

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.

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Best Video Goes To Bat For "May"

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.

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Today's Ted Toon

by | May 24, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (0)

Trey Moore Takes A Trip

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.

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Memorial Playground Takes Shape On Winchester

by | May 19, 2023 2:38 pm | Comments (5)

Thomas Breen photos

Pilar Sanzari leads the flower planting at the newly built Kathy Carroll Playground at 660 Winchester.

Charla Nich and Kathy Carroll's daughter Kate Chivian on Friday.

Pilar Sanzari dug her gloved hands in some freshly poured soil to plant a colorful array of Shasta daisies, azaleas, petunias, and marigolds — as a vibrantly hued new playground took root behind her in honor of a beloved late Yale professor and substance use treatment researcher.

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Ghost Of Bill Monroe Welcomes The Sabbath Queen

by | May 19, 2023 8:39 am | Comments (0)

Contributed Photo

David Sasso, at far left, recording the new album with Jacob's Ladder.

Hunkered at home with his Martin D28 guitar one Blursday evening during the lockdown depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, David Sasso heard familiar melodies come out a new way.

Fast forward to May 2023: Sasso returned home to debut a bluegrass take on a traditional Jewish prayer service, with an album of said music about to drop.

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Reinaldo's Corner

by | May 19, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (0)