by | Nov 19, 2024 3:42 pm | Comments (5)
Paul Bass Photo
Plant-based panorama: Some of the flavors at newly-opened Vía Láctea
The sign said “frozen desserts.” Some people called it “ice cream.”
Whatever they called it, a crowd dug into scoops of plant-based … “nice cream?” Tuesday at a ribbon-cutting event on Whitney Avenue.
by | Nov 19, 2024 2:55 pm | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen photo
Whoa!
Lisa Reisman photo
Payton, Ellis, and Anaya with muralists Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn: “This is why we’re doing this.”
The challenge was steep. To scour the globe for a muralist to lend such pizzazz to a 240-foot blank warehouse wall that it would bring life to a faded stretch of town.
In the end, one factor sealed the deal: cartwheels.
by | Nov 19, 2024 8:17 am | Comments (1)
Bill Healy
Self Portrait, King Nothing, Princess Leia.
Bill Healy’s three collages cover three subjects, from the real to the imaginary, but are united by their distinctive personalities, half playful, half unsettling. In each face, there are a few delightfully recontextualized shapes. In Self-Portrait, the grimace is an Amazon smile turned upside down. One of King Nothing’s eyes is a bowl of soup. The middle of Princess Leia’s face is a tire. It’s the kind of lateral thinking that marks the most engaging collage art, and in another place, another space, the artist might be parlaying it into a social media following. But Healy — along with the rest of the artists in the show — isn’t on social media, and the work might not have made it to a gallery wall without a keen eye paying attention.
by | Nov 19, 2024 8:00 am | Comments (0)
Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans in Red One.
Red One
Cinemark Buckland Hills 18 XD and IMAX
Manchester
Red One is the first new Christmas movie of the year, starring Dwayne Johnson as the zealous head of Santa’s security detail and Chris Evans as an unscrupulous hacker he’s forced to team up with.
by | Nov 18, 2024 8:42 am | Comments (0)
Abiba Biao photo
Sonal Soveni and Kathleen Griffith.
In a warmly lit room on Chapel Street, entrepreneur and business strategist Kathleen Griffith posed a question to her audience: “What’s your outrageous ask?”
by | Nov 18, 2024 7:30 am | Comments (0)
Lioness dancers as part of The Lion King
The Lion King
Bushnell Center for Performing Arts
Hartford
Nove. 14, 2024
The Lion King has returned to the Bushnell Center for performing arts for the first time in years. If you have the ability, go see it. It’s a triumph of staging and storytelling for all ages of the family.
by | Nov 15, 2024 9:36 am | Comments (0)
A still from the film "Madame Sata."
Grit and glitter played equal parts in Thursday night’s Yale Film Archive presentation of Karim Ainouz’s Madame Sata, the 2002 film based on the true story of Brazilian legend Joao Francisco dos Santos, who fights his way through the streets and onto the stages of 20th-century Rio de Janiero to become a prominent trans performer who considers himself a “disciple” of Josephine Baker.
Continue reading ‘Madame Sata Takes The Screen At Yale Film Archive’
by | Nov 15, 2024 7:00 am | Comments (0)
An image of a father carrying his children at the Devotion exhibit at the Widener Gallery.
Devotion: Photographs from the Collection of the Watkinson Library at Trinity College
Widener Gallery
Austin Arts Center
Trinity College
Hartford
Nov. 11, 2024
Devotion is an exhibition of 25 images from the collection of the Watkinson Library, developed between 1925 and 1981 by 11 different photographers. The exhibition covers subjects from sexuality to children playing; the images of family caught my attention most.
by | Nov 14, 2024 9:33 am | Comments (0)
Robert Jacoby
Essence 13, Essence 15, Essence 9.
The three paintings are a celebration of abstraction, and abstraction of a particularly kinetic variety. The canvases convey the energy of a brush moving fast, decisions made at speed, less like deliberation and more like reaction, like a skier weaving through the woods. But the painter’s experience shows in the overall decisions made about the painting. The color choices set them off from one another, making each hue vibrate just a little more intensely. Most important is the decision of when to stop; even moving fast, the artist kept an eye on the whole, and in this case, let all that white space speak for itself.
by | Nov 13, 2024 10:58 am | Comments (0)
Abdullah Ibrahim.
Jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim waited at the piano, listening intently, while his bandmates, Cleave Guyton on flute and Noah Jackson on bass, finished a quietly acrobatic rendering of a Duke Ellington classic that was also a nod to Ibrahim’s past. Guyton and Jackson finished, and left the stage. Then Ibrahim began, slowly, deliberately, with exquisite touch and gorgeous dynamic control, the product of decades of playing. He took his time working through his theme, and as the large audience at the Shubert Tuesday was struck silent, seemed to stop time itself.
Ibrahim’s performance — organized jointly between the Shubert and the Schwarzman Center — was part of a string of performances carrying the venerable College Street theater through the end of the year.
Continue reading ‘Shubert Ending Year With String Of Shows, New Space’
by | Nov 13, 2024 8:33 am | Comments (0)
Red Deb by Deborah Kass
A Jewish Perspective on Deborah Kass’s Single Red Yentl with Rachel Spiegel Gerstein
Wadsworth Atheneum
Hartford
Dec. 12, 2024
How much does identity matter when it comes to art?
Continue reading ‘How "Triple Elvis" Spawned Quadruple Barbra’
by | Nov 12, 2024 6:20 pm | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen photos
Is that NYPD Blue... in Wooster Square?
And who's the lady in white?
Ohh, it's a film shoot! For "The Monster."
In front of large computer screens and a focused film crew, a woman in a white dress walked up to a Wooster Square brownstone pretending to be New York City.
She reached the top of the entrance. Before she could open the door and walk inside, she stopped, turned, and walked back down the stairs — ready to repeat those moves again and again, as part of a new horror movie being filmed in part in New Haven.
by | Nov 12, 2024 8:15 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery photo
The first floor of the Ely Center of Contemporary Art was full of bright colors and bold shapes, the sounds of insects and cartoons, even a few smells. Melanie Carr’s installation exemplified the first category, with its simple geometry, friendly colors, and a shape that conveyed its pillowy texture. Touch this, the piece all but screamed — a message spelled out with notes on the wall, inviting visitors to use their hands.
But this was an art exhibition at a gallery space, a place where, as children, we learn not to touch anything, ever. That’s why I hesitated for a comically long time, pushing against decades of learned behavior to navigate museums without bumping into anything, let alone reaching out to make contact with something. Finally, feeling a little like I did when I first jumped off a diving board as a kid, I put out my hand and touched the art. The material itself felt like I expected. The act of touching the art felt like hitting cool water on a hot day.
by | Nov 11, 2024 12:22 pm | Comments (0)
by | Nov 11, 2024 8:53 am | Comments (3)
“How many people are here to hear the song ‘Jim Martin?’” asked Al “Pist” Ouimet, lead singer of local punk legends The Pist — who on Friday celebrated the release of their 7‑inch vinyl record that included a song about another local punk legend, Jim Martin. The crowd cheered loudly enough to confirm that yes, many of them were. It was one moment of many that solidified the strength of not only the local punk scene’s commitment to continuing to make music that matters, but to letting their friends and fans know that their connections to each other are just as strong.
by | Nov 8, 2024 9:04 am | Comments (1)
Saoirse Ronan as Rona in The Outrun
The Outrun
Real Art Ways
Hartford
Nov. 7, 2024
About one hour into The Outrun, I realized that I was watching one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.
by | Nov 8, 2024 8:57 am | Comments (0)
NHTC Photos
Ralph Buonocore.
It’s been years since Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell met, and in that time, the literary stars of both poets have risen. They have each moved from place to place in the United States and beyond, and chased and acquired romantic partners. They are living lives, on one level, that seem full of realized ambitions. And yet none of that stops Lowell from writing to Bishop, long into their correspondence, that “I seem to spend my life missing you.”
Continue reading ‘New Haven Theater Company Explores Two Lives In Letters’
by | Nov 7, 2024 3:36 pm | Comments (0)
In My Cell by Elmer Saenz
Prison Arts Annual Show 2024
CT State Community College
Manchester
Nov. 6, 2024
When I was 8 years old, my father went to prison. I remember going to see him during the nearly two years he spent incarcerated. The cold gray walls were contrasted against different activities that the guards allowed my brothers and me to take part in with our father. And at the end of the day, regardless of how normal everyone tried to make it seem, we were still all in prison for a few hours.
by | Nov 7, 2024 9:35 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
Kendall Driffin and Susan Kulp in The Niceties.
Janine, a professor, has some feedback for her student, Zoe. “I’m glad you brought this in early. I can see you’ve done an impressive amount of work on it,” Janine says.
“Yeah, well. I tend to get a little intense about fulfilling requirements,” Zoe says. The tone in the room is still friendly, but something is changing.
“I wish you hadn’t plowed ahead like this — written the full draft without getting comments on the thesis,” Janine says. “I was just excited to lay out the ideas,” Zoe says.
“I’m afraid you’re in for quite a substantial rewrite,” Janine says. “Your argument is … fundamentally unsound.” She turns to the first page. “‘A successful American Revolution was only possible because of the existence of slavery,’” she reads out loud.
Now the mood has changed completely, though Janine doesn’t fully realize it. “Yes,” Zoe said. Janine challenges her, as only a professor at an elite college can: “Yes?” she says, the verbal equivalent. But Zoe, suddenly, is having no more of it. “Yes,” she says.
Continue reading ‘Collective Consciousness Peels Away "The Niceties"’
by | Nov 7, 2024 9:32 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photo
Velapatino, Caicedo, Tortora, Atehortua, and Diaz Costa.
Two Colombian films, both made of film fragments, gave audiences insight into the history of not only the country, but cinema itself, as the Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale (LIFFY) held its third night of screenings.
In its 15th year, the festival — which runs Nov. 4 to Nov. 10 — has over 40 films from 16 countries shown both virtually and in person as well as panel discussions and Q&A sessions to offer attendees, all of which are free and open to the public.
Continue reading ‘Latino Film Fest Gives Voice To Silent Witnesses’
by | Nov 7, 2024 7:45 am | Comments (0)
One of the pieces on exhibit in Past Curfew by John Guzman.
Past Curfew
Real Art Ways
Hartford
Nov. 4, 2024
When I took a look at the artwork in John Guzman’s Past Curfew, my first thought was: This is the world that existed once human beings retreated to the dream world.
by | Nov 5, 2024 7:55 am | Comments (0)
Allen Lowe.
On Friday night, the latest show in Firehouse 12’s fall concert series featured a journey through the American music of the 20th century before the rise of hip hop, as imaginatively seen through the eyes of one of jazz’s most central figures, Louis Armstrong. In walking decades in the icon’s shoes, it was also a trip through the latest compositional ideas of musician and writer Allen Lowe.
Continue reading ‘Allen Lowe Rolls Six Decades Into Six Songs’
by | Nov 5, 2024 7:49 am | Comments (1)
Tarrell (André Holland) confronts his father La'Ron (John Earl Jelks) in Exhibiting Forgiveness.
Exhibiting Forgiveness
Real Art Ways
Hartford
Nov. 1, 2024
I’m going to be real: I couldn’t wait to give Titus Kaphar’s new movie, Exhibiting Forgiveness, a glowing review.
by | Nov 4, 2024 9:32 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Lifetime achievement awardee Jesse Hameen II ...
... C.R. & Co. dancers open the show.
Artists and arts supporters from New Haven and beyond gathered Saturday night at the Canal Dock Boathouse for the 44th Annual Arts Awards presented by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. This year’s theme was “Coming Together,” and those who received awards epitomized that statement with achievements that focused on fostering community and offering uplifting and diverse opportunities and spaces for the arts.
Continue reading ‘Arts Awards Celebrate Lifetimes In the Arts’
by | Nov 4, 2024 7:54 am | Comments (0)
Jamil Ragland Photo
Damien Escobar plays at the Little Black Dress Gala
Annual Little Black Dress Gala
Infinity Hall
Hartford
Nov. 2, 2024
A friend told me that Damien Escobar, the world-renowned violinist, was performing at a gala called Little Black Dress to celebrate and benefit the Legacy Foundation of Hartford.
So I was prepared for some great violin playing, but I didn’t know I would also discover a great organization in my own back yard.