by | May 13, 2021 8:44 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Lys Guillorn.
Wednesday night gave beloved New Haven-based singer-songwriter Lys Guillorn a chance to perform live from Holberton School for District Arts and Education’s biweekly series, one that Guillorn herself mentioned that she has been watching since the livestream series began last year.
Continue reading ‘Lys Guillorn Reaches Out Live From District’
by | May 12, 2021 1:46 pm | Comments (25)
Not allowed on Wallace Street … for now.
A plan to convert a Wallace Street warehouse into a “Las Vegas-style” entertainment complex hit a roadblock when a state judge upheld a city law that prohibits two strip clubs from being located less than 1,500 feet apart.
by | May 12, 2021 9:37 am | Comments (1)
Courtesy Lisa Tedesco
Filmmaker Lisa Tedesco is a planner, and thanks to that, neither the general disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic to the film industry nor a brief Covid scare on set could prevent her from making Spin — the story of two high-school seniors in a drama club who, after wrapping a run of Romeo and Juliet, let their feelings for one another run free.
by | May 11, 2021 9:08 am | Comments (0)
The summery nighttime sound of crickets and frogs. A guitar enters with an elegant line that outlines a harmony that voices then rest upon. It’s a woman and a man singing together in soft harmonies. “We’ve all but lost our brightest days, our past we trust so we stay / In deepest dark we breath and move, it’s how we know to be safe.” A small string section answers. It’s soothing and sad, an examination of resignation and retreat, soaked with understanding and compassion.
by | May 10, 2021 9:01 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Thabisa’s band, augmented by members of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, was in the full flower of the music it was making. Thabisa herself took a moment to pause in her singing and instead turn and dance intricate, powerful steps on the Edgewood Park stage set up for ArtWalk.
The people on the ground in front of her followed suit.
Friday night’s concert, uniting two institutions of New Haven’s music scene, kicked off the annual ArtWalk fest in Westville. It set the mood for Saturday’s events, a celebration of the ability of people to gather again, as the weather warmed, vaccinations continue, and masks were ubiquitous.
by | May 10, 2021 8:51 am | Comments (0)
Danielle Gordon / Cooperative Arts & Humanities
“Old Early Morning.”
Contributed Photo
Hill Regional Career student writer Amelia Stefanovics.
The following is a short story written by Hill Regional Career High School student Amelia Stefanovics and republished from the student magazine Elm City Sage.
by | May 10, 2021 8:49 am | Comments (2)
by | May 7, 2021 10:19 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Willie Moore and Patrick Williams.
Thursday was a near-perfect spring day, the first Thursday in a month that was not cold or rainy or both — blessing those eager to attend Harvest Wine Bar’s Jazz Thursday on its patio.
The restaurant has revived the weekly series, presented in conjunction with Blue Plate Radio Entertainment, that was so popular this past fall.
by | May 7, 2021 10:17 am | Comments (1)
Ransome
Coming Out.
Ransome’s Coming Out manages to be comforting and confounding at the same time. The artist’s use and rendition of a quilt makes it feel like safety.
But the men under the quilt don’t feel safe.
“It’s a painting about two gay slaves who were lovers,” said curator Howard el-Yasin, “which in itself speaks to rupture. One is looking at the arrows and the street, the other at the gallery. One is calling, and one is silent.”
Ransome’s painting tells a more complicated story of slavery and Blackness than one we might usually see in public, and it’s part of “Legacy and Rupture,” the show running at City Galley on Upper State St. through May 30. Curated by interdisciplinary artist and educator Howard el-Yasin, in addition to Ransome, it features artists Nathaniel Donnett, Sika Foyer, Merik Goma, James Montford, Kamar Thomas, and Marisa Williamson.
by | May 7, 2021 10:12 am | Comments (0)
REINALDO GOEYENCHEA/ LA VOZ HISPANA
by | May 6, 2021 9:14 am | Comments (0)
Be authentic and creative. Don’t be afraid of the word “no.” Redistribute power. “I want people who are watching to write this down,” said Adriane Jefferson, director of cultural affairs for the City of New Haven, in a Wednesday afternoon conversation with Guy Fortt, president of the Stamford chapter of the NAACP, Pamela A. Lewis, president of Connect-Us, a Bridgeport-based youth-development program that covers the arts and business networking, and Anghy Idrovo, co-director of CT For A Dream, a nonprofit that works with undocumented students in public schools around the state.
by | May 5, 2021 2:37 pm | Comments (2)
by | May 5, 2021 9:09 am | Comments (6)
Maya McFadden Photo
Anderson Curtis at Tuesday event.
A new city “cultural equity task force” is looking to get people to think of more than “Downtown” when they think of arts in New Haven.
Continue reading ‘Cultural Equity Task Force Seeks To Include More Of City In The Arts’
by | May 5, 2021 8:53 am | Comments (0)
A visit to a gynecologist’s office that may or may not be under siege. How copulation might resemble the objects you might find in your attic. And the travails of a child maligned by his shallow parents, seeking May 4‑appropriate, Star-Wars-themed revenge. On Tuesday night the Regicides — the improv troupe from A Broken Umbrella Theatre Company — started ArtWalk in Westville, which returns to live, in-person, yet still social distanced activities this year.
by | May 4, 2021 4:31 pm | Comments (10)
Lizabeth Cohen spent years studying New Haven’s fraught experiment in trying to wipe out poverty — and emerged with a lesson.
by | May 4, 2021 1:06 pm | Comments (11)
After 41 years, music is back in the Westville Flats.
Continue reading ‘Music Bowl Brings Good Vibes Back To Westville’
by | May 4, 2021 8:59 am | Comments (0)
“Sleepover,” the first cut from the New Haven-based Arms Like Roses’ new EP, Get Some Sleep, begins with a delicate guitar line and calming vocal, but the rhythm hints at the urgency to come. “I can’t speak,” the singer sings, “I’m sorry.”
Then, without warning, the song kicks into gear, blasting guitars and crashing drums, and the singer elaborates. “I can’t speak,” she sings again. But it turns out she has a lot to say.
by | May 3, 2021 9:19 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Zombii.
This past Saturday was the first of many things: the month of May, new state-level bar and dining guidelines, and a return to live music for two local bands at The Cellar on Treadwell. Local trio Zombii shared a bill with the Manchester-based Johnny Mainstream for a punk-punctuated night on the patio at the Hamden venue.
by | May 1, 2021 11:15 pm | Comments (19)
Sophie Sonnenfeld Photo
“Yale: Respect New Haven” painting in front of Yale President Salovey’s Office.
Armed with paint, roughly 150 organizers, union members, and New Haveners Saturday gathered to call on Yale to “pay their fair share” for tax-exempt properties and honor a local hiring commitment.
Continue reading ‘Labor Paints Prospect Street With “Respect” Message’
by | Apr 30, 2021 4:03 pm | Comments (14)
Thomas Breen photo
Tony Falcone’s “Fast Track” mural on Sports Haven outside wall.
A Queens builder has purchased the Sports Haven complex on Long Wharf for $6 million — and the betting money is on a long-term transformation of the oil drum-shaped gambling mecca and its asphalt sea of surface parking.
by | Apr 30, 2021 8:46 am | Comments (2)
Teaching artist Justin Pesce looked over his cast of A Comedy of Errors through the window of his Zoom meeting. Before him, on the screen, 13 students from Mauro Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet School were ready, in their Renaissance clothing, to perform.
“Show me what you got today,” Pesce said, both goad and encouragement. “Yesterday I challenged you and you stepped up to the challenge. I know each and every one of you can do it. Everybody get into your space. Have a great run through. We’re going to have fun.”
Continue reading ‘Mauro Sheridan Makes A Pandemic “Comedy Of Errors”’
by | Apr 30, 2021 8:45 am | Comments (0)
Persephone Hoffman / James Hillhouse High School
“Foraged Picnic”
The following is a poem written by Metropolitan Business Academy student Keiara Orr and republished from the magazine Elm City Sage.
by | Apr 29, 2021 4:15 pm | Comments (28)
Paul Bass Photos
Keith Mahler at the entrance to his latest live-music venue.
Michael Ulrich puts finishing touches on a wall inside the arena Thrusday as officials cut the ribbon.
The center-court net was gone. Along with the court. Monster amps rose from a new concert stage.
And a new era officially began for the Connecticut Tennis Center — as an outdoor concert venue called Westville Music Bowl.
by | Apr 29, 2021 9:37 am | Comments (1)
In the main room of Horizon Recording Studio on a recent afternoon, Phil E. Brown laid down a hard, swinging groove on the drums. Elijah White, Morris Trent, and Teddy Boyd — a.k.a. Dr. Bottom — filled out a smoky sound on keys, guitar, and bass. Fred Nobles, Jr., on saxophone, danced over the top.
But the star of the hour, approaching the microphone in an isolated booth, was Yvonne Monk Adams, of the Monk Family Singers.
In the course of her life she has sung gospel, funk, blues, and jazz, but that day she was there to turn the jazz standard “Summertime” into a cry from the heart about being Black in America that felt as old as the song itself and right up to the present moment.
Continue reading ‘Yvonne Monk Adams Turns “Summertime” Inside Out’
by | Apr 29, 2021 9:35 am | Comments (0)
Ted Littleford