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Karen Ponzio |
May 28, 2020 10:13 am
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Jennifer Dauphinais Photo
Dauphinais at home among the flowers.
In the Crevasse, Munching the Sweet Leaf, and The Hawk’s Nest sound like they might be the titles of new songs by local folk singer-songwriter Jennifer Dauphinais, who performs under the moniker Ponybird.
They are, in fact, the titles of the first three episodes of another Dauphinais project, a YouTube series called “The Cursing Gardener” that follows Dauphinais in her trials and tribulations in connecting with the earth and attempting to cultivate and grow a garden.
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Thomas Breen |
May 27, 2020 3:02 pm
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Thomas Breen photo
Lamont, Elicker polish off mozzarella, tomato, and basil.
Gov. Ned Lamont and Mayor Justin Elicker took advantage of the state’s recent resumption of outdoor, sit-down dining to partake in a time-honored tradition among state Democratic politicos: a power meal at Portofino’s.
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Brian Slattery |
May 27, 2020 10:45 am
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Roderick Topping Photos
In one photograph among the six grouped together, the picture is just of a brick wall. But the diagonal light both sparks the existing pattern in the masonry and makes it more complicated. Those strong diagonals then make their appearance again, but this time as an architectural feature. Then it happens again, only now the diagonal is pure shadow, of a spiked fence, with a bicycle and a hydrant to bear witness.
“It was one of those bright. sunny days,” said photographer Roderick Topping of the first image. The light drew his eye to the pattern in the brickwork. But as the photographs in the open-air show at Studio Duda on Wooster Street show, Topping’s eye is drawn to the details of the Elm City nearly everywhere in town he goes. His camera lets us see what he sees; he shows us the city again.
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Karen Ponzio |
May 26, 2020 10:24 am
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Karen Ponzio Photo
Alyssa Breeden in front of a rainbow display of dresses at Civvies.
Many of us have wrapped ourselves in a fuzzy blanket of nostalgia as we stay home and brace for our next step out into the world, while businesses try to figure out how to reopen in a way that allows us to return to a few of our favorite things and keep in line with Covid-19 restrictions.
The announcement by Civvies New Haven, a vintage store on Chapel Street, on social media last week that they would be opening for private shopping appointments — with the added bonus of 50 percent off all purchases made during those appointments — allowed this reporter to return to two of her favorite things: shopping for vintage clothing and New Haven.
Ihsan, Ismail and Salwa Abdussabur and Ayanna Bakiriddin at the traditional meal, with a pandemic twist.
On the one hand, the family was together and the grilled lamb was so tender it was falling off the bone. On the other, lost opportunities and the dangers of Covid-19 had brought them there.
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Brian Slattery |
May 25, 2020 9:30 am
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Francesco Turrisi played his banjo like an oud, partaking of Middle Eastern tonality and phrasing. Rhiannon Giddens‘s voice, strong and sure, floated over the top of that, in a sound that felt American. There were no other sounds, and there didn’t need to be. In the space between their instruments, they bridged thousands of miles, and thousands of years.
“Ten thousand stories, ten thousand songs,” Giddens sang. “Ten thousand worries, ten thousand wrongs.” The lyrics spoke to hardship, but the voice sounded like hope.
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Brian Slattery |
May 22, 2020 9:42 am
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Kelly Sembos
Sembos.
“Born on a Leap Year,” the first track from The Backyard Committee‘s new album Surf Hotel Ghosts, starts with a sunny riff that has just enough salty grit and dissonance to keep things interesting. The band drops in, expanding the emotions, until the singer’s plaintive voice seals it up, making the track happy and sad at the same time.
“It’s not the real thing / What is it for? / The time is wasting,” the singer coos. “It was lost, it was found, it was shimmering with sound / And she watched / It was all too much to take.”
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Nora Grace-Flood |
May 21, 2020 11:45 am
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Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Eammon Ryan, second from left, with crew on opening day.
Eamonn Ryan was ready to start serving customers at The Playwright Irish Pub the moment the governor gave the green light — and five cooped-up Southern Connecticut State University students were ready to order.
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Brian Slattery |
May 21, 2020 9:36 am
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Jason Calogine was tired and prepared. Rehab Rajou was energized and excited. Isabella Fletcher-Violante was happy to be there. They and several other fellow Mauro-Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet students were on a Zoom chat with Michael Hinton, a teaching artist at Elm Shakespeare, recording a final few scenes for the school’s production of Cymbeline — which pivoted from theater to Zoom film project to keep the program going during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Emily Hays & Maya McFadden |
May 20, 2020 7:01 pm
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Emily Hays Photo
Enjoying a lunchtime beer and waiting for steak tips to arrive, Al Casagrande (pictured) felt safe sitting outside Temple Grill on the first day of Connecticut’s “phase one” reopening — safer than he feels on his construction job.
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Karen Ponzio |
May 20, 2020 9:03 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
Maxwell Omer at The State House rehearsing for the Cabaret last year.
Maxwell Omer is contemplative, calm, still, but not at rest. While many musicians are waiting for venues to open and trying to find a way to create through a pandemic-induced lack of gigs, the New Haven-based lead singer and guitarist for The Right Offs has chosen to remain present and put the work in where he can: with his songwriting.
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Brian Slattery |
May 19, 2020 9:59 am
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Who starred in My Fair Lady when it premiered at the Shubert Theatre in 1956? Whose ghost haunts the Palace Theatre on Broadway? What is the fastest song sung in Hamilton?
The questions may have been trivia, but the cause wasn’t trivial.
The trivia contest — as well as a series of musical performances, a sumptuous set of take-home snacks, and a quick cocktail lesson — were part of the Shubert’s “Next Stop: New Haven,” a fundraising event on Monday evening that drew together the theater, its patrons, and a few local restaurants for an evening of entertainment and a reminder of the importance of preserving downtown’s cultural scene through the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Brian Slattery |
May 18, 2020 9:55 am
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Brian Slattery Photos
Jungden.
Three concerts, 15 minutes each, in three different locations.
That was musician Jan Jungden’s assignment as the first performer in the International Festival of Arts & Ideas’s Arts on Call series, which allows patrons to support artists by booking them and having them deliver a short outdoor concert at their home.
Jungden made the rounds on Friday, from Orange to East Rock to downtown, leaving dozens of concertgoers swinging in her wake.
A half century after a Black Panther trial consumed New Haven and thrust it into the national discussion over racial and social justice, survivors of the episode as well as a new generation revisited that time to see what it means today.
