Transgressive theater meets transcendent speech and a whole lot more, including the most-watched television event in America.
Monday, January 30
At 7 p.m. for $7, Best Video Film and Cultural Center (1842 Whitney Ave, Hamden; 203-287-9286) screens Crow Stories, “a unique immersion into the world of the Crow Indians”—“of hunting buffalo in the Bighorn Mountains, of Sundancers rehearsing in a nighttime meadow, of the fierce intra-tribal battles of the Handgame.” Filmed in Montana over the course of six years, the filmmaker is Sean Kernan, a photographer based in Branford.
Tuesday, January 31
About a quarter of the way through the 17th century, the English writer John Ford wrote a play with a title that still makes some of us double-take: ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Performed this week by the Yale School of Drama, with its first show tonight at 8 p.m., the producers of this rendition call it “a hurricane of sex, deception and murder,” in which “a pair of star-crossed siblings burn with forbidden passion,” unwittingly “
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Wednesday, February 1
Two free events at Yale, both starting at 5:30 p.m., force us to make a tough choice. One of them is “‘Skill’d in each art’: Royal Consorts, Culture, and Politics at the Eighteenth-Century Court,” a lecture and performance program at the Yale Center for British Art (1080 Chapel St, New Haven; 203-432-2800). Pinging the YCBA’s new exhibit Enlightened Princesses: Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte and the Shaping of the Modern World, which officially opens tomorrow, the lecture is by Enlightened’s lead curator, Joanna Marschner, and the performance, which involves video, costumes and lighting, is by Yale School of Drama actors.
The other event is a lecture by Bryan Stevenson, “a public interest lawyer widely acclaimed for his work on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned.” Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, which “recently won an historic ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court holding that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger are unconstitutional,” and recognized by Time and Fortune as one of the world’s most influential people, Stevenson is speaking inside the Yale Divinity School’s Niebuhr Hall (409 Prospect St, New Haven).
Thursday, February 2
“What is a body worth? Can a lover’s body be given, taken, hungered for, devoured? Can it be conquered, sown, traded, shared? Can it be remembered as easily as it can be dismembered?” Those are the unsettling questions asked by The Meal: Dramatic Essays on Cannibalism, opening tonight at 8 at Yale Cabaret (217 Park St, New Haven; 203-432-1566). “
Friday, February 3
Sheer, colorful sculpture by Edwin Salmon, who’s in the architectural metal fabrication business by day and uses some of the byproduct for his art (like the pieces pictured above), has been on display in Reynolds Fine Art (96 Orange St, New Haven; 203-498-2200) since January 6. But the artist reception happens tonight from 5 to 8. Free to attend.
Pastor, activist, head of the North Carolina NAACP and frequent talk show guest William Barber, who gave what is probably the most memorable speech of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, is speaking tonight at 7:30 during a free “public conversation” with Yale Divinity School professor Willie Jennings. 409 Prospect Street, New Haven.
Saturday, February 4
The Yale-China Association’s annual Lunarfest steps off at 10 a.m. today with the customary lion dance parade down Whitney Avenue (between Grove and Trumbull Streets). A family-friendly afternoon schedule of events from 1 to 4—involving Chinese cultural activities like a martial arts demo, a traditional music performance and a theater workshop—spans the New Haven Museum (114 Whitney Ave, New Haven), Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven) and, of course, the Yale-China Association (442 Temple St, New Haven), with a “finale performance at NHM at 4 p.m. Free.
Sunday, February 5
If you’ve been watching the news—or if you happened upon last night’s well-attended candlelight vigil outside Yale’s Sterling Library—then you know Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services’s Run for Refugees is coming in the midst of the most visible clamp-down on immigration to America—and the sanctuary cities like New Haven that welcome it—in quite a while. Registration for the “run or walk,” which follows a 5K route through East Rock Park and starts and ends at Wilbur Cross High School (181 Mitchell Dr, New Haven), is now closed due to an “overwhelming response,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t donate and/or spectate.
Oh, and it’s Super Bowl Sunday. The Outer Space (295 Treadwell St, Hamden; 203-288-6400) is hosting a “pregame concert” featuring Grateful Dead and classic rock covers from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m., with a “Super Bowl Party/Potluck” starting right after. Anna Liffey’s (17 Whitney Ave, New Haven; 203-773-1776) is hosting “The Liffey Bowl,” which features some sort of crowd game, from 3 to 6, followed by the football game. If you’re a Yale graduate student (or married to one), your best bet might be GPSCY (204 York St, New Haven), where a 6 p.m. party features “a really big screen with free tasty snacks and drink specials.”
Written by Dan Mims. Image depicts works by Edwin Salmon. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.
