The season of new beginnings is making good on that promise, with fresh exhibitions and performances sprouting up in some of the city’s most fertile plots.
Monday, March 25
The public library system’s perennial display of artwork by local public high school students commences today on the lower level of Ives Main Library (133 Elm St, New Haven; 203-946-8130). Titled Creative Minds: The Art of New Haven Youth, the show gets an opening reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Free.
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Tuesday, March 26
About a day later, you can come back to Ives for “Heritage, Memory, and the Future City.” Part of the library’s Democracy in Crisis event series, the lecture by Elihu Rubin, an associate professor of architecture, urbanism and American studies at Yale, is free and starts at 6 p.m.
Wednesday, March 27
Amid a flurry of related programming, the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, housed within Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library, is branching out to the Loria Center (190 York St, New Haven) for a futuristic-sounding “demonstration by Kia Hays of USC Shoah Foundation’s Dimensions in Testimony Program—a collection of interactive biographies that allow people to have conversations with pre-recorded video images of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses to genocide.” The demonstration, to be followed by “a panel discussion on possible pedagogical benefits, as well as pitfalls, of this new technology,” begins at 5 p.m. Free.
Thursday, March 28
One historic local organization examines another at the New Haven Museum (114 Whitney Ave, New Haven; 203-562-4183), where Capturing Life and Beauty: Women Artists of the New Haven Paint & Clay Club gets a free opening reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Founded in 1900, the Paint & Clay Club is “one of the oldest exhibiting art associations in Connecticut and the Northeast” and was an early adopter of gender-inclusive policies. “Connecting to broader issues in history and women’s rights,” Capturing features 30 works produced at various points in the club’s long existence.
Yale Cabaret’s fourth annual Satellite Festival, featuring “live music, dance, installation and experimental performance,” begins at 8 p.m. today and ends during the wee hours of Sunday. In that time, eight new creative displays with titles like Exit Interview and This is Not Art, It’s Just Asian will play out multiple times, mostly within the Cabaret’s home building at 217 Park Street but also inside a drama school annex building at 149 York. Tickets—which are in fact weekend passes that give you access to any performances you like (though advance reservations are still necessary for specific performances of one play, Truck II, because seating is very limited)—cost $25, or $15 for students and Yale faculty/staff.
Friday, March 29
A Nation Reflected: Stories in American Glass, an exhibition that “explores the myriad ways in which glass expresses the cultural, technological and artistic aspirations of those who live and work in the United States,” opens at the Yale University Art Gallery (1111 Chapel St, New Haven; 203-432-0601)—and if you have the whole day free, you might consider attending the conjoined symposium, “Stories in American Glass: New Scholarship, New Perspectives,” which runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (registration required).
An Iliad, a “contemporary and immediate” adaptation of Homer’s epic tale of deities and war, enjoyed its opening night Wednesday at Long Wharf Theatre’s Stage II space (222 Sargent Dr, New Haven; 203-787-4282). Tonight’s telling of “the story of humanity’s unshakable attraction to conflict with heart, humor and compassion,” begins at 8 p.m., with tickets priced between $35.50 and $75.50.
Ralph Peterson’s Fo’tet alternates between witty and gritty and pretty during 8:30 ($20) and 10 p.m. ($15) sets at Firehouse 12 (45 Crown St, New Haven; 203-785-0468), where Peterson, a drummer of especially good quality, leads a quartet rounded out by vibraphone, clarinet and upright bass through delightful jazz arrangements that feel both experimental and classic.
Saturday, March 30
An itinerary of back-to-back interfaith parties begins at 5 p.m. at Long Wharf Theatre (222 Sargent Dr, New Haven), where local music groups including the Afro-Semitic Experience and the Isabella Mendes Bossa Nova Trio are performing to raise funds for the New Haven-based Immigrant Bail Fund. Tickets to the concert, titled “Freedom Songs,” are “pay what you can” at the door, with proceeds benefiting IBF’s efforts to pay bail for Connecticut immigrants, detained for deportation proceedings, who might otherwise “lose their jobs, housing, and custody of their children.”
Then it’s onto Bregamos Community Theatre (491 Blatchley Ave, New Haven, in a space that’s actually part of Erector Square), where the Jewish holiday of Purim combines with the frivolity of April Fools’ to form what organizers have dubbed “Purim A’ Fools”—“a noisemaking, rule-breaking, binary-blurring and end-to-business-as-usual kind of costume party.” The schedule begins at 7:30 with a critical examination of Jewish texts related to Purim, then proceeds at 8:30 to a klezmer show by Nu Haven Kepelye and culminates in a straight-up dance party at 9:30. Promising “snacks, booze and dancing all night long,” organizers suggest a donation at the door between $5 and $18.
Sunday, March 31
At Kehler Liddell Gallery (873 Whalley Ave, New Haven; 203-389-9555), Re:connecting, a new exhibition of work by Liz Antle-O’Donnell (mixed media, printmaking), Julie Fraenkel (drawing, painting, mixed media, papier-mâché sculpture) and Matthew Garrett (photography), enjoys an artist talk at 3 p.m. followed by a reception from 4 to 6. Each artist differently regards the idea of reconnecting—with “self,” in Antle-O’Donnell’s case; with other people, in Fraenkel’s case; and with an art form, in Garrett’s case. Free to attend.
Written by Dan Mims. Image, of a pair of candlesticks produced by Boston and Sandwich Glass Works between 1845 and 1865, provided courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.
