It’s a worldly week in New Haven, with international footage showing daring acts and underdog politics, an exhibit honoring a world-premiere mill of yesteryear, a visit from a celebrated Uruguayan conductor and a weekend of pride sans prejudice.
Monday, September 21
A tour comes to College Street Music Hall tonight, but there aren’t any live bands. Instead there are scalers of sheer cliffs, rafters of very white water and wingsuiters leaping off mountain tops. These and other thrill-seekers are the subjects of the videos that make up the annual Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival’s “Radical Reels Tour,” a traveling mini-film festival featuring a selection of “the best high-adrenaline films” entered into the main competition. Screening commences at 7 p.m. and tickets cost $18, with proceeds benefitting The Denali Foundation, whose mission is “to develop, support and fund community outreach programs that promote youth and family engagement in the outdoors and to protect access to local green spaces.” 238 College Street, New Haven. (877) 987-6487.
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Tuesday, September 22
A guy who knows a thing or two about extreme landscapes is Patrick Heidcamp, chair of Southern Connecticut State University’s geography department. But his research focuses less on natural environments and more on highly unnatural ones—specifically, commercial farms. At 5:30 p.m. inside Southern on the Green, a.k.a. SCSU’s satellite location on the 10th floor of 900 Chapel Street, Heidkamp parlays what he knows into a discussion of “Eco-Labels and Ethical Consumption,” offering “a critical assessment of the value of eco-labels, using the coffee and wine industries as examples.” Free.
Wednesday, September 23
We Americans tend to focus on just our own political campaigns. But we aren’t the world’s biggest democratic experiment. That title belongs to India, where the political system bears fleeting similarities to ours, with established parties—albeit many more of them, and less centralized—corralling most of the votes through sheer institutionalization, giving non-establishment upstarts very little chance to compete. But just as in America, every now and again an outsider party manages to make waves. In 2013, a documentary crew shadowed the doings of Shazia Ilmi, a leading candidate on the ticket of the new Aam Aadmi Party, a.k.a. “Common Man’s Party,” as it waged its fledgling campaigns “to vanquish political corruption and bring power back to ordinary people.” The resulting film is An Ordinary Election, screening tonight in Yale’s Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven) from 6 to 9. Free.
Thursday, September 24
The New Haven Museum’s presentation of The Nation’s Greatest Hits: 100 Years of New Haven’s Shubert Theatre bows this evening with an opening reception at 5:30. The first room of the exhibit is meant to recreate “an ambiance reminiscent of the ‘front of the house,’” organizers say, “with vintage ushers’ uniforms, special lighting effects, a ‘real’ red carpet and even a small section of theater seating.” Other rooms show “display cases of ephemera” like original playbills from some of the Shubert’s 600 pre-Broadway trial runs—among them 300 world premieres, like Carousel, The Sound of Music and Away We Go (subsequently renamed Oklahoma!)—alongside plentiful historic photos both of the scenes and behind them. Free. 114 Whitney Ave, New Haven. (203) 562-4183.
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Friday, September 25
At 7:30, the Yale School of Music’s largest ensemble, Yale Philharmonia, opens its 2015-16 season at Woolsey Hall (500 College St, New Haven; 203-432-4158) with a big-name guest conductor: José Serebrier (pictured above), whose conductor and composer bios, published on his website, read rather astonishingly. They tout the 76-year-old Uruguay native’s status as “today’s most frequently recorded conductor,” with 37 Grammy nominations “in recent years” alone and a list of awards, grants, commissions and other recognitions that seem to reach into every corner of classical music patronage in America. Tonight at Woolsey, Serebrier is set to lead the Philharmonia through Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise, his own “Partita”—as organizers note, “the same piece with which he made his U.S. conducting debut at age 19”—and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, with tickets going for between $10 and $15 or less if you’re a Yale employee or a student.
Saturday, September 26
Following a 1-point nail-biter over Colgate last weekend to start the season, the 2015 home opener for the Yale football squad kicks off at 1 p.m. today against the Cornell Big Red. The setting, of course, is the historic Yale Bowl (81 Central Ave, New Haven), with tickets costing $15 unless you’re over 62 years or less than 13, either of which knocks $5 off the price.
Sunday, September 27
The local LGBTQ community and friends have quite a weekend planned. It started Friday at 5 p.m. with a kickoff wine-and-hors-d’oeuvres reception at City Hall (165 Church St, New Haven), followed after 7 by a short march to the New Haven Pride Center (84 Orange St, New Haven; 203-387-2252) for a cocktails-and-buffet open house. Yesterday at 2 p.m. inside the Ives Main Library (133 Elm St, New Haven; 203-946-8138) was “#SPEAKFORYRSELF,” intended to “elevate the stories, identities and experiences of queer and trans youth in New Haven,” followed from 4 p.m. on by the “Pride New Haven Block Party,” which closed down a city block (around the intersection of Orange and Center Streets) to make room for “vendors, entertainers and guests.” Finally, from 5 to 9 p.m. tonight, there’s a “Pride Wrap-Up Party and Dinner Buffet” at 168 York Street Cafe (203-789-1915), where $19.95 covers the meal and a show of “music, drag and comedy.”
Written by Dan Mims. Photographed by Clive Barda/ArenaPAL. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.
