| Written by Christopher Arnott |
| Wednesday, 09 June 2010 |
|
International Festival of Arts & Ideas June 12-26, Downtown New Haven. artidea.org. |
Talk about doing more with less: At the 15th Annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas, you can see a recreation of the Apollo 11 moon landing, a staging of the whaling epic Moby Dick and a multimedia tour-de-force about a European opera singer.
The number of live actors it collectively takes to perform this trio of expansive entertainments? Three.
You can call Irish actor Conor Lovett “Ishmael” and everyone else in Herman Melville’s novel when he performs Moby Dick (June 16-19, Long Wharf Theatre), aided onstage only by musician Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh. Andrew Dawson’s kid-friendly Space Panorama (June 22-26, Long Wharf Stage II, $15-$40) is a solo adventure scored to Shostakovich. And David Leddy’s Susurrus, a pre-recorded soundscape, synchronized to stopping-points along an idiosyncratic stroll through Edgerton Park, requires no live performers at all. (Susurrus is performed, rain or shine, at half-hour intervals noon-6 p.m. on June 12-13, 15-20 and 22-26, $30).
Other key theater and dance events are similarly streamlined: Big Dance Theater (which, belying its name, has only three company members) does Comme Toujours Here I Stand, its live adaptation/exploration of Agnes Varda’s 1962 film Cleo (5-7 p.m., June 23-26, Yale’s Iseman Theater, $25). The fun-loving National Theater of the United States of America’s Chautauqua! (June 23-26, Long Wharf, $15-$40), which revives a popular form of oratory and debate that toured the vaudeville circuit in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, bolsters its cast with locals: a guest speaker (Rosa DeLauro, Colin McEnroe and Jack Hitt among them) and a grand finale provided by the Yale Summer Cabaret.
Arts & Ideas saw its state funding cut 30 percent this year. “We took the austerity lumps we could take without being completely obliterated,” says the fest’s Executive Director Mary Lou Aleskie. Amazingly, A&I has been able to maintain the mission it established in the mid-‘90s. It continues to take risks with world premieres and U.S. debuts. The festival nurtures modern dance and contemporary classical composition while many other promoters have turned their backs on those fragile artforms.
And though the European festivals on which it was originally modeled are not known for such generosity, Arts & Ideas continues to present the majority of its programming free of charge — this year, that includes free concerts on New Haven Green from gospel legends The Blind Boys of Alabama (7 p.m., June 19), the Bronx-based beat-and-brass-happy salsa ensemble La Excelencia (6 p.m.. June 20) and no-nonsense children’s music superstar Dan Zanes (7 p.m., June 26). Those are the big national weekend headliners, but there are also two dozen other acts — from Berklee College of Music’s International String Trio to classically minded jazz trumpeter Thomas Bergeron to Celtic roots band MacTalla Mor to Boston funkster Iyeoka to Connecticut’s own Electric Junkyard Gamelan — playing the festival’s “Noon to Night” weekday concert series.
Even the ticketed events, such as the intimate outdoor “Courtyard Concert” series, try to keep prices down. This summer the Yale Law School Courtyard welcomes trumpet/dulcimer double-threat Amir ElSaffar and his Two Rivers Ensemble (8 p.m., June 15), Brazilian bossa nova rejuvenator Joyce Moreno (8 p.m., June 16) and Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba (8 p.m., June 17). Tix: $30 each.
“This festival was designed to build economic vitality by being accessible,” Aleskie says. That means access to the creative process, Aleskie calls it, and this year that includes the world premiere of a Christopher Rouse string quartet performed by the Calder Quartet (augmented by flute, clarinet and harp) 8 p.m., June 18 in Yale’s Sprague Hall. (Rouse reverberates the next night, June 19 at 8 p.m., at the Long Wharf, when Calder members join the ensemble Real Quiet for a concert of works by Marc Mellits, Kevin Puts and Michael Torke, all of whom studied with the Pulitzer-winning Rouse. Classical things calm down a bit with the more traditional Four Nations Ensemble playing sonatas by Handel and Turini and backing the mezzo-soprano warblings of Stephanie Houtzeel (7 p.m., June 20, Sprague, $25). Biggest ensemble is the 40-voice Palestrina Choir of St. Mary’s, 8 p.m., June 20 at Yale’s Battell Chapel.
An A&I alliance with the Institute of Music Theater at Yale, which stages readings of two new works-in-progress every summer, came about when a piece that A&I was already considering — New Haven native Aaron Jafferis’ Stuck Elevator — was accepted for the Yale workshop. Another serendipitious collaboration finds internationally renowned komungo virtuoso Jin Hi Kim, already in town as composer-in-residence for the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, performing under A&I auspices 5:30 p.m.. June 18 at Firehouse 12 ($15).
Not all A&I events are new-taste sensations. There’s an embarrassment of big names attached to the revival of the 1979 multi-media piece Dance (8 p.m., June 12, Shubert Theater, $15-$50)—Lucinda Childs choreography, a score by Philip Glass and a film by the late Sol LeWitt. Glass and Childs take part in one of the festival’s patented “artists in conversation” talkbacks at 3 p.m., June 13 in the Yale Art Gallery; the afternoon after Dance’s sole performance. Glass also gives a solo concert 7 p.m., June 13 at Yale’s Sprague Hall ($25). Lewitt, meanwhile, gets a “Connecticut Celebration” with talks at the Smilow Cancer Center (1 p.m., June 12, free) and Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek Synagogue in Chester (4 p.m., June 20, $25) and listings of key Lewitt paintings, sculptures and installations.
And lest we forget the “Ideas” end, there are panel discussions on “Rebuilding Culture in Iraq & Cambodia” (5:30 p.m., June 16), “Livability, Localism and Urban Utopias” (3 p.m., June 20), The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert and Yale Environment 360 magazine’s Roger Cohn discussing climate change (3 p.m., June 19), to name just three.
Big enough for you?
Lucinda Childs’ Dance isn’t the only major choreographic thrill of Arts & Ideas 2010’s opening week. Emmanuele Phuon’s Khmeropedies I & II brings traditional, starchy Cambodian royal court dancing into contact with earthier, rangier, more acrobatic modern Western dance movements. A video preview of Khmerpedies II starts with a literal collision of the styles, as a full nine-person ensemble alternates straight-backed strolls with akimbo kicks. The mood then shifts to a more fluid, meditative slow-motion piece with just four dancers. Then a trio, a couple of solos, a poppy quartet … The music spans eras and styles as broadly as Phuon’s choreography does, from delicate acoustic string instruments to unrefined hip-hop. The centuries of Cambodian tradition bring a serenity and stability to the show. The modern fleet-footed fillips bring the noise.
The number of live actors it collectively takes to perform this trio of expansive entertainments? Three.
You can call Irish actor Conor Lovett “Ishmael” and everyone else in Herman Melville’s novel when he performs Moby Dick (June 16-19, Long Wharf Theatre), aided onstage only by musician Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh. Andrew Dawson’s kid-friendly Space Panorama (June 22-26, Long Wharf Stage II, $15-$40) is a solo adventure scored to Shostakovich. And David Leddy’s Susurrus, a pre-recorded soundscape, synchronized to stopping-points along an idiosyncratic stroll through Edgerton Park, requires no live performers at all. (Susurrus is performed, rain or shine, at half-hour intervals noon-6 p.m. on June 12-13, 15-20 and 22-26, $30).
Other key theater and dance events are similarly streamlined: Big Dance Theater (which, belying its name, has only three company members) does Comme Toujours Here I Stand, its live adaptation/exploration of Agnes Varda’s 1962 film Cleo (5-7 p.m., June 23-26, Yale’s Iseman Theater, $25). The fun-loving National Theater of the United States of America’s Chautauqua! (June 23-26, Long Wharf, $15-$40), which revives a popular form of oratory and debate that toured the vaudeville circuit in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, bolsters its cast with locals: a guest speaker (Rosa DeLauro, Colin McEnroe and Jack Hitt among them) and a grand finale provided by the Yale Summer Cabaret.
Arts & Ideas saw its state funding cut 30 percent this year. “We took the austerity lumps we could take without being completely obliterated,” says the fest’s Executive Director Mary Lou Aleskie. Amazingly, A&I has been able to maintain the mission it established in the mid-‘90s. It continues to take risks with world premieres and U.S. debuts. The festival nurtures modern dance and contemporary classical composition while many other promoters have turned their backs on those fragile artforms.
And though the European festivals on which it was originally modeled are not known for such generosity, Arts & Ideas continues to present the majority of its programming free of charge — this year, that includes free concerts on New Haven Green from gospel legends The Blind Boys of Alabama (7 p.m., June 19), the Bronx-based beat-and-brass-happy salsa ensemble La Excelencia (6 p.m.. June 20) and no-nonsense children’s music superstar Dan Zanes (7 p.m., June 26). Those are the big national weekend headliners, but there are also two dozen other acts — from Berklee College of Music’s International String Trio to classically minded jazz trumpeter Thomas Bergeron to Celtic roots band MacTalla Mor to Boston funkster Iyeoka to Connecticut’s own Electric Junkyard Gamelan — playing the festival’s “Noon to Night” weekday concert series.
Even the ticketed events, such as the intimate outdoor “Courtyard Concert” series, try to keep prices down. This summer the Yale Law School Courtyard welcomes trumpet/dulcimer double-threat Amir ElSaffar and his Two Rivers Ensemble (8 p.m., June 15), Brazilian bossa nova rejuvenator Joyce Moreno (8 p.m., June 16) and Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba (8 p.m., June 17). Tix: $30 each.
“This festival was designed to build economic vitality by being accessible,” Aleskie says. That means access to the creative process, Aleskie calls it, and this year that includes the world premiere of a Christopher Rouse string quartet performed by the Calder Quartet (augmented by flute, clarinet and harp) 8 p.m., June 18 in Yale’s Sprague Hall. (Rouse reverberates the next night, June 19 at 8 p.m., at the Long Wharf, when Calder members join the ensemble Real Quiet for a concert of works by Marc Mellits, Kevin Puts and Michael Torke, all of whom studied with the Pulitzer-winning Rouse. Classical things calm down a bit with the more traditional Four Nations Ensemble playing sonatas by Handel and Turini and backing the mezzo-soprano warblings of Stephanie Houtzeel (7 p.m., June 20, Sprague, $25). Biggest ensemble is the 40-voice Palestrina Choir of St. Mary’s, 8 p.m., June 20 at Yale’s Battell Chapel.
An A&I alliance with the Institute of Music Theater at Yale, which stages readings of two new works-in-progress every summer, came about when a piece that A&I was already considering — New Haven native Aaron Jafferis’ Stuck Elevator — was accepted for the Yale workshop. Another serendipitious collaboration finds internationally renowned komungo virtuoso Jin Hi Kim, already in town as composer-in-residence for the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, performing under A&I auspices 5:30 p.m.. June 18 at Firehouse 12 ($15).
Not all A&I events are new-taste sensations. There’s an embarrassment of big names attached to the revival of the 1979 multi-media piece Dance (8 p.m., June 12, Shubert Theater, $15-$50)—Lucinda Childs choreography, a score by Philip Glass and a film by the late Sol LeWitt. Glass and Childs take part in one of the festival’s patented “artists in conversation” talkbacks at 3 p.m., June 13 in the Yale Art Gallery; the afternoon after Dance’s sole performance. Glass also gives a solo concert 7 p.m., June 13 at Yale’s Sprague Hall ($25). Lewitt, meanwhile, gets a “Connecticut Celebration” with talks at the Smilow Cancer Center (1 p.m., June 12, free) and Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek Synagogue in Chester (4 p.m., June 20, $25) and listings of key Lewitt paintings, sculptures and installations.
And lest we forget the “Ideas” end, there are panel discussions on “Rebuilding Culture in Iraq & Cambodia” (5:30 p.m., June 16), “Livability, Localism and Urban Utopias” (3 p.m., June 20), The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert and Yale Environment 360 magazine’s Roger Cohn discussing climate change (3 p.m., June 19), to name just three.
Big enough for you?
Lucinda Childs’ Dance isn’t the only major choreographic thrill of Arts & Ideas 2010’s opening week. Emmanuele Phuon’s Khmeropedies I & II brings traditional, starchy Cambodian royal court dancing into contact with earthier, rangier, more acrobatic modern Western dance movements. A video preview of Khmerpedies II starts with a literal collision of the styles, as a full nine-person ensemble alternates straight-backed strolls with akimbo kicks. The mood then shifts to a more fluid, meditative slow-motion piece with just four dancers. Then a trio, a couple of solos, a poppy quartet … The music spans eras and styles as broadly as Phuon’s choreography does, from delicate acoustic string instruments to unrefined hip-hop. The centuries of Cambodian tradition bring a serenity and stability to the show. The modern fleet-footed fillips bring the noise.
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