Visitors to the Elm City can partake of a continuous smorgasbord of activities -- including concerts, lectures, discussions, films, walking tours, puppetry and storytelling -- during the second annual International Festival of Arts and Ideas, being held Wednesday- Sunday, June 25-29.
The artists performing at the five-day festival hail from surrounding towns and distant lands, including the Ivory Coast, England, Cuba, Nigeria and France. Festival activities will be held at both outdoor and indoor locations throughout New Haven. Many will be free of charge.
Once again, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas will be composed of several mini-festivals, among them the "Festival of Theatre & Dance," "Festival Under the Trees: A Place for Kids," the "Festival of World Music" and a film festival. The "Festival of Ideas," sponsored by Lucent Technologies, includes walking tours and Yale studio classes.
"The theme of this year's Festival of Ideas is 'Art/Not Art,' which reflects an exploration of the perceived dichotomy between art and entertainment," says Cynthia Hedstrom, artistic director of the festival. "For many people, the two terms mean completely different things; others believe that great art can still entertain, and that what entertains us can still be great art.
"Now, with the spread of mass media and the Internet, this age-old
debate has taken on a new urgency in the context of contemporary
American culture," Ms. Hedstrom notes. "We've assembled an array
of thought-provoking programs focusing on the question of what is
art and what is not. Participants are sure to be both challenged and
entertained."
This year the Festival of Ideas will present 15 readings, discussions
and lecture-concerts on subjects as varied as Thornton Wilder,
Charles Ives, MTV culture and P.T. Barnum. Other festival highlights
include an opening night concert at the Palace Theatre by jazz
vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, who will perform a tribute to the late
Ella Fitzgerald; and performances by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane
Dance Company at the Palace Friday and Saturday, June 27 and 28.
Free concerts on the New Haven Green will be presented by Latin
jazz artist Eddie Palmieri, salsa singer Issaac Delgado, gospel/R&B
performers The Staple Singers, folk music's The Red Clay Ramblers
and Nigeria's Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, as well as other
internationally acclaimed artists.
Several activities will take place on the Yale campus, including
separate concerts by jazz greats Henry Threadgill and Abbey Lincoln,
and a return of last year's popular Festival Studio Classes series. The
studio classes offer four days of intensive instruction by Yale faculty
members in drama, music, art, architecture or writing.
Also among the well-received festival activities that will be offered
again this year are: The Small Green Stage on the New Haven Green,
which features programs geared specifically to children and families,
including puppets, magic shows and storytellers from African and
Native American cultures; Art on the Edge, which showcases local
and regional talent; and the Youth Arts Summit, which brings
together 20 young people from as near as Connecticut and as far
away as Vietnam to participate in workshops, lectures, conversations
and mentorships designed to inspire, engage, entertain and educate.
Over 60,000 people from around the world are expected to attend
this year's festival, says Elinor Biggs, the festival's executive
director,
who predicts that the 1997 event will equal -- if not exceed -- last
year's inaugural International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Conceived
by Anne Calabresi to help showcase and attract corporate support for
New Haven's cultural, arts and educational resources, the 1996
festival featured 378 artists representing 20 cultures in 167 events.
The festival was staffed by 600 volunteers and supported by over
178 corporations, foundations, government agencies and individuals.
The estimated direct economic impact of the 1996 festival was $2.4
million.
Yale and Southern New England Telephone SNET are the festival's
corporate founders. As it did last year, Yale will again house some of
the festival participants on campus. "Both Yale and SNET have
wholeheartedly contributed to the festival in a number of ways,"
says Ms. Biggs. "I'm extremely gratified that they continue to be such
supportive and committed festival founders."
Yale's Studio Classes
Yale's Festival Studio Classes have been described in the New Haven
Register as one of the festival's "nuggets of stimulation in the 'idea'
category that should not be neglected." This year, eight separate
series are being offered, Thursday-Sunday, 9 a.m.-noon. The cost for
each is $250. On-campus housing is also available at an additional fee
of $140 per person breakfast included . Enrollment is limited, and
some classes have prerequisites. A description of each series follows.
-- "Designing for the World Wide Web" will address such concerns as
information structure, navigation, typography and graphic identity.
The series will be taught by John Gambell, critic in graphic design at
the School of Art. Participants will use page-authorizing software
which requires little or no knowledge of codes to work on individual
projects.
-- In "Drawing for the City," students will undertake an intensive
investigation of compositional elements and conventions to create
images of the urban landscape that communicate a sense of light,
space and place. Drawing materials will be provided. The class will be
led by Steven Sheehan, lecturer in painting at the School of Art.
-- "The Foundation of Acting" is a scene study class for those with
acting experience. It will be taught by Murray Biggs, adjunct
professor of English and theater studies. Using the plays of Chekhov
as exercise materials, students will explore how text can be analyzed
to find "actable" elements; how to identify from the text actions that
will engage the actor with other characters; and how to make the
best use of skills and imagination.
-- "Nonfiction Writing" will be taught by Dr. Richard Selzer, who has
conducted numerous writing workshops at Yale. The class will focus
on topics such as the personal essay, literary journalism, biography,
travel and nature writing and fictional techniques in nonfiction
writing.
-- In "Play Writing," participants will explore how working in the
genre differs from composing poetry or prose; what constitutes
stage-worthy dialogue; and how actors and directors inform an
author's text. Classes will be instructed by Doug Wright, who has
authored plays performed at the Yale Repertory Theatre and major
regional theaters.
-- "Working with Color" will examine how colors interact to affect
perception. Richard Lytle, professor of painting at the School of Art,
will offer a concentrated version of the course that Josef Albers
introduced at Yale. Subjective meanings and associations stimulated
by color combinations will be explored, as well as the objective
properties of color.
-- A class in "Choral Performance," taught by Fenno Heath, professor
emeritus of choral music, is already full. The mixed chorus will give a
free concert Sunday, June 29, in Battell Chapel, corner of Elm and
College streets, at 5 p.m.
Other events
-- Courtyard concerts. Among other festival events taking place on
the Yale campus are several concerts, which will be held in the
Jonathan Edwards College courtyard. They include: Friday, June 27 --
the Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble of New Orleans; Saturday,
June 28 -- Henry Threadgill; Sunday, June 29 -- two performances:
first, Simon Shaheen and the Near Eastern Music Ensemble, and later
that evening, a closing night concert by Abbey Lincoln. There will be
a chamber music performance by the Piano Quartet -- featuring four
of the world's most distinguished classical musicians -- on Thursday,
June 26, in Battell Chapel. In addition, Les Deux Mondes will perform
"Terra promessa/Terre promise" "Promised Land" , a wordless visual
poem of theatrical images and gestures, Wednesday-Sunday, June
25-29 at Yale's University Theatre, 222 York St. Tickets are required
for all of these events. See ticket information, below.
-- Hong Kong Film Festival. The Yale University Art Gallery lecture
hall, 1111 Chapel St., will be one of two sites for the Hong Kong Film
Festival York Square Cinema is the other site . The scope of films
over the five-day period will reflect the complex history and
diversity of Hong Kong, and will include documentaries, comedies,
love stories, action-adventure, experimental works and poetic
meditations. Among the directors whose works will be shown are
John Woo, Stanley Kwan and Clara Law, and the films star such
talents as Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-fat.
-- Walking tours. Historical and architectural tours will leave from
the Yale Visitor Information Center, 149 Elm St., throughout the
festival. Six different tours will be offered. They include:
-- The "Yale Campus Tour," a one-hour walk introducing visitors to
the University's history, architecture and student life;
-- "City Tour Around the Green," a one-hour walk on and around New
Haven's historic 359-year-old center, which touches on prominent
landmarks and recalls the city's past;
-- "Wooster Square Tour," a walk through the area's collection of pre-
Civil War houses built for New Haven's wealthy manufacturers in
what is now Little Italy;
-- "Hillhouse Avenue Tour," a walk down what has been called "the
most beautiful street in America," followed by a visit to the New
Haven Historical Society to view the permanent collection and the
special exhibition of "The Voyage of the Neptune";
-- "Architecture of Louis Kahn," a one-hour walking tour of Yale's
Louis I. Kahn-designed art museums, will be lead by Alexander
Purves, professor of architectural design; and
-- "Contemporary Architecture, 1950-1996," focusing on works by
Eero Saarinen, which will by led by local experts Paul Rudolph and
Philip Johnson.
In addition, two separate tours of historical downtown churches will
be take place each day of the fesitival. "Tour of the Art in the
Sanctuary" will feature artwork in Trinity Church, including its
Tiffany stained-glass windows and sculpture by Lee Lawrie, creator
of the Atlas at Rockefeller Center. "Tour of Church and Crypt" will
include a discussion of the history of the 350-year-old Center Church
and a viewing of its unique crypt, which contains the remains of
many colony settlers dating back to 1687.
Also in conjunction with the festival, free tours of the Yale Center for
British Art, 1080 Chapel St., will be offered Thursday and Saturday.
Further information
For dates and times of festival events taking place on the Yale
campus, see the Calendar section of this paper. For more information
about the festival, including dates and times of off-campus events, or
to purchase tickets, call the Festival Office toll-free at 1-888-ART-
IDEA 1-888-278-4332 . Information about the festival also may be
obtained at its Web site; www.artidea.org/ is the address.
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