Going to a bakery for a few cupcakes seems like an obvious choice, but going to a bakery to preview a tap dance-based rock opera seems less obvious. Fortunately, the New Haven arts community has become more and more creative at working together to allow new projects to seed, germinate, and grow.
Shayel Rodriguez center with her parents at Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. Bennie Morris was not having a good day. Somebody had hacked his bank account, and he was on the way back from the bank to cancel any outgoing checks. As he was about to walk right on by, somebody waved him over and invited him to join. The arts and sciences, the movement and stillness, the rhythm of breath and step: on Saturday afternoon, all came together in the performance space at St. Paul and St.
Middle Schoolers from dance Cumbia with their senior citizen counterparts in Fair Haven. In a dim and costume-filled drama classroom at New Haven Academy, time slowed down as an alien ran away from two space cadets looking to capture it. Time then sped up, and back down again, as theater educator Tyheed Scurry gave the student actors a lesson in tempo. The dancers in the circle were lifting up their own spirits and the spirits of those around them.
They were participating in a culture that was now in its third generation of practitioners. Through words, music, and movement, storytellers, drummers, and dancers offered dozens of families a chance to find their place in the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. She made a gesture, and Diaz, fully attentive, responded with a crack from his drum. She gestured again, and he responded in kind on his instrument.
The smiles that passed between them needed no words to convey their meaning. And then Langley kept dancing, proving to everyone in the room before him just how lucky this city is to have this young artist call New Haven his home.
