Brian Slattery photo
The crowd at the Caribbean Heritage Festival during Arts & Ideas.
(Arts analysis) As Angelique Kidjo belted out the lyrics to her song “Bahia,” backed by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the crowd migrated closer like a giant wave lapping at the shore of the stage. A group of young children left the seating area to stand up front, rising on their tiptoes to be closer to the performers. Kidjo leaned over to interact with the audience, and the children stared, enthralled. Then they began to dance. The concert transformed into a club as the crowd blurred into a sea of swaying limbs and laughing faces. One woman held her baby upright on the grass, so that even he could move with the beat.
That happened at the beginning of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas this year, but my earliest memories of the festival were made when I was one of those children, sprawled out on the New Haven Green during the long salad days of summer.
I recall pulling up grass between my fingers as I listened to live bands perform children’s songs. The scent of clover in the air, the stickiness of chocolate ice cream from the local food trucks around my mouth, and the endless bubbles drifting through the air from somebody’s bubble wand (a staple at Arts and Ideas events). Most of all, I remember the excitement of feeling something special and uniquely New Haven occurring, and that I had the chance to witness it.
Eleanor Polak Photos
Angelique Kidjo performs with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra on New Haven Green.
Over the decade since my childhood, Arts and Ideas has remained a way for New Haven to celebrate its culture and individuality. This isn’t New York City or Chicago, where the mere name conjures up an image of a particular way of life, but New Haven, as New Haveners know, has plenty to call its own.
In the past, the festival faced complaints that it shunted local artists to the side in favor of brought-in talents. The festival leadership listened, and in more recent years has leaned harder into ensuring that the city feels represented in festival events, whether through the neighborhood festivals that embrace the nuances of every part of New Haven, or with a place for New Haven acts on the main stage that dominates the Green throughout the month of June.
This year, the festival featured a delicate balance of local and visiting acts. Attendees could sing along with Beninese superstar Angelique Kidjo and marvel at the puppetry and pantomime of the French performers in Macbeth Muet. Or they could sway and dance to local artists like drummer Michael Mills or singers Berdine Joseph and Mical Teja.
Eleanor Polak Photos
The Healing Drum with Michael Mills and Brian Jarawa Gray.
Events like the Caribbean Heritage Festival toward the end of Arts and Ideas educated the residents of New Haven in all the different ways culture can overlap and intersect. In a city composed of so many different backgrounds and traditions, Arts and Ideas allowed us to celebrate not only where we are, but where we have come from.
Eleanor Polak Photos
Glen's BBQ & Jerk food truck at the Caribbean Heritage Festival.
As the country still emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, it feels good to see the festival expanding toward its former breadth and scope. When I worked as an usher for Arts and Ideas in 2021, I saw the straggling arms and legs of the festival cooped up and confined into a fenced-off section of the Green. That year, you had to make a reservation to attend a performance, and when you arrived at the event you underwent a Covid check. Only when armed with two paper wristbands — one to confirm your seat, one that showed you were clear for Covid — could you enter an area and watch the show.
While clearly necessary at the time, the procedure felt antithetical to the spirit of Arts and Ideas: to welcome all New Haveners, whether dedicated attendees of the festival or passers-by who found themselves roped in after following the distant sounds of music. The festival exists to spread art, and art is without borders or confinements. The people of New Haven seemed to agree; I recall them leaning over the fences of the enclosure, watching and listening from afar.
Karen Ponzio Photos
Grupo Tentación performs at Arts & Ideas.
This year, attendees could ditch the wristbands and the masks to take in everything from stage performances to walking tours to lectures to vendor stalls. Attendance seems to have yet to reach the peaks that it achieved pre-Covid, but the numbers of attendees was higher than it was in 2021.
At its height this year, people packed the Green in droves, eager to witness the shows that Arts and Ideas provided. The festival remained faithful to the principle of representing New Haven, in all its culture and talent, its businesses and performers, its own art and ideas.
June in New Haven still belongs to those children sitting on the Green, raising sticky fingers to shield their eyes from the summer sun, and staring at the stage with wonder in their eyes.
Hands down the worst festival around. We could do so much better. Arts and Ideas reeks of pretentious ivory tower Yale snobbery. ‘Here’s what’s good for you New Haven.’ Let’s can this whole thing and restart from scratch.