Schedule of Events Listed for Ninth Annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas
The schedule for the Ninth Annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas, to be held in New Haven, Connecticut from June 11 through June 26, has been announced.
The festival will present more than 200 events featuring theater, music, dance, and visual art from more than two dozen countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Among the expected highlights of the festival:
- An all-city carnival and all-city parade;
- The American premiere of the Oskaras Koršunovas production of Romeo and Juliet (from Lithuania), set in a world of competing pizza parlors;
- More than two dozen free concerts, including one by the world-famous Zulu vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo;
- A series of street performers including the Shinbone Alley Stilts and Osadía, which will change bystanders’ hairdos into “hairsculptures”;
- Mark O’Connor’s “American Seasons,” a composition inspired by bluegrass, country, swing, and jazz with special guest Morley Safer weaving poetry into the music;
- The United States premiere of a recasting of the Giselle legend set in a land where Old Europe meets American Cowboy);
- Bobby McFerrin and Savion Glover in a combination tap-vocal performance;
- Idea forums and debates featuring biologist E.O. Wilson, former senator Carol Moseley Braun, National Review editor Richard Lowry, and doctor and author Sherwin Nuland;
- The Harry Potter Concert & Quiz, featuring the New Haven Symphony Orchestra plus special effects.
Tickets for events that require paid admission will go on sale beginning Tuesday, May 18; they may be purchased by calling 1-888-ART-IDEA (1-888-278-4332) or by visiting the box office at the New Alliance Bank, 195 Church Street in New Haven. For more information and a complete listing of festival events, visit www.artidea.org.
