Cry You One (Mondo Bizarro and ArtSpot)

Fear not, street theatre and political performance is live and well.  A collaborative project by Mondo Bizarro and Artspot, "Cry You One" seeks to entertain, educate, enrage its audience. The subject: the devastation of cultures and wetlands in Louisiana by levees and petroleum/chemical industries. Through storytelling, music, and dance, the small audience groups are led through the Malty Lakes district.
These outdoor performances pieces tend to be one of the best parts of Arts and Ideas.  Though this wasn't one of my favorite ones, I'm glad we went. 

Dan Zanes and Moona Luna (Arts and Ideas Festival)

Lively, energetic performance to family audiences on the Green got EVERYONE dancing and tickling one another.
Preceded by the Connecticut Mariachi Academy: authentic!

Magmanus (Arts and Ideas Festival)

 This Swedish juggling and acrobatic duo grabs its audience in two ways. First, the two work hard to charm the audience with winks and tomfoolery; the percentage of the show spent on acrobatics or juggling is rather small.  Second, they incorporate a member of the audience.  In the show we saw, "Kim" was an extraordinarily good sport. And because the find half hour of the show depended on her good-nature cooperation, they must have a keen for selecting the right person who will neither protest too much or try to upstage their antics. 

Recommend

Roz Chast (Arts & Ideas Festival)

Roz Chast's warm, humane talk opened up this year's Arts and Ideas Festival. 

Recommend.

Roseanne Case

A lively, lovely performance on the New Haven Green.

Recommend!

love fail (David Lang)

A wonderful performance by Anonymous 4, but the visuals detracted from the overall effect. We'll see it again in December at BAM.

Recommend...just watch with closed eyes.

Taiwanese King Lear (WU Hsing-kuo)

A fascinating production that takes the basic narrative of Shakespeare's King Lear and re-imagines it through the lens of traditional Chinese theatre--and then through the lens of a Chinese actor who has partially abandoned his traditional roots.

Recommend.

Yuval Ron Ensemble

We seldom leave a performance midway, but in this case we didn't even wait for an intermission. The ensemble is best described as an ineffectively combining superficial mysticism, faux learning and annoying self-conscious affect.

I won't put too much blame on Arts and Ideas for bringing this group of smug emoting because it was brought to New Haven by an ecumenical conference. Nevertheless, it didn't belong at A&I.

Avoid.

Ben Allison Band with Robert Pinsky

I loved, loved this performance...and I usually do not like jazz.

Highly recommend.

The Radio Show (Kyle Abramham/Abraham-In-Motion)

Fascinating performance followed by fabulous talk-back.

Recommend.

Nothing is Impossible (Philippe Petit)

This year's first Festival of Arts and Ideas speaker, and the overwhelming question was this: would a man whose fame (and survival) depends upon meticulous planning really come before an audience and give a talk that's completely spontaneous--or was the apparent spontaneity an act?

Soldier Song

One man, one boy, and one pile of sand trace the trajectory of war and the modern American male's fascination with, attraction to its atrocities to both the victors and defeated alike. Brutal.

Recommend.

Serenade (Bill T Jones Dance Company)

Sophisticated, physically exuberant dances set to equally sophisticated, physically exuberant music.

Highly recommended.

Body Against Body (Bill T Jones/Arnie Zanes Dance Co)

Dating from early in the Jones/Zanes collaboration, the first piece explores gestures available to two male dancers without imitating the male/female duality. Lots of use of reiteration as a way to teach the observer to see and make sense of the series of gestures. The staticky score underlines the absence of a narrative, musical or otherwise, to provide coherence. The repetition of (what appears to be) random lists does more of the work than the score. The most beautiful gesture appears when the smaller dancer leaps, spread eagle, into the arms of his partner.

The second piece, with a male and epicenic female dancer, continued the exploration of new gestures not confined to romantic ballet's pas de deux.

Recommend.

Making Up the Truth (Jack Hitt)

Arts & Ideas presented Jack Hitt telling stories. Entertaining.

Recommend.

The Cripple of Inishmaan ( Martin McDonagh)

Moving, lyrical play. Forces us to rethink the debts we owe those we love the least but who perhaps love us the most.

Highly recommended.

Space Panorama (Andrew Dawson)

Chautauqua!

It helped that we had front row seats and that the queen of fun--Jean Breny--went with us.

Recommend.

Comme Toujours Here I Stand (Big Dance Theater)

Perhaps if I'd seen the film on which it was based, Cleo from 5 to 7, I would have been able to follow and thus appreciate this production. I haven't, I didn't, and I don't. Mike had, did, and does.

Recommend with caveats.

The Palestrina Choir

Interesting music performed by a men and boys choir affiliated with St Mary's Pro-Cathedra, Dublin. The boy choristers were fairly weak; they were very young, and I suspect the excitement of trans-Atlantic travel and the heat of Battell Chapel did not help. The men, however, were excellent, and their performances of Thomas Tallis, Tomas Luis de Victoria, and Giovannii Palestrian were very good.

Recommend.