Festival Stories

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas is filled with great Ideas panels (which are totally FREE). Helen Ibbitson Jessup, founder of Friends of Khmer Culture and specialist in the art and architecture of Southeast Asia and Cambodia, is a panelist in one of our upcoming events. We asked Helen to answer a few questions about her experience to pre-empt her participation in Ideas: Rebuilding Culture in Iraq & Cambodia: From Crisis to Recovery.

Q: How have the people of Cambodia reacted to American assistance in preserving Cambodian art and history?

A: The response has been extremely warm from...

   Joel Suarez

Hello, my name is Joel Suarez, an aspiring filmmaker from New Haven, CT. I am currently a student in Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School and I have been granted the opportunity to blog for the many events that take place in the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.  

On April 16^th 2010 the Fellows, including myself, were given a tour of one of the most historical theaters in New Haven: the Shubert Theater. On this adventure we learned how the Shubert Theater was essentially used to try out plays that would later land on Broadway. In other words the Shubert Theater was...

We at the Festival asked chef and owner of Miya's Sushi, Bun Lai, to answer the following:

Q: Why teach kids about sushi?

A: The reason I like to teach kids how to make sushi is so that I can open their mind up to ways of thinking that they are unaccustomed to.  Americans, I feel, tend to be culturally centric and experiencing the food of other cultures is a way to tear down prejudices.  Besides, getting into all that heady stuff, sushi is simply fun to make and yummy!

Want your kids to learn about sushi with Bun? Check out

Sushi 101: Children's Sustainable Sushi class
SAT JUNE 19 at 2:30...

Moby Dick is a huge novel.  A masterpiece of literature with a gripping plot, a cast of amazing characters, a mythic monster, themes of life, death, vengeance, industry and the questioning of an interventionist god.  A road movie on a ship with an obsessive sea captain, a noble pagan, a pious first mate and a young adventurer and supporting characters that include a drunken landlord, a ragged docklands prophet, a happy-go-lucky second mate, a pugnacious third-mate and about twenty five other motley crewmen.  All against the backdrop of a whaling voyage across three oceans and as round an...

    by Jonathan Rosario

My name is Jonathan Rosario. I am a senior at Metropolitan Business Academy. I am an art administration intern working under the supervision of my mentor Rachel Shapiro. I assist with administrative tasks, helping Rachel organize past events of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas by year. I was informed about the Fellowship Program through Rachel, she thought it would be helpful for me to get a full experience of the Arts & Ideas organization. I was thrilled to enter the program because I wanted to be involved in something where I would have the chance to try...

Click here to read the article about the Calder Quartet and Christopher Rouse’s String Quartet No. 3 by Frank J. Oteri from the May/June issue of Chamber Music Magazine.

Click here to watch a preview video of the Calder Quartet.

Click here to purchase tickets online.

Click here to listen to Festival Executive Director Mary Lou Aleskie on The Faith Middleton Show today at 3pm and 10pm.

A documentary directed by Anne Bass, “Dancing Across Borders”, has been added to the Opening Weekend schedule of the Festival. A free screening of the film will take place on Sunday, June 13, 2010 at Noon in the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven.

Dancing Across Borders depicts a young man’s intimate and triumphant journey from the serene countryside of Cambodia to the halls of America’s premier ballet training academy, New York’s School of American Ballet, and the stage of the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. The film is an inspiring story of growth, adaptation,...

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas Fellowship Program is designed to give high school students unparalleled exposure to careers in the arts as they prepare to pursue college and/or enter the workforce. The Arts & Ideas Fellowship Program will culminate in an intensive two-week immersion experience at the 15th annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas in June 2010. During that time students will attend open rehearsals, performances and panels/symposia, meet-and-greet with artists and speakers, attend master classes and support Festival staff in their chosen area of interest. 

For...

I’m so looking forward to being back in New Haven. I travel all around the world with this work and meet all sorts of different venues and festivals and International Festival of Arts and Ideas is one of the best. It’s such a unique structure for a festival with genuinely stimulating intellectual ideas at the centre of the whole thing. I’m so envious that we don’t have a festival like that in the city where I live!

My research trip to Edgerton Park last year was a mesmerising time. It was in the middle of autumn which meant that the colours were glorious. Susurrus is all about looking at...

"Close to home or across the country, city street or bosky glen: Festivals beckon. Enjoy." The "Summer Stages" section of the New York Times features Dance, Comme Toujours Here I Stand, Moby Dick, Space Panorama, Chautauqua!, Susurrus, Amir ElSaffar & Two Rivers Ensemble, Joyce Moreno, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, The Blind Boys of Alabama, La Excelencia, Festival Grand Finale: Dan Zanes & Friends, Philip Glass: Works for Solo Piano, Christopher Rouse: Transfiguration, The Rouse Effect: The Next Generation, The Palestrina Choir, and The Four Nations Ensemble: Seductions & Confessions.

Click...

All Ideas events at the Festival are free. The best way to secure your seat is to purchase an "Ideas Insider Pass", which guarantees your seat up to 15 minutes before the scheduled start time of all Ideas event at the 2010 Festival. Click here to purchase an "Ideas Insider Pass" online. You can also purchase an "Ideas Insider Pass" in person at the Shubert Theater Box Office (247 College Street, New Haven), and by phone at 203-562-5666 or 888-736-2663.

New this year: Only interested in a few Ideas events? As space is limited, you can now make an online reservation to gain access to priority...