Great Art, Big Ideas Podcast
Festival 2025 Playlist
ARTS FOR LABOR: Mulan Art Dance Ensemble & Team Leggoo
Team Leggoo
Established in 2011, Team Leggoo is a professional dance company of young, aspiring dancers who train in various styles of dance while pursuing growth and development as teachers,...
ARTS FOR LABOR: AnUrbanNerd (Josh Brown) & Darlene Kascak
AnUrbanNerd (Josh Brown)
AnUrbanNerd has been writing and performing for more than 15 years. He is a Poet, Spoken Word artist and Rap artist with a background in education and engineering. He brings...
ARTS FOR LABOR: Dawn Tallman
Dawn Tallman, The Queen of Gospel Energy was born and raised in Danbury, Connecticut, where she began singing in the house of God from childhood. Later, she expanded her body of work into the R&B and...
ARTS FOR LABOR: The Tines
The Tines are a new outfit helmed by New Haven Connecticut’s S.G. Carlson.The band was formed as a recording project in late 2019 featuring members of Ports of Spain, Laundry Day, Quiet Giant, and...
MWENSO AND THE SHAKES
Imagine the sound of a caravan journeying through the Milky Way, with reverberating guitars, plaintive, perfectly pitched vocals, bending horns and a “charismatic” (NPR), commanding captain. Mwenso...
Stir The Style
We’re breaking the “rules” of narrative events with Stir the Style, exhibiting every method of storytelling imaginable -- from spoken word to poetry to folktelling to personal narratives to rap and...
OPEN MIC NIGHT
Come out to Open Mic Night at the Festival Center for an evening of listening and being heard. The show will be emceed by professional performing artist and mentor Influence (Sharmont Little), with...
DARREL WALLS
Multi-Grammy-nominated Gospel songwriter and vocalist Darrel Walls is the eldest of the four siblings comprising The Walls Group, a Houston, Texas based singing quartet raised on the tradition of...
THE LEGEND DRAG SHOW
Drag royalty are descending on New Haven, ready to WORK this town into a fun-filled and informative tizzy. In this legendary mainstage event, drag performers and educators will display drag...
BASSEL & THE SUPERNATURALS
Bassel Almadani brings a Syrian heart and a Chicago soul to his singular, funk-inspired compositions. The Syrian-American led group has recently performed at SXSW’s special showcase ContraBanned: #...
STORYSLAM
Our festival is usually a space of community-building and collaboration, not competition. But sometimes a winner just has to be crowned. Join us for a festival storytelling slam, where a group of...