Below is a guest blog entry from Dan Zanes, reflecting on "shared experiences", the theme of the 15th annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Dan Zanes & Friends will be performing on the Elm Street Stage of the New Haven Green on Saturday, June 26, 2010 at 7pm. Zanes and his band will be joined by a youth chorus, African drumming and dancers, and a parade of dozens of local trombone players from across the state of Connecticut. Click here to watch a preview video.
arts, community, possibility, opportunity, celebration, cooperation, imagination, participation, and on and on. talk about great themes! i think about them all the time but unfortunately the minute i hear some of these words come out of my mouth they don't sound like much fun. but they are! i know that. so i talk instead about dinner parties at which, when the meal is over, everybody starts singing and playing spoons (and guitars and djembes and who knows what else) . when this happens most of the themes come to life, especially if people are dancing, and laughing, and kids are jumping on the couch, and when the night is over everyone says "we have to do this more often!"
--Dan Zanes