Festival Stories

The Festival's Director of Performance Programming Cathy Edwards just finished up her final year as guest curator of the ninth annual Portland Institue for Contemporary Arts' Time-Based Art Festival. Read how these interdisciplinary festivals have become "cultural Cuisinarts."

Click to read article in the New York Times

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas co-sponsored the Somalia panel featuring rap artist K'naan on Monday night at the Yale University Art Gallery. Hosted by the Yale World Fellows Program, the event addressed issues around international aid, the politics of dignity, and a new paradigm for transparency and citizen-based initiatives. K'naan is best known for his hit single "Wavin' Flag" (link to video here) the 2010 World Cup anthem.

Read the article in Yale Daily News here

Read the article on Middle East North Africa Financial Network here

Freedom’s Journey, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas’ exploration into the progression of civil rights in the U.S. and in Connecticut, commissioned six poets to write new poems about historic sites along Connecticut’s Freedom Trail. Poets Kate Rushin, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Jarita Davis, Randall Horton and Bessy Reyna recited their poems as part of “Freedom’s Journey: Poetic Reflections on African-American Legacies.” This Ideas program, originally presented on June 23rd during the 16th International Festival of Arts & Ideas, features Robert Stanton, Senior Advisor to the Secretary,...

This spring, students enlisted in the School’s post-masters program will be tasked with the hands-on experience of designing a 300 square-foot pavilion for New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas. The course was developed as a joint effort between four students in the Master of Architecture II degree program, along with the help of faculty advisor Brennan Buck. The class is a three-month endeavor that will take the 12 enrolled students through the process of dreaming up an enclosure for the festival and building it out. Read more here...

“9/11 is a litmus test of our humanity”…
Bill T. Jones, choreographer/director(link to video)

With the precision and directness of a lightening bolt, in words and movement Bill has the amazing ability to wake us up, to get our attention, to make us think. What a monotone place the world would be without him and artists like him.

I just returned from Edinburgh where I was fortunate enough to be an invited delegate of the British Council along with 200 colleagues from around the world to the British Showcase at the famed Edinburgh Fringe.

I have recently been feeling a heightened sense of...

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas is proud to broadcast our Ideas Panel entitled “Music, Warfare and the Soldier's Story” originally held on June 25, 2011 at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, CT. Watch this Ideas Panel in its entirety here on our website or download it on iTunes to take with you.

Whether preparing soldiers for battle or providing consolation, music can be a patriotic war cry or a way to create empathy with the different viewpoints of war. This panel, moderated by WNYC Soundcheck’s John Schaeffer, explored the importance music has played in war with...

Click here to read article from Montreal's daily newspaper La Presse on Festival Executive Director Mary Lou Aleskie’s recent trip as one of sixty invited delegates from around the world to Montreal Completement Cirque, North America's largest international festival of circus arts.

Read about the 2011 Festival’s highlights and accomplishments and why this was the “most impactful” festival in 16 years.  Click here for Sunday’s New Haven Register article (July 24, 2011)

Click here to read the New Haven Independent's report on the state budget and how it will effect the arts.

Click here to read the New York Times article about the Druid making it back to Galway.

The 2012 Festival will take place June 16-30 - Save the Dates to make sure you can attend the array of performances from world class artists and thinkers. Check back in the new year for the Festival line-up.

How does the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company encourage art and ideas within the community of education?

Bill says that making art allows him to participate in the world of ideas – and it is important to Bill and all of us in the Company to share that process with the education community. We don’t just teach master classes and set work on students; our education philosophy extends simply learning choreography. We want students to grasp the choreographer's intentions and interests; understand the social/political context if applicable; learn how the material was generated and...