ABRAHAM.IN.MOTION (June 14-16, 2016 at University Theatre)
MacArthur Fellow, Princess Grace and Bessie Award-winning choreographer Kyle Abraham and his company Abraham.In.Motion present work combining provocative, refined movement with compelling themes of identity and racial tensions. Featuring celebrated musicians Kris Bowers,Otis Brown III, Chris Smith, and Charenee Wade, Live Music Program includes Abraham's The Gettin’ composed by Grammy Award-winning jazz artist Robert Glasper who reimagines Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, Absent Matter, The Quiet Dance, and Absent Matter. Featuring Kris Bowers (piano), Otis Brown III (percussion), Chris Smith (bass), and Charenee Wade (vocals).

AIR PLAY (June 21-25, 2016 at University Theatre)
Air Play is a comic adventure on an epic scale. Flying umbrellas, larger-than-life balloons, kites that float over the audience, and the biggest snow globe you’ve ever seen will make you gasp in wonder, laugh until it hurts, and be touched by the affection and the rivalry between a sister and brother on a life-changing and surreal journey.

MARIA SCHNEIDER ORCHESTRA (June 15, 2016 at Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall)
Winner of multiple GRAMMY Awards including 2016 Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album for the latest album, “The Thompson Fields” and Best Arrangement for “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)” recorded with David Bowie, Maria Schneider and her orchestra will perform her new work co-commissioned by the Festival. Her music blurs the lines between big-band jazz, poetry, and chamber music, and her band is made up of some of the finest jazz musicians today.

OFF THE CHARTS (June 19, 2016 at University Theatre)
The Bang on a Can All-Stars are joined by three of the hottest ensembles of the Polish Jazz scene for an afternoon of music. Jazztopad Festival Presents, in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, Obara International Quartet, and Piotr Damasiewicz Quintet. The three bands make their American Premiere blending traditional with contemporary sound. The Bang on a Can All-Stars freely cross the boundaries between classical, jazz, rock, world and experimental music, taking music into uncharted territories.

OUR LADIES OF PERPETUAL SUCCOUR (June 14-25, 2016 at Yale Repertory Theatre)
The U.S. premiere of National Theatre of Scotland's acclaimed musical! Six catholic school girls on the cusp of change, when love, lust, pregnancy, and death all spiral out of control in a single day. From the writer of Broadway smash hit Billy Elliot and the musical director of Once, it's about losing your innocence and finding yourself. With music by Handel, Bach, and 70s classic rock band Electric Light Orchestra. American Premiere adapted by Lee Hall from the novel The Sopranos By Alan Warner and directed by Vicky Featherstone.

STEEL HAMMER (June 16-18, 2016 at Mainstage at Long Wharf Theatre)
Steel Hammer, the latest collaboration from Pulitzer Prize winning composer Julia Wolfe, seven-time Obie winner SITI Company, and the New York-based ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars,creatively explores the legend of John Henry, the steel-driving railroad worker who won his challenge with a machine, but lost his life. Directed by Anne Bogart, Steel Hammer weaves music and the spoken word together with movement, dance, and percussion on a variety of surfaces—including the performer’s bodies—to create a highly original theatrical experience.

THE BOOKBINDER (June 17-19, 2016 at Yale Center for British Art)
They say you can get lost in a good book. But it’s worse to get lost in a bad one… From award-winning New Zealand company Trick of the Light Theatre comes a story of mystery, magic, and mayhem. Inspired by the works of Chris Van Allsburg and Neil Gaiman, The Bookbinder weaves shadowplay, paper art, puppetry, and music into an inventive performance for curious children and adventurous adults.

THE MONEY (June 18-25, 2016 at The Quinnipiak Club)
The clock is ticking as players come together around a table to decide how to spend a pot of money. Choose to participate as a Benefactor or observe as a Silent Witness. If a decision is not made, the money rolls over to the next performance.

THE SQUARE ROOT OF THREE SISTERS (June 21-25, 2016 at Iseman Theater)
A company of theatre artists from the Dmitry Krymov Lab and Yale School of Drama join forces for the world premiere of The Square Root of Three Sisters, a dazzling remix of Chekhovian themes. In his first English language production, internationally acclaimed director Dmitry Krymov conjures a world in which love can sweep dishes off a table, memory can make a train roar past, and a single command can change a world forever. The Square Root of Three Sisters is a deeply funny and achingly bittersweet meditation on home and human endurance.

SOME OF A THOUSAND WORDS: WENDY WHELAN / BRIAN BROOKS / BROOKLYN RIDER (June 23-24, 2016 at Shubert Theater)
Coming off of their Restless Creature duet “First Fall,” former New York City Ballet star and principal dancer Wendy Whelan and acclaimed choreographer Brian Brooks appear to come from radically different dance worlds—one classical, one contemporary. Back together, taking creative risks in unfamiliar territory, they premiere an evening of intimate solos and duets. Some of a Thousand Words brings the live music stylings of Brooklyn Rider to the foreground as a dynamic and central creative component, both shaping and being shaped by the evolution of Brooks’ choreography.

YANG HAO: PIED À TERRE AND MIDDLE (June 21-22, 2016 at Whitney Theater)
Coming out of a Hong Kong Festival World Premiere and making its American Premiere, Yang Hao's latest work Pied à terre, responds to Jessica Rizzo's poems with dance and pedestrian movement while speaking to his experiences at the crossroads of East and West. The starting point of Middle is Yang Hao’s and Alice Rensy’s interest in movements in Chinese ancient culture. For the purpose of this piece, Yang Hao has followed training in Kung Fu. Starting with a selection of movements from traditional dances and martial arts, Alice and Hao stage these moves in their own style, editing the usual fast pace, using various music records, thus creating a new form of Chinese dance.

CIRQUE MECHANICS (June 25, 2016 at First Niagara Stage on the New Haven Green)
A dazzling whirl of acrobats, cyclists, and one-of-a-kind machines, Cirque Mechanics brings a captivating production with acrobats and funambulists dangling and twirling from a pedal-powered apparatus called the Gantry Bike. The New Haven Symphony Orchestra, one of the of the region's premiere symphonic ensembles, performs alongside the flying unicycles and floating trapeze artists, promising a closing evening not to be missed.

GEORGE CLINTON AND PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC (June 11, 2016 at First Niagara Stage on the New Haven Green)
Named one of the most influential people in music, the Godfather of Funk and the founder of the Parliament Funkadelic, George Clinton revolutionized R&B, twisting soul music into funk. With riveting live sound, driving bass, and jazz-like rhythms, Clinton and his band have a funk-tastic vibe that brings young and old to their feet.

LILA DOWNS (June 12, 2016 at First Niagara Stage on the New Haven Green)
Multiple GRAMMY award-winner Lila Downs has captivated and inspired audiences around the world. Together with her multifaceted band, she mixes soaring vocals, of traditional Mexican music, Latin American hip-hop, jazz, blues, and klezmer influences.

M.A.K.U SOUNDSYSTEM AND PEOPLE'S CHAMPS (June 18, 2016 at First Niagara Stage on the New Haven Green)
M.A.K.U Soundsystem is an immigrant band based in New York City. With roots in Colombia (Barranquilla and Bogota), M.A.K.U embodies an active quest for identity through sound and bodies in motion, and puts on a party for everyday people. Born in 2010, the band has independently released two full-length albums and one EP, and has brought their fiery grooves to Africa, Colombia, and cities across North America. On stage, M.A.K.U juxtaposes traditional Colombian percussion, drum-set, synthesizers, electric base, guitar, and sizzling horns to create an explosive performance filled with unshakable grooves. Lyrically, the band addresses the realities of everyday people, encompassing love, hardships, culture, and the immigrant experience, with a positive, spiritual, and sometimes humorous spin. People's Champs combines the hottest dance rhythms from West Africa and South America with retro-futurist synth tones, crafting them into indie songs with Stevie Wonder-esque lyrics. With their "crazy ass genre mash ups" (Blakbook), People's Champs' truly original sound is equal parts Sharon Jones, tUnE-yArDs, Os Mutantes, William Onyeabor, and Prince. Critics are calling People’s Champs a “New York supergroup!” (Lucid Culture) and "Well on their way to becoming NYC's de facto Funk and Afrobeat experience" (Deli Magazine).

RED BARAAT (June 19, 2016 at First Niagara Stage on the New Haven Green)
Red Baraat’s explosive stage performance and riveting brew of North Indian, funk, go-go, Latin, and jazz rhythms has left giddy audiences open-mouthed and clambering for more. Conceived by dhol player Sunny Jain, the group has drawn worldwide praise for its singular sound fueled by 3 master rhythm makers, the muscle of horns, a raucous guitar and a booming sousaphone, the New York-based group commands the stage and stuns crowds with their inimitable dose of joy incarnate.

A DUTY TO LOOK? HUMAN RIGHTS AND IMAGERY (June 21, 2016 at Yale Center for British Art)
When, if ever, is it ethical to view images of famine, poverty, and violence, and what responses, if any, do such images demand of their viewers? What is our relationship to images in a time when the Islamic State produces and distributes elaborate, ritualized scenes of violence for global consumption? This panel takes up such questions surrounding human rights and imagery today, and is a collaboration with JUNCTURE: Explorations in Art and International Human Rights, an initiative of Yale Law School’s Schell Center for International Human Rights. Pictured is panelist James Silk, Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School.

ALZHEIMER’S, AGING, AND THE ARTS (June 23, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
While doctors and researchers have been dogged in pursuing better care for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and an understanding of the illness, it continues to plague millions. Yet recent research and initiatives have used art to offer new possibilities: accessing creativity and imagination can empower individuals, build human connections, and improve quality of life. After a short work-in-progress presentation on memory and aging by Chinese puppeteer Maleonn Ma, author and journalist Paula Span joins researchers Dr. Mary S. Mittelman, Dr. Arash Salardini, and director Maureen Towey to consider art's potential strength in the fight against Alzheimer’s.

AMERICAN MYTH INTO ART: STEEL HAMMER AND THE JOHN HENRY STORY (June 15, 2016 at Whitney Humanities Center)
Although John Henry was a historical figure, his story has evolved into a multi-faceted American myth, many versions of which serve as the dramatic and musical basis for Steel Hammer. The production's composer Julia Wolfe and two of its four playwrights, Carl Hancock Rux and Will Power, discuss how they have created their own myths of this legend and how these combine into a single work of art. Moderated by historian Scott Reynolds Nelson.

ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER: THE CARE ECONOMY (June 11, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
Despite huge gains achieved over the 20th century, in 2015 can we say that men, women, home, and work in the U.S. exist in fully harmonious, equitable equilibrium? Public policy expert and scholar Anne-Marie Slaughter, author of the acclaimed Unfinished Business (2015), insists further steps must be taken to achieve true gender equality in America today, from the workplace to the home. Slaughter suggests that our society must prioritize family care alongside work, for men as much as for women.

ASSIMILATION OR AUTONOMY? HOW CULTURE CAN HELP THE REFUGEE CRISIS (June 19, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
The world is experiencing the greatest refugee crisis since World War II, yet fears of terrorism from abroad have increased trepidation about welcoming refugees into the U.S. While this polarized debate has seen heavy rotation on national media, a more subtle but equally pressing issue has seen little press: how can culture aid the absorption of displaced people? Moderated by Jennifer Sime, Senior Vice President of U.S. Programs for the International Rescue Committee, this panel discusses how assimilation to U.S. modes and/or preservation of unique cultural traditions may strengthen not only these refugees' communities but also our broader national one.

DAN AUSTIN: YOU CAN GO ANYWHERE (June 25, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
Bikes may be the most powerful vehicle of happiness, hope, and healing ever created. In a far-reaching talk spanning the globe, author, filmmaker, philanthropist, and long-distance bike pilgrim Dan Austin riffs on the impact of bikes given to formerly trafficked women and girls in Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and Africa, as part of his foundation, 88bikes, and the power of long distance bicycle journeys. Austin shows us how bikes bring us together, move us around, connect us with the world, imbue in us a sense of possibility and freedom, and remind us to look forward in our lives—just as we look forward from the handlebars—as the limitless possibilities of an open road unfold.

DAN-EL PADILLA PERALTA: BLACK AND BROWN HUMANITY/TIES (June 25, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
This talk explores the relationship between humanistic education and social justice. Drawing on his experiences as an undocumented scholar of ancient Greece and Rome and on his work with formerly incarcerated adults, Dan-el Padilla Peralta, author of Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey From A Homeless Shelter To The Ivy League, explains how teaching and writing in the humanities are already contributing to and can continue to inspire the civic and economic empowerment of U.S. immigrant and minority communities.

J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALT: THE FOOD LAB (June 18, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
J. Kenji López-Alt, author of the New York Times bestselling cookbook The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, and managing culinary director of the food website Serious Eats, encourages us to put science to work in the kitchen. By showing and explaining the fundamental concepts behind creating a meal — the "why" behind the "how to" — Kenji and The Food Lab dispel common cooking myths, analyze best techniques, and free you from previous culinary constraints using science!

MAJORA CARTER: URBAN ONSHORING (June 12, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
MacArthur “genius” and entrepreneur Majora Carterdiscusses how she is building tech services companies in low-status American communities to generate jobs and new economic activity, and to develop nontraditional talent streams. Thanks to her work, the South Bronx—and communities like it—can participate as tech producers and not just consumers.

NO MINIMUM AGE: YOUTH ACTIVISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE (June 12, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
Our inaugural Youth Ideas panel, part of the first Citywide Youth Summit, explores the legacy of U.S. youth activism and, above all, its importance in social movements today. This discussion, featuring young agents for change who are fighting for various causes, is motivated by the conviction that teenagers are not only able to effect change but are perhaps the best equipped to do so. Moderated by Wendy Lesko, executive director of the Youth Activism Project.

PICO IYER: WHEN HOUSES ARE NOT HOMES (June 16, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
All of us are in movement more than ever before, whether as refugees or fortunate global citizens, able to contact the far corners of the world in ways our grandparents could not have imagined. But how do we orient ourselves in a world that is itself on the move, and how do we steady ourselves as our human race gathers fifteen times more data every hour than exists in the entire Library of Congress? Drawing on more than forty years of constant travel, a stint of living in LAX, and his annual journeys with the Dalai Lama, author Pico Iyersuggests ways in which our sense of home has grown fluid, portable—and even secret.

POWER FROM THE EARTH: THE SHIFT TO RENEWABLE ENERGY IN NEW ENGLAND (June 22, 2016 at Yale Center for British Art)
In the wake of the 2015 climate change summit in Paris, and increasing acknowledgement of the dangers facing our planet, the push has become more urgent to move toward renewable energy. John Dankosky, WNPR Host, and Executive Editor of the New England News Collaborative leads a discussion with local experts about how our state and region are taking advantage of renewable energy as an economic, cultural, and technological opportunity.

STORIES WE TELL: NARRATIVE AND EMPATHY (June 18, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
In her book What’s the Story (2014), legendary postmodern theatre director Anne Bogart reflects on the contemporary power of story in theatre and life alike. Among Bogart’s multidisciplinary musings are scientific ones about the brain’s proven reaction to narrative. In this conversation, Bogart talks with Yale psychologist and neuroscientist Hedy Kober about our minds’ biological response to, and empathy for, the stories of others.

TAKING OWNERSHIP: MUSIC AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN THE DIGITAL AGE (June 14, 2016 at Whitney Humanities Center)
The Internet has been both a blessing and a curse for musicians, allowing them to spread their work widely but also making them more susceptible to harmful, unlawful copying. Legal scholar Jessica Silbey (pictured) moderates a conversation with Nancy Baym, Principal Researcher for Microsoft Research New England; Jean Cook, Co-director of the Artist Revenue Streams project; and musician-composer and activist Maria Schneider about alternative models that benefit consumers and artists alike.

THE AMERICAN DREAM IN 2016: MILLENNIALS AND THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (June 19, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
In a December 2015 poll, 48% of millennials surveyed (ages 18–29) declared that the so-called American Dream was dead. Moderated and prefaced by Rock the Vote Chief Operating Officer Carolyn DeWitt, this panel considers the upshot of this staggering statistic: how is the U.S. serving or not serving its young people, and how will this shape the upcoming election, given that millennials constitute the country’s largest demographic?

TOWN HALL: WORK AS OPPORTUNITY AND OBSTACLE (June 18, 2016 at Yale Repertory Theatre)
Anchored by the presentation of Steel Hammer and related Ideas programming, this forum is an open discussion about work in the U.S. and New Haven today and the ways in which it may empower or disempower. On the anniversary of Juneteenth, this will also provide space to confront together, as a community, labor-related challenges rooted in our country’s racial, social, and economic history. Intended to connect individuals of distinct ages, backgrounds, and professions, the event will be organized and led by our high school Fellow students.

WRITING HOME: NARRATIVES OF PLACE AND DISPLACEMENT IN THE AMERICAS (June 11, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
How do the cities, languages, personal histories, and politics of our (and our families) past inform the narratives we construct today? At what point does the traditional immigrant narrative simply become the American narrative? Three contemporary Latin American writers living in the U.S. respond to create personal portraits that capture the essence of their America. Following a reading and presentation, Antonio Aiello, Web Editor and Content Director of PEN America, will moderate a discussion about place and displacement.

YALE-IN-CHINA SHOWCASE (June 16, 2016 at Yale University Art Gallery)
Join Hong Kong artists Cai Ying and Phoebe Hui as they share perspectives about creating art in the New Haven community. Cai and Phoebe are Yale-China Association's HKETO-NY Arts Fellows, who have spent the last five months living in New Haven, taking courses at Yale University, creating new work, and learning with and from other artists and professionals in the area. Moderated by: T.L. Cowan, professor of gender studies, digital humanities, and performance studies, Yale University/The New School, and fellow at Yale’s MacMillan Center.