International Festival Of Arts And Ideas

150+ events, one Festival. It all happens in New Haven, Connecticut.

Schedule of Events:

10:00am and 4:30pm: Compagnia TPO: +ERBA A Forest in the City - The Legacy Theatre
Presented in Partnership with The Legacy Theatre and part of the Gordon Geballe Environmental Series

+ERBA is an interactive show with two dancers who create together with children an imaginary city. The 'architect' dancer observes the landscape and draws the city with houses and streets. The other dancer loves the earth, the insects and draws grass and trees. The two characters move in an empty scene where projections on two large aligned screens evoke a room of wonder. Here their ideas, imagination and projects are drawn from movement and come to life. The architect creates houses full of color and light, the other dancer redesigns them by adding grass and trees. Slowly an imaginary city grows by combining their different sensitivities. The newborn city becomes a living environment and new characters and new events are added. The children come to color and populate the city. Insects appear, the seasons change and the city gets bigger, busier and more complex. Their dream of a green city is coming true. But there is also a factory that grows and grows, scaring away insects, birds, people and making greenery disappear. Together with the children, the dancers will design a new space where nature will grow and where a 'tree concert' can be expected.

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2:00pm: Shun Li And The Poet/Io Sono Li - Ives Main Branch Library
In Partnership With New Haven Free Public Library
Drama, 2013, No Rating, 1h 38 min / Free

May's Free Friday Films selections are complimentary to the NEA Big Read Program’s 2024 selection, “The Best We Could Do” by Thi Bui. The book chronicles Thi Bui's parents' life before and during the Vietnam War, their escape from Vietnam when Bui was a child, and their eventual migration to the United States as refugees. Our film selections tell diverse stories about migration and immigration all over the world and the scope of experiences this brings, from hardships and pain to love and unexpected kinship.

Io sono Li is about how a Chinese barmaid (Tao Zhao) and a Slavic fisherman (Rade Serbedzija) find friendship and more in an Italian fishing village.