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GOING GOLDEN Yale’s Beinecke Library turns 50 PAGE 46

WOMEN WHO KICK BUTT FEMALE MARTIAL-ARTS MAVENS BELIE THE ‘TENDER GENDER’ PAGE X

Lisa Bergmann photographed by Steve Blazo

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INTEL Punk’d at The Game

L E T TE R S sEEKiNG HiGH scHOOL scRiBEs NEW HAVEN — New Haven Magazine is seeking submissions from area high-school students for an annual collection of essays called “High School Confidential” to be published in the magazine’s March/ April issue. The essays, which should be between 500 and 600 words in length, should describe what makes the author distinctive within his/her school. We’re not looking for stereotypes — the Class Clown, the Jock — but thoughtful first-person compositions describing what sets the author apart within the school community. The program is open to students in public, private and parochial high schools. Selected manuscripts will be published with the students’ photos in the March/April issue of NHM. Deadline is February 20. To submit an essay or to learn more, e-mail mbingham@conntact.com.

NEW HAVEN — In recent years the annual Yale-Harvard football game has produced relatively little gridiron drama (the Crimson having won the last seven contests), but as often as not are the occasion for some epic pranks. The 130th renewal of the rival on November 23 produced a memorable YouTube video (“Harvard Tours Yale”) by a group of Harvard students who, wearing Yale T-shirts and sweatshirts, offered passersby a “Free Yale tour by a real Yale student!” outside the College Street gate of Old Campus. “Yale is in many ways Harvard’s little, perhaps less successful, sister,” the “guide” (reportedly Harvard junior Sam Clark, a member of the student comedy group On Harvard Time) tells his audience. “Yale students are stupider than Harvard students; Yale students are less successful than Harvard students; Yale students are not as attractive as Harvard students.” Referring

BI BL I O F I L E S

WORDS of MOUTH Do You Think it Will Last?

FÊTES

BRIDGEPORT — Can you think back 81 years?

Puts the ‘Bull’ in Trumbull

Connecticut was home to America’s longest-married couple in 2013, the Betars: John, 102, and Ann, 98.

TRUMBULL — An errant 500-pound bull was loose in the town of Trumbull recently, leading officials on a wild, um, moose chase and leaving children on lockdown in a local school before finally being put down.

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to Yale College’s admissions acceptance rate of 6.8 percent, he says, “If you’re here and you meet the people here, that acceptance rate seems like it’s a lot higher.” Later, referring to the annual U.S. News & World Report college rankings, he explains: “Harvard and Princeton are usually a pretty solid one and two. Yale fluctuates between, like, three and 15 or so, depending on the year.” At the conclusion of the tour, the guide says, “We’re not allowed to accept any tips, but I have one for you: Go to Harvard.”

The couple eloped in November 1932, in the teeth of the Great Depression, having had to sneak to Harrison, N.Y., from Bridgeport to marry before Ann was to be wed to another in a marriage arranged by her father.

OU T D OOR S

The eight-month-old bull escaped from a farm in Monroe before finding its way to northern Trumbull, where authorities tried to tranquilize it several times before eventually destroying the animal after it wandered to a secluded area.

They earned the Longest Married Couple title by Worldwide Marriage Encounter.

BOD Y & S O U L Nearby Tashua School held its students for almost an extra hour while the bull was roaming the immediate area.

The Betar’s oldest daughter is 80 years old. The pair also have 14 grandchildren and 16 greatgrandchildren.

ON S C R E E N

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| Vol. 7, No.4 | January/February 2014

Publisher: Mitchell Young editor Michael C. Bingham Design Consultant Terry Wells Contributing Writers Brooks Appelbaum, Nancy Burton, Duo Dickinson, Jessica Giannone, Eliza Hallabeck, Lynn Fredricksen, Mimi Freiman, Liese Klein, John Mordecai, Melissa Nicefaro, Susan E. Cornell, Priscilla Searles, Makayla Silva, Cindy Simoneau, Karen Singer, Tom Violante Photographers Steve Blazo, Dominick Cenotti, Anthony DeCarlo, John Mordecai, Lesley Roy, Chris Volpe

4 J anuary/February 2014

Advertising Manager Mary W. Beard Senior Publisher’s representative Roberta Harris Publisher’s representative Gina Gazvoda Robin Ungaro Gordon Weingarth New Haven is published 8 times annually by Second Wind Media Ltd., which also publishes Business New Haven, with offices at 20 Grand Avenue, New Haven, CT 06513. 203-781-3480 (voice), 203-781-3482 (fax). Subscriptions $24.95/year, $39.95/two years. Send name,

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address & zip code with payment. Second Wind Media Ltd. d/b/a New Haven shall not be held liable for failure to publish an advertisement or for typographical errors or errors in publication. For more information e-mail: NewHaven@Conntact.com. Please send CALENDAR information to CALENDAR@conntact.com no later than six weeks preceding calendar month of event. Please include date, time, location, event description, cost and contact information. Photographs must be at least 300 dpi resolution and are published at discretion of NEW HAVEN magazine.

Yale’s Beinecke Library turns 50 PAGE 46

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Lisa Bergmann photographed by Steve Blazo

KEs HAtion , S solu MYar’s re IMew Ye H N , S ose MYto th IM g up SHellyin B

Cover: Lisa Bergmann, CT Capoeira & Dance Center, Cover Design: Mixie von Bormann, Cover Photo, Steve Blazo NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

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Who Was Walter Camp? As Super Bowl XLVIII approaches on February 2, it makes sense to revisit the legacy of Walter Camp, the player, coach and writer commonly known as “the father of American football.” Camp was a New Britain native and rugby player at Yale College who played in the inaugural Yale-Harvard rugby game in 1876 before switching to football the following year. It was the influence of rugby that led Camp to modify the newer game into how it is played today while he served on collegiate football rules committees. Specifically, Camp is credited with creating the line of scrimmage, the point system and the system of downs, the offensive arrangement of players (11 men per side, to avoid a disorganized-looking mess on the field), and the two-point safety. All the while, Camp was a full-time businessman, becoming president and chairman of the New Haven Clock Co. He also wrote more than 30 books and 250 magazine articles on the game in his lifetime, and was inducted in the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1951. The Walter Camp Football Foundation, based in New Haven, was founded in 1967 to honor outstanding college football talent, who each year are honored to earn the title of Walter Camp All-Americans.

clothes Don’t Make the (congress)Man U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro has earned plenty of attention for her flamboyant (at least, compared to other politicians) fashion sense. She’s even gone viral with a hilarious fan-made blog called “Rosa DeLauro Is a F***ing Hipster.” But Business Insider isn’t laughing along. BI’s own list of the “Worst Dressed U.S. Politicians” (do former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele’s sometimes candy-striped ties really warrant his inclusion here?) gathers the 13 figures that it says makes the political scene “a wardrobe disaster zone,” which includes “everything worn” by the 70-year-old New Haven congresswoman. The mag particularly singles out DeLauro’s “crazy-hipster glasses, paisley prints, and endless scarves,” as well as ridiculing the “Dr. Pepper-red” streaks in her hair. Perhaps one should never underestimate getting criticized for being unique.

Flying High on charm HARTFORD — Well you can’t blame her for thinking on her feet. Desiree Perez, better known as Miss Connecticut USA, has ruffled a few feathers with and prompted an investigation by the TSA after tweeting that she was allowed to board a plane by showing her sash and crown as identification. Perez apparently forgot her driver’s license at home and when at the gate at Bradley International Airport, used what she had — also including a credit card and phone bill — to board a flight to West Virginia for a photo shoot. The tip-off tweet may just have been a joke, though — later statements from the model’s representatives indicated she also used a credit card, phone bill and a student ID with photo. Later still, TSA and United Airlines spokespeople said the sash and crown were never shown, and two acceptable forms of ID were used. To stay on the safe side, let’s just save the sashes and crowns for getting out of speeding tickets from now on.

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Poets

February marks the absolute dead of winter before March starts offering the signs of hope associated with spring. So it’s perhaps necessary that Valentine’s Day heats things up a bit and makes February a month of love rather than bitter cold. And what better language is there for love than poetry? New Haven (and Connecticut) has its own rich history of poets who were born, raised and/or made this their home. Here are just three whose lives are inseparable from the Nutmeg State. Dick Allen, 74, is Connecticut’s fifth and current poet laureate, for a term ending in 2015. He was the Charles A. Dana Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Bridgeport until 2001, and is credited as one of the founders of “Expansive Poetry,” which had its beginnings in the 1980s as, in his words, “a narrative, dramatic and sometimes lyric” form of poetry that uses traditional rhyme and meter with normal speech patterns to convey “non-Confessional observations, thoughts and feelings about the world outside the Self.” Allen has won a host of awards, been published in leading magazines and has published seven poetry collections. Visit home.earthlink.net/~rallen285/

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New Haven native and Yale graduate Reed Whittemore (1919-2012) was twice named poet laureate of the United States (from 1964-65 and again two decade later from 1984-85). He was a sophomore at Yale College when he and his roommate co-founded the literary journal Furioso (which he later re-started following a stint in the U.S. Air Force and after having accepted a teaching position at Carleton College in Minnesota). His poetic style has been praised for its humor and free-flowing style. Whittemore published 11 volumes of poetry and nine of prose, including a biography of the poet William Carlos Williams.

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Hamden-born Donald Hall, 85, is a poet and writer whose work also includes short fiction, plays and children’s books. His poetry is known typically for its explorations of longing for a more pastoral past and its reverence for nature. He was the first poetry editor of the Paris Review from 1953 to 1961, and was named poet laureate of the United States from 2006-07. He was married to fellow writer and poet Jane Kenyon; it is said that she was the focus of many of his poems, and continued to be so after her death in 1995. Visit poets.org/dhall.

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Making Places Legendary New Haven architect and man with a plan Herb Newman on the art and craft of creating places for people Architect Newman: ‘It is in our genes to be wary of something new — that can be frightening.’

Photo: Harold Shapiro

EDITOR’S L E T T E R INTE L

LET T E R S

Herbert S. Newman, FAIA, founder of Newman Architects, has been a New Haven ﬁxture and a leading architect in the Elm City and beyond for a halfcentury, having founded the ﬁrm in 1964 after graduation from Brown and the Yale School of Architecture. Newman Architects has designed structures around the nation and the world, but this Waterbury native has had a profound effect on buildings throughout Connecticut and even in preserving the Merritt Parkway as a luxurious thoroughfare. His design for the planned mixed-use development on the site of the former Veterans Memorial Coliseum has done the seeming impossible — kept New Haven’s legion of architecture critics at bay. New Haven Magazine Publisher Mitchell Young interviewed Newman for ONE2ONE.

burgeoning war industry families. I was always interested in art and drawing and architecture. My mother said that was a wonderful thing — ‘That’s a great hobby or avocation.’

Waterbury. [I was] born in New York. My mother and father were immigrants who shared the aspiration for my brother and I to be all that we can be so we would be able to repair the world. They were from Poland just east of Krakow — part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. They emigrated [to the United States] in 1920.

Exactly. My parents wanted me to go to law school or become a doctor, but none of that interested me. I graduated from Brown in 1955. I had met my wife-to-be about three years earlier, and she was from New Haven. She said, ‘What are you going to do?’ I told her, ‘Maybe I’ll work in my father’s supermarket.’ She said, ‘My father never pursued a profession and he was a very unhappy. He was very envious of others, because he was much brighter [than others] and that can happen to you.’

OF NOTES

That was around the time of Waterbury’s high tide? That’s true. My father opened a supermarket in the late 1930s just before World War II broke out, and Waterbury was an on an unbelievable spiral of [manufacturing] armaments and tools for the war effort. My father provided the food for the

FÊTES

Nobody thought you could make a living in art, certainly not in the 1930s.

AT HO M E

Where are you from originally?

W OR D S o f MO U TH

You got good advice from your wife. How long have you been married? I did. She set me on a path and I applied to architecture school. Bingo — I got into Yale [School of Art & Architecture]. That was one of the moments of bliss you can have in life. I found myself and I grew up and matured. [Married] 57 years.

Well, architecture is the ‘encompassing art,’ isn’t it? Yes, exactly. I felt guilty that I wasn’t pursuing something that had a social purpose. [Following graduation] I went to work for I.M. Pei, a very gifted architect in New

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York. I worked there for five years and came back to New Haven. It wasn’t until I was practicing for maybe seven or eight or ten years that I began to see some of the results of the work we were doing — and that clients were affecting me and how I was affecting them. I began to realize that you can make a difference. It wasn’t the kind of difference I thought, but this realization was very important.

Let me ask about your design for downtown New Haven’s [mixed-use residential and retail] Ninth Square development. When you design something do you have a thought as to how long it may take before it gets accepted or really works? It varies a great deal. In the case of Ninth Square the developers were very interested in the housing, but they really didn’t have that much experience or interest in the retail. It took 15 or 20 years for [the retail component] to mature and become the neighborhood it is now. It could have been much earlier. Architecture is a social act, and firstly you have to love people.

Not buildings? No, people come first.

They didn’t come first when they built the New Haven Coliseum Kevin Roche is a brilliant architect and he really does care about people. That [project] was very complicated. If you’re not interested in people and don’t love people you should be practicing sculpture or graphics or make paintings — doing things for yourself where you can influence people by your art. But architecture is responsive to the needs and aspirations [of humans] — we’re providing shelter and care for the person.

Yes — that you can perpetuate your design on others. Right now we’re doing things for veterans of the Iraq war: The students are forced to think about the needs [of the potential users].

Why are the students really there? Are they there to build next great building, or to impact society?

Is it architects or is it communities that are not ‘getting it’?

Both. Sometimes one or the other. I think there is a growing awareness because of inequality. Younger people today have a much greater sense of collaboration. They sense the dangers to the world, so architecture is encompassing more and has a much greater responsibility [than previously].

I think it’s both. One of the things I like very much about the Yale School of Architecture is that there’s a program. It introduces students at a very early stage in their education to move away from the quest for their own ego to be satisfied.

Why did you decide to return to New Haven after working in New York? At that time, New Haven wasn’t exactly a hotbed for architectural firms.

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In some ways that is true, but in others not. When I came back in 1964 that was the period of [Mayor] Richard C. Lee and New Haven was

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Do you mean from designing the big or interesting building?

New Haven

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known as a ‘Model City.’ Between Dick Lee and (then city planner, later Mayor) Ed Logue they garnered greater than their fair share of federal money to renew and develop the downtown. These men had great intentions and were very altruistic.

But why did you return to New Haven?

be frightening. It may harm our sensibilities or our ideas, shake us up. Our freedom has been brought about by these unbelievable scientific and technological changes, but it’s socially unbelievable, upsetting. The idea of tradition and stability is imperative and threatened. So if you ask, ‘What’s our brand, our schtick?’ we try to find

My wife was from New Haven, I felt there would be an opportunity for me to practice [architecture]. My wife and her family would help open doors for me. I was invited back to teach by Paul Rudolph who was dean [of the Yale School of Art & Architecture] in 1964. Ed Barnes had been a teacher of mine in the late ‘50s and he asked if I would be assist in doing master planning for Yale. Kingman Brewster had just become president [of the university].

those areas of conflict and confluence and change and balance them or complement them with those values of human nature that are indelible. Genetic, digital science may change us — that will be our choice, hopefully our choice.

Turn Back the Clock...

There has been significant criticism of New Haven’s school building program. But one thing you can say is New Haven has some beautifully designed schools, and it is a tribute to the architects.

In No Time!

And a tribute to the mayor and to the Board of Education, and the teachers and the parents. It’s my experience if you demonstrate to a child or any user that the building has dignity and is something to be treated with affection, people will [treat it with respect]. Making a place with the idea that allows a kid to dream gives him an experience, [especially] a poor kid — kind of an utopian environment.

I once said to Mayor DeStefano you couldn’t put up a phone booth in New Haven without a storm of architectural criticism. Yale has just opened its phenomenal new edward P. evans School of Management building designed by Foster + Partners. But if you look on social media, it’s being called a monstrosity by some. How do you deal with that as an architect? That kind of controversy is inevitable — the same is true of art, music, movies. Some great music will last way beyond architecture, but very few buildings will last [as long as the music of Mozart]. The issue of style is fun and it’s great to gossip and each of us has our own predilections, but the major issue is to have respect for everything. Everything can go with anything else if it is done with the right percentage of respect, color, material.

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Isn’t it sometimes a matter of time before we just decide that we do like something? Yes. We are conservative by nature. It is in our genes to be wary of something new — that can

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Many people are often afraid of risk. If you make a mistake in architecture you definitely get slapped down. How do you as a leader and teacher get others willing to accept risk? It is one of the really important things about architectural education. Before going to [graduate] architectural school students should get a good liberal-arts education. There is so much in the air today about, ‘Why bother to getting a liberal-arts education?’ In architecture, before you should build a building you should have a value system. The most important issue is what to do — not how to do it. That’s where the architect really needs a grounding in a great education. There are some architecture schools, you go to five years of architecture school and you get a degree and than you’re making buildings. That’s the great problem with most of the modern architecture in this country: most of it’s bad.

Well, George Constanza of the TV show Seinfeld wanted to be known as an architect, I recall. Yes, for the prestige and the status. That was a great series — they picked architects and marine biologists [to represent respectable professions]. This issue of caring deeply abut the world — Tikkun olam, [which is] Hebrew for repairing the world. It is the issue of making a place.

You’re building this new neighborhood on a spot, the New Haven Coliseum site, where if there was a controversial building ever built in New Haven it was the New Haven Coliseum — and even though that was designed by a great architect, many of us wanted it out of there.

’You want on the one hand to satisfy users and to be socially important — and on the other hand trying to satisfy these inner yearning to make art.’ It had lots of issues. It was very heroic. As an example, its north side that faced the town was exactly like the south side that faced the highway — there was no scale difference. It was hard-edged — it wasn’t sensitive enough to its surroundings [for lay people to embrace it].

taught at Yale in the 1950s and did the Yale University Art Gallery and the [Yale] British [Art] Center. He was one of those modern architects who was brought up as a Beaux Arts architect and he appreciated the past and understood it and cared deeply about history and antiquity. He was able in his modern architecture to imbue a building with those qualities [from the past].

You couldn’t build a building like that today. People wouldn’t accept it. I think you can. No, [people wouldn’t accept it], but it can get done.

How has new technology driven architecture?

In terms of trends, are we seeing more attempts to be ‘interesting,’ or more attempts to be ‘on scale’?

The profession as been influenced unbelievably by digital technology. It is now possible to shape and model architecture in ways that we could not do before, could not be afforded, could not be built without great expense. That is an unbelievable breakthrough and we’re just at the beginning to that breakthrough which is

Both. Modern architecture is new, so it is becoming more sophisticated — much more understanding and accepting of the past. Louis Kahn who was a great American architect who

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following the modern architecture revolution. A lot of modern architecture is very immature. If you look at the public buildings and you look at the homes that they build, they don’t build a lot [of quality] architecture. There are the cognoscenti, who are at the cutting edge and have a great deal of money and very sophisticated intellectually and artistically and who understand the art of architecture. But generally you find domestic architecture in our country is way, way behind any other uses, like public schools.

You’ve been in New Haven from the ‘Model City’ days. What has surprised you: the decline, or that New Haven is coming back? I have not been surprised by any of it. The postWorld War II era — knocking down everything and putting highways through New Haven — really hurt New Haven. New Haven had a great inventory of marvelous buildings and slums and those should have been replaced. They used highways to divide neighborhoods rather than knit them together. Jane Jacobs [author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities] made us aware of all of this, as opposed to [New York City master builder] and Ed Logue’s approach, because she learned by observation and saw what

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was happening and that was a movement — ‘New Urbanism.’

Do you put yourself in the ‘New urbanism’ category? I don’t. It’s urbanism; not new urbanism. To me, it’s remembering urbanism. In many ways the most wonderful project that I’ve worked on is the Merritt Parkway. When Lowell Weicker was governor he hired Emil Frankel as commissioner of the Department of Transportation and a group of us were asked to serve on committees and we were able to have the Merritt Parkway designated as a National Historic Monument. We stopped what would have been an expansion of the width — there was even proposal to put a double-decker over it. We formed a series of guidelines as to how it should be landscaped, what should be saved in terms of bridges, and service stations and roads and signs.

Could we build a road like the Merritt Parkway today? I think we could. I see it as a treasure of Connecticut. If there is anything that defines Connecticut as a wonderful state, I would say take a ride on the Merritt Parkway. It’s 38 miles of uncontestable beauty. It is a work of art. It is subject to a lot of damage [from] the weather and

people who want to encroach on it, who want to put [hiking] trails or bike trails, and so on — all of which will hurt. People want to drive faster on it and straighten it out.

We always want faster trains or taller buildings in places like New York. Do you think we need faster and taller? I think that density in urban areas is sort of inevitable because of the marketplace, but it should not be done at the expense of surrounding older neighborhoods. I was very happy that [Mayor Michael] Bloomberg’s attempt to get city planning to approve this higher density [use] of midtown Manhattan was turned down. Thank goodness!

In business, people retire. How about with architects? Generally, as painful as the practice [of architecture is] and all the bruises you get, you have a point of view and you want the next thing you do to be a manifestation of your beliefs. You want on the one hand to satisfy users and to be socially important — and on the other hand trying to satisfy these inner yearning to make art. v

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Women in black: ‘You learn to conquer the voices in your head that say, ‘I can’t.’

WOMEN

Who Kick Butt By Liese Klein

Female martial artists unleash their inner warriors 14 J anuary/February 2014

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“In martial arts you build self confidence, physical strength – and you learn to conquer the voices in your head that say, ‘I can’t,’” explains Lisa Bergmann, an instructor in the Afro-Brazilian art of Capoeira. “Having martial-arts training also helps you walk down the street with your head held high, knowing that if someone chooses to try to make you some kind of victim, they will have some surprises coming their way.”

Deadly Dance Bergmann, 34, started Capoeira in 2002 when she was studying abroad in Bolivia and observed a visiting teacher. “Something about the roda -- the circle where people play Capoeira -- made me feel like I knew I belonged there and like I never wanted to be anywhere else.” Now an organizer for the Communist Party in New Haven, Bergmann trains and teaches at the Connecticut Capoeira Center on State Street with Master Efraim Silva. Using gymnastic handstands, cartwheels and sweeping kicks, Capoeira looks more like a dance than a fighting system – which is the whole point. The art was developed by slaves in Brazil as a means of self defense that could be

“[Master Silva] expects the women in his classes to kick butt just as much as the men, and we all go through the exact same training together,” Bergmann says. “The Capoeira game is a physical conversation between two people with questions and answers that areconstantly flowing.”

First-Placed Fists For 33-year-old Marlisa Rodriguez of West Haven, martial arts have been a path toward health and selfconfidence since the age of 11, when she began studying the art of Tang Soo Do, also known as Korean karate. As a member of the West Haven Academy of Karate, Rodriguez has traveled the world practicing her art; she also won three gold medals this fall at the All Tang Soo Do National Championships in Texas. “I had asthma as a kid,” says Rodriguez. “I liked physical activity but the asthma always hindered me. I was excluded from playing with other kids, but I kept working at it. Karate has made my lung capacity above average now.” A typical Tang Soo Do class starts with stretches and kata – set forms practiced solo that reinforce basic strikes and defenses. After that, pairs practice self-defense moves as well as movements with staffs and swords. Sparring comes next, with partners working on attacks and defenses to score points in competition. “The focus and the concentration help you learn about yourself,” Rodriguez explains. “You can get to

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Slow and gentle at first, the encounters evolve into a flurry of attacks and defenses, with strong kicks skimming within inches of the partner’s face and body.

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Class today at the New Haven school starts with lots of warm-up movements: running in circles, stretches and then ginga – a backand-forth step that serves as the connector between movements, according to Master Silva. The group then gathers in the roda circle for a series of paired encounters accompanied by others playing traditional Brazilian musical instruments.

But you don’t have to go online or go to Hollywood to see these fierce females – women all over the New Haven area are practicing martial arts just like their onscreen sisters. From traditional Asian arts to AfroBrazilian dance-fighting to MMAstyle ground grappling, martial rts are drawing more women into combat than ever before.

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They’re everywhere you look in popular culture: On screens large and small this year, you’re more likely to see women who throw punches, land vicious kicks or let arrows fly than a simpering bride or ingénue.

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a level where you know how to defend yourself.” West Haven Academy of Karate’s experienced teaching staff push students to their limit, she adds. After more than 20 years of Tang Soo Do, Rodriguez still finds new challenges in her art, especially in the more intricate forms and weapons practice. Her practice now helps center her and inspire her as the mother of two teenage sons. “It’s a never-ending path and journey,” she says. “You always learn something.”

Soothing Sword Play Out of her uniform, Jessica Ye doesn’t exactly look intimidating. The Yale MD/Ph.D. student has a slight frame and a mellow personality reflecting her home state of California. But when she puts on her bogu – or Kendo armor – Ye transforms into a fierce warrior. Letting loose with shrill yelps known as ki-ai, Ye battered her opponent with a bamboo sword at a recent practice, striking him repeatedly on his armored head, wrist and torso. (The head-to-toe armor worn in the Japanese martial art of Kendo has been said to have inspired Darth Vader’s sinister costume in the Star Wars films.) Kendo, the art of traditional Japanese fencing, is practiced by a dedicated few around the country

The Afro-Brazilian discipline of Capoeira is rapidly attracting disciples to its marriage of fighting and dancing.

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as a path to fitness and mental clarity. In New Haven, a dozen or so people gather at Yale’s Payne Whitney gym to practice Kendo several times a week as part of a club led by Ye. Leading the club helps Ye cope with her schedule in one of the most demanding and selective programs at Yale, which combines a medical-school education with a Ph.D. in the sciences. “Kendo gives me a good reason to get out, and since I know other people are relying on me to be there, either as a practice partner or a teacher, I feel even more compelled to go,” explains Ye. “Probably the biggest reason why I’ve even kept these commitments is that I feel like I have a lot more to improve and a lot to learn. The nice high I get after practice is always rewarding and very effective at reducing school stress.” The traditional nature of Kendo practice is evident from the beginning of class, when participants line up and bow Japanese-style to the teacher and the front of the practice space. Exercises are done in unison and counted out in Japanese. The class then pairs off for traditional striking practice as the dojo rings with ki-ai shouts. Last is free sparring, a high-energy faceoff in which each combatant

attempts to land the perfect blow to the helmet. “You can only really learn by playing with others,” Ye says. “Learning to read other people and their movements is a huge part of kendo that I am still trying to grasp, and is a skill that is very applicable to normal life.” Although tough for beginners, Kendo hones many useful skills for people in demanding situations, Ye adds. “It bolsters one’s strength, diligence and resilience, which are important skills for everyone but is especially useful for women who may encounter more difficulty or resistance in professional spheres,” she said. “In particular [Kendo] gives some good indirect lessons about how to resist when necessary.”

Girl Power Whether for fitness, self-defense or cultural exploration, martial arts provide a unique opportunity for both women and men to go beyond physical exercise as an end it itself. And as Hollywood has discovered, the broader culture is beginning to appreciate women who kick ass. Says Lisa Bergmann of Capoeira: “Strong female martial artists are just plain hot.” v

Area Martial Arts Resources Interested in trying a martial art in the New Year? Many schools across the New Haven area have introductory classes starting this month geared toward those who have never set foot in a dojo before. Here are a few arts with local intro classes: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ): A South American take on a traditional Japanese art that focuses on ground grappling – you’ll see some BJJ moves in mixed martial-arts bouts. Soulcraft BJJ in Hamden has a variety of beginner’s programs; e-mail info@soulcraftbjj.com. Aikido: Called “moving Zen,” this modern Japanese art has a nonviolent philosophy but features lots of challenging throws, joint locks and movements. Schools with beginner’s programs include Fire Horse Aikido in New Haven. E-mail sensei@ firehorseaikido.org to learn more. Krav Maga: A self-defense system developed by the Israeli army, Krav Maga is known for its efficient and effective moves. Alpha Krav Maga in Cheshire offers a range of programs. Visit kravct.com for more information.

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SHUFFLING FEET TO An OLD-TIMEY BEAT

A close-knit community grows around a Bethany contradance event 18 J anuary/February 2014

By KAREN SINGER

NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

Bill Fischer is down on all fours, trying to light a fire. Smoke billows out from the fireplace, mingling with white puffs of breath from musicians entering the high-ceilinged dance hall part of his converted barn home around 7:30 p.m. on a recent frigid Friday for his monthly Bethany Music and Dance (BMAD) event. As members of a pickup dance band unpack their gear, other people with and without instruments arrive and pass through an inner door into a much warmer corridor with several closed rooms bearing signs saying they’re off-limits to visitors. A narrow stairway on the right leads down to a kitchen and living room area, where several men perform old time and bluegrass tunes on guitar, mandolin and bones, a percussive instrument resembling an oversized, curved tongue depressor, which is played by striking two together in each hand, producing a clattering sound.

“This is one of the only places you can hear penny whistles in four-part harmony,” says Fred Swedberg, a musician who has driven here from his home in Orange, Mass., as he does most months, to be at BMAD. Swedberg heads down a second flight of steps, through a cool room where people are playing table soccer and into an intimate space, where Roger Sprung is holding court. A legendary bluegrass banjo innovator — and BMAD regular — Sprung, now in his 80s, is known for infusing jazz, old time dance tunes and other elements into his playing. On this night he’s ably assisted by a guitarist, standup bass player, autoharp player and 11-year-old banjo-playing boy wearing a Davey Crockett coonskin cap. Swedberg soon adds his guitar and sweet tenor voice to the mix. Sprung takes turns calling tunes and asking other performers to select the next one. Repertoire includes the Carter family’s “Keep on the Sunny Side” and the indelible dueling guitar and banjo duet from the 1972 film Deliverance, featuring G. Rockwell, the coonskin cap kid, matching Strung, his mentor, note for note. The kid also plays a mean guitar. The room rapidly fills beyond capacity with spectators and more musicians, who join in on violin, guitar and mandolin from wherever they happened to be standing. One of the fiddlers, Lucas Dreier, recently returned

from South America, where he has spent the last three years studying an indigenous people called the Kogi, who live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northern Columbia. “I used to come here all the time when I was a student at Yale and worked with the Yale Sustainability Food Project,” explains Dreier, a graduate anthropology student at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. “What Bill is doing is creating a sense of community through music.” Among the onlookers is Maya Rose, a statuesque Amity Regional High School senior wearing a black headband and multi-colored ribbons in her long braids. Rose began attending monthly BMAD events with friends four years ago, when her family moved to Bethany from Johannesburg, South Africa. “Bill opens his house to anyone who likes to hear a bunch of people playing music, dancing and having a good time,” she says. Rose soon will be among the dancers. Visual stimuli assault the senses from floor to ceiling throughout this place, where Fischer, whose website identifies him as a “contradance caller, drummer and spiritual leader,” lives with his wife, Mickey Koth, who plays the fiddle, often for contra dances called by her husband. An eclectic assortment of objects abounds, from vintage medicine bottles and artifacts in Fischer’s office to Russian nesting dolls and other folk art, abstract art, posters, fading newspaper

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As the hours pass, changing tableaux of music and festivity fill the rooms and open spaces in the house, reminiscent of similar scenes frozen in time by the 16th-century Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Fischer, 71, works the gathering crowd, making his way up and down the stairs repeatedly, greeting passersby with handshakes and hugs and adding his pennywhistle to jams. Easy to spot, he’s wearing a long sleeve green shirt and beige trousers, and has a wrinkled visage, long beard and blond dreadlocks hanging below his waist. An internal medicine doctor who discovered a passion for contradancing in the 1980s and became a dance caller, Fischer hosted the first BMAD in 1991. “I started this only because myself and a number of other music and dance friends were interested in a venue where we could all expand our knowledge about music and dance,” he recounts. “It started small — with ten, 15 or 20 people — and has gone on once a month ever since. The first growth spurt, aside from steadily growing anyway, was in the late ’90s when a lady [Pinky Fox], who had been doing similar music events in New Haven in the ’70s and ’80s, left town” and created an opportunity for a successor.

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Evolved over time from English and French country and court dance, American contradance uses a caller, who leads dancers through a series of movements, often repeated, and multiple changes of partners. The music typically is live. Contra dancing requires partners facing each other in two long lines, unlike line dancing to country music, where there are no partners and everyone is facing the same direction. It also differs from square dancing, which has four couples, all facing inward, with two couples facing each other vertically and the other two couples facing each other horizontally. “In a regulation contra dance,” Fischer explains, “as the caller it’s my obligation, for the pleasure of the dancers, to marry the choreography with the phasing of the music. “Patterns here [at BMAD] are choreographed in the specific dances, but the execution of them is a lot less skilled. But it doesn’t matter. There’s a subset

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Fischer describes the dancing at BMAD as a “barn dance” with contra patterns, but it is “looser” and less formal than traditional contradance, which emphasizes precise movements.

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Fischer also hosts “ritual” solstice and equinox gatherings with bonfires at his house, and calls dances in a variety of settings around New England. “It’s hard for me to go anywhere, especially in the Northeast, and not be recognized,” he says. “I never expected any of this to happen to me, but I’m delighted with what’s happened. Other people have helped me understand that I’m essentially building community.” Fischer estimates the night’s crowd at 200 to 225 people, an average number, he says. In the kitchen area, visitors feast on cookies, cakes and a growing array of other goodies brought by new arrivals. Between munches, Karianna Rosenberg, a 41-year-old violinist “learning to become a fiddle player,” notes the place is even more packed in summer and when Yale is in session. “I’ve seen infants in strollers,” Rosenberg says. She has been coming to BMAD with her parents for over a decade. Rosenberg teaches survival skills at Two Coyotes Wilderness School, which offers programs for all ages at locations around the state, including the Ansonia Nature Center.

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Moreover, Fischer adds, BMAD is not just about dancing. “It’s all the other music stuff and socializing, plus food,” he says.

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The second major influx began around a decade ago, Fischer adds, when Yalies and students from other colleges began to discover BMAD and tell their friends about it.

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An occasional BMAD dancer, Rosenberg says, “Anyone can do it. All you need is two legs and a smile.” Eighteen-year-old SUNY Purchase College jazz major Collin Dooman is impressed by the “sheer number” of BMAD attendees. “I think it’s really cool that someone would open their house for this,” says Dooman, who is here with a dozen former high school buddies. “I’m not really sure what this is,” he adds, “but I like it.” A first-timer to BMAD, Dooman says he intends to come again. Bethany resident Fritz DeLash and his 21-year-old son, Mark, frequently attend BMAD gatherings to observe the participants. DeLash, 66, is struck by the transformative qualities of music and dance. “It’s kind of nice to see the people come and watch all the layers seem to peel off and the smiles begin,” he says. Back in the living room, a piano player has replaced the string and bones players and is performing a lively version of Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” joined by singing spectators. Later Swedberg takes over the ivories and sings holiday song parodies. Looking on is Paul Hammer, a selfdescribed composer and lyricist. “What’s wonderful to me is to see young people coming and know this sort of camaraderie will outlive us,” Hammer says, adding he used to go to Pinky Fox’s New Haven hootenannies decades ago.

Caller Bill Fischer get’s everyone moving

Upstairs in the dance hall, Fischer sits astride an African djembe drum, setting the beat for a slow version of the Grateful Dead tune “Friend of the Devil,” performed by several guitarists. A young couple seated side-by-side on a nearby bench keeps pace with bongo drums.

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After 10 p.m., several people roll up the rugs on the dance floor. The pickup band starts playing an old time tune and the dance begins. The hall becomes warmer with the heat of bodies moving to Fischer’s instructions. He moves around the room, microphone in hand, sometime joining the dance. The dancers, many of them college age, choose partners, join hands, make arches with couples going through the arches, swing partners and change partners. All their faces are beaming. The lines switch to concentric circles going left and right, and rushing toward and away from the center of the room. Toward the finale, participants, hand in hand, dance around the entire residence in a spiral pattern that begins and ends in the dance hall. The event winds up around 12:30 p.m. with a waltz. People begin to head their separate ways. Soon the fireplace embers will burn out and the sound of music, laughter and stomping feet will cease until next month, when the cycle begins again. v

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A STITCH IN TIME Is knitting the ‘new yoga’? By LYNN FREDRICKSEN

By all accounts, there is just something about knitting… and the people who knit. With knitting circles dating back to the Revolutionary War era — and enjoying a renaissance today — the subject of knitting begs the question: what is it about using needles to work a single strand of yarn into an object that has such universal appeal? From a historical perspective, knitting was born of necessity, not recreation. Knitters were (mostly women) who engaged in the activity largely to make clothing. During times of war women knitted scarves, hats, gloves, mittens and socks to keep American soldiers warm. But while many still gather at people’s homes to enjoy an evening of knitting, these days knitters have many more options available to them. With knitting communities in churches and yarn stores throughout the country, not to mention online 22 J anuary/February 2014

knitting communities such as Ravelry.com, which boasts more than three million members, the reasons people knit are as varied as the items they knit. “This is the center of the community’s interest,” explains Julia Bogardus, of the large work table at Knit New Haven, the yarn store she owns with Linda Reis and June Sachs at 26 Whitney Avenue. “It’s very fluid and not guided by what neighborhood we live in or where we went to school.” Bogardus notes it is difficult to find a yarn store that doesn’t have a large work table, because that’s where people gather. “This is where people come,” Bogardus says. “For a knitter, you know you’re going to find your people.” Bogardus, who taught herself to knit when she was in high school, has noticed many changes over the years as knitting has become more and more popular — even, one might say, a bit hip. For those interested in learning, she recommends any of the books on the subject from the Stitch ‘n Bitch series penned by Yale alumna Debbie Stoller.

“That’s one of the top knitting books of the last 20 years,” Bogardus explains. There’s also Ravelry.com, for those who wish to add an online knitting circle to their face-to-face group, Bogardus explains. But there is much to be said for getting to know people across the table from you as you both work on your knitting projects. Two people visiting a knitting circle at Knit New Haven struck up a friendship that grew so close they had Thanksgiving dinner together, Bogardus says. “People make real relationships here,” she says. While technology has made it possible for people to take part in online knitting groups, it has also made short work of the rather tedious task of rolling the yarn into a ball. “It’s old technology,” Bogardus says of her swift. “You would have found it in any Revolutionary home. But the ball-winder is now electrically powered, automatic.” But as much as things change, they also remain the same. As women during the Revolutionary War era did 250 years ago, today’s knitters also knit to help others. Many area churches and other groups have started knitting circles to make NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

things like prayer shawls and hats to donate to those, for example, undergoing chemotherapy. “The idea of the prayer shawl is that you knit your prayers into it and people wrap themselves in it,” Bogardus says. “And now there are Halos of Hope, where people knit hats for people undergoing chemo.”

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Bogardus laughs as she recalls numerous conversations about the appropriateness of knitting during class. “I’ve always said I listen much better when I’m knitting,” Bogardus quips. “Besides, knitting is cheaper than therapy. The joke is: Knitting is the new yoga.” At the Yarn Barn, located 1666 Litchfield Turnpike in Woodbridge, owner Arabella Perry keeps an old spinning wheel on top of a display of knitting books. It’s decorative, to be sure, but Perry makes sure it earns its keep. “We teach spinning,” Perry says with a smile. “People find it very interesting.” In the 25 years she’s owned her store she has seen numerous people come full circle with their knitting. “A lot of people knit when they’re young then stop when they have their families,” Perry says. “But a lot of people come back to it and knit for their grandkids.” As Perry shows a customer around her shop, explaining the pattern books and the organization of the different weights of yarn, even pointing out one made from mink, she touts the benefits of the social interaction knitting offers. “It’s very therapeutic,” Perry says. “It’s repetitious. It will mellow you out — which is good in this stressful society we live in.”

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Brittany Perry balls yarn the new-fashioned way at the Yarn Barn.

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a very unmapped journey, and it is not something we’ve been taught to navigate.”

Websites such as caring.com and aarp. org/home-family/caregiving/ also are good resources, covering topics ranging from adult day care centers, aging in place and other housing options to health and financial matters.

Leone daughter’s it’s aout group of ladies, they talk, I moreover, Kaplan says, While “There’s a admired her “Things sort of“If divide between crisis scarf, she was reluctant to pay that knit,” Leone jokes. tremendous amount of stress, and and non-crisis,” says elder law attorney much for one for herself. Since of herCoan, returnLewendon, to knitting, Leone the kids’ problems will become more Whitney Lewendon “I used to knit,” Leone says. “So I& miltenberger, has learnedLLC a couple of tricks that magnified at times like this.” Gulliver in New looked at it and decidedHaven. to makeLewendon one she sometimes shares willingly. She advises works Situations can be even more complicated for myself. other knitters about putting with children in their 20s, whose parents little when adult children aren’t in the same markers your work to keep track die unexpectedly or haveinan early-onset “That was six years ago.” community or state as their parents. of stitches when working illness. “It’s more common for me to a pattern. Kaplan describes a current case where shehas become a Since then, Leone She also firmly believes in the hear from people in their 40s or 50s about regular customer is working with six siblings living “all at the Yarn Basket merits of writing things down in a parentswith who are in their 70s or 80s,” he and has struck up a friendship over the country” to coordinate the care notebook. says, adding he also has clients in their proprietor Warren of their 95-year-old mother, who wants to Gohsler. But, much like Bogardus and Perry, 90s. remain at home.

“Knitters can stand there and talk to a total stranger,” An electronic alert system also may be a Leone says. “There’s just good idea, especially for the older person who lives alone. something about someone “I think people really don’t understand how much help exists, and you just don’t knits or who crochets. have to who tough it out to help people

making sure your parents have their legal affairs in order should be another priority.

“Most of my yarn comes from

Leone has noticed that there is a

“If I’m an adult child who wants says Leone, thatcalled bycertain something about knitters. Family dynamics are anhere,” integral part of who adds a consult with the parents, it’s my practice she appreciates the good quality the picture. Adult siblings are “often not “Knitters can stand available at Gohsler’s shop. She the addsparents to meet privately. If thethere and talk on the same page” because of different to a total stranger,” says. that she started anotherparents sweater are justincapacitated and we’reLeone doing experiences with their parents,” says “There’s just something about the day before. That one, in red, will parent, then the work is Kaplan, who also offers therapy for clients. work to help thesomeone who knits or crochets. You Along with ferreting out resources to be for her granddaughter. with the child. If there’s athem.” grey area, when “There’s just so much you can do. Dignity can talk to forare yet another knitting project. vv v assist their parents, adult children the parents feel they’re still in charge but “It passes many hours,” says Leone. comfort andshe safety and quality of life As she perusesand several displays Leone isthen also Iquick grappling psychological Guilford residentwith and “all avidthe knitter there’s some question, maketoitpraise clear Gohsler “It keeps me from dwelling on can became economically chats about how she back to challenging.” and his staff. She maintains that issues around watching a parent become Marie Leone wears a cowl-style things I don’t want to dwell upon. that I’m counseling the parents.” knitting. just about whatever diffi culty you more disabled seeing their mortality even if parents or their adult children can scarf around her neckand as she shops It’s the best therapy.” Sometimes the can adult children already haveproject, run into with a knitting daughter afford had a scarf apparent,” adds Kaplan. “My “Losing helpwith with private pay or long-term at thebecome Yarn Basket, 288 East Main Not a huge baseball fan,been Leone talking with parents about doing they can solve. pockets on it,” care Leone recalls. “She Streetainparent Branford. is probably one of the most insurance, such arrangements “need is known to knit duringsome baseball legal planning as their circumstances said she bought it at a shop in tasks of adulthood. It’s supervision and don’t always notes “He’s the best,” she says of Gohsler. Leonechallenging made the cowl herself, along games.work,” She also knits when she’s are changing. Branford for $80.” “His staff is the best. You can come exquisitely painful primal level. It’s Kaplan. with about 25 others, moston of awhich with her friends. you love as they become debilitated,” says Laura Kaplan, a geriatric care manager for Connecticut eldercare Solutions, LLC in Woodbridge.

You can talk to them.”

in with a knitting problem and they have a lot of little tips and hints.”

she sold for holiday gift-giving. Today she’s shopping for more yarn

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Knitting circle at the Yarn Barn in Woodbridge with (l-r) Peggie Black, Anne Cheney, Calann Lundin, Rosemarie Ardise, Airbella Perry, Tarry Hirschfeld and Jean Webber.

Indeed, Gohsler does appear to be the problem solver as he carefully inspects a customer’s knitting project. She’s holding it out to him, pointing to an area she believes contains a mistake. As Gohsler examines her stitches, he suggests a solution. She takes it and instantly smiles. Satisfied that his customer is again happily knitting away, Gohsler turns to help another customer. “I started knitting 27 or 28 years ago,” Gohsler says. “I started out crocheting then taught myself to knit.” After suffering three consecutive ulcers, Gohsler decided to take his wife’s suggestion and find something to do that would require him to slow down, sit down, and relax for at least a few minutes each day. Knitting proved to be the perfect therapy.

electric swift, he just prefers using the older technology of the manual one. But even though he doesn’t embrace the technological innovation of electric swifts, he is quite enamored of new yarns and knitting needles. “Now they’re made of plastic, wood, metal and we occasionally get a set made of carbon that is virtually unbreakable,” he says. “They’re making them out of everything now.”

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Nearby, customer Tara Raebuck of East Haven admits to being another self-taught knitting enthusiast. Raebuck is such a believer in the therapeutic powers of knitting that she takes her talents all the way to Waterford, where she teaches knitting and crocheting to Alzheimer’s and dementia patients at Bayview Health Care.

“It’s tremendous therapy,” Raebuck explains. “There’s something about knitting and the brain. It’s the repetitive nature of it. You have to count and keep track of what you’re doing.”

“I’ve always been fascinated by people taking one piece of yarn and making something,” Gohsler says. In front of a sunny window at the front of his store Gohsler has a swift he uses to wind customers’ yarn for them. “It’s fun to come in and pick out yarn and it is fun to pick out a pattern,” he says. “But it’s not fun to go home and have to wind yarn. This way, they can go home and knit.”

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And Raebuck knows whereof she speaks. After her mother died a few years ago she taught herself to knit to help cope with her loss. “It’s the greatest thing I ever did,” Raebuck says. “Knitters don’t get enough respect. It’s an art form. It’s the most therapeutic art form.” v

As Gohsler deftly winds a ball of yarn he notes that while he has an new haven

Say goodbye to cabin fever and embrace winter’s hippest outdoor sport: snowshoeing

Making Tracks Like Bigfoot By JESSICA GIANNONE

Long before the magnificent pyramids in Egypt took shape, humans in colder climes learned that to negotiate endless expanses of blanketed snow required more than the soles of their feet alone. What was once considered an ancient traveling aid has become a present-day, popular winter sport with growing appeal. And what other name can we call this alluring trend than simply: snowshoeing. Snowshoeing as it is now known traces its roots back more than 6,000 years, with origins in central Asia, according to the United States Snowshoe Association. Migrating forebears of peoples who would later become Native Americans handcrafted their snowshoes from wood and rawhide — not for a stroll in the park, but for survival. 26 J anuary/February 2014

“They realized thousands of years ago [they] could have snow that’s five or ten feet deep, and stay more or less on the surface,” explains wilderness expert and New York State licensed guide Charles Cook, founder and director of hiking club Wild Earth Adventures.

much of the consumer attraction to the number of winter storms the Northeast has endured in recent chilly seasons. He says ownership of the shoes are almost becoming a necessity, as they can come in handy to get the mail or walk the dog, despite their utility being principally for recreation.

The sport has been around for literally ages, but popular attraction to this growing winter activity seems to have surged in recent years. And given the colder winters of the last few years it’s not uncommon to see snowshoers not only in the back woods, but in suburban and even urban settings to catch the best of winter’s “cool” offerings.

Deborah Lewis, owner of Bredeson Outdoor Adventures in Norwalk, which specializes in organizing and leading outdoor activity tours throughout the Americas and Europe, attributes snowshoeing’s increasing popularity to the accessibility and ease of the sport.

Snowshoe Magazine calls its namesake activity the fastest growing winter sport in the world. According to the Outdoor Industry Association’s 2013 Outdoor Participation Report, snowshoeing participation among Americans has virtually doubled since 2007. “Snowshoeing absolutely exploded as a sport,” says Farmington’s Winding Trail’s Outdoor Adventure Director Robb Armstrong, explaining how his multirecreation park has been getting a great amount of eager snowshoers over the last few years. “It’s one of those things where it’s a very accessible sport,” he adds. Proprietors of retailers such as Connecticut Outdoors, LLC have charted a surge in snowshoe sales, as owner David Faber explains. He attributes

“The main reason is that there isn’t really any great skill factor involved,” explains Lewis, adding there are a lot more guided tours available now than ever before. Many describe the sport as a simple walk through the woods. “If you can walk, you can snowshoe,” says Tessa Bondi, outreach specialist for Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI), a national retailer of outdoor equipment and accessories. Bredeson’s Lewis explains snowshoeing is “just walking on snow — “it’s that simple.” The appeal isn’t so much about the act of maneuvering through the snow, but the freedom that snowshoes afford their users to go virtually NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

anywhere, as if you’re conquering the landscape, challenging nature’s limitations of knee-deep snow or a windswept and drifting plain.

as well as the practice of maneuvering in a circle to reverse direction, rather than (very awkwardly) backing up.

Snowshoers can gladly make the most of the aftermath of our periodic New England snowstorms, all while enjoying the serene scenes.

REI’s Bondi says while the sport definitely takes some getting used to, backing up is almost unheard of, as you will almost always trip. She says the key is getting used to the idea that you cannot turn as quickly and move as fast. You make “kind of broad, sweeping turns” and have to be conscious of how you step.

“[Snowshoeing is] the biggest way to make winter not drag,” says Winding Trail’s Armstrong. All agree the activity provides an opportunity to indulge in relaxation, beautiful sights and hearthealthy exercise.

a little too great a challenge. Snowshoers, of course, have the option to walk in open, flat terrain, smooth trails, or more rugged and steeply pitched paths, such as hilly hiking trails. However, Cook suggests staying away from the more uneven and steeper paths for inexperienced trekkers.

vvv For all of the varying terrain they help users negotiate, there are four principal types of snowshoes, each serving different purposes, as Bondi explains: shoes for flat terrain, rolling terrain, mountaineering snowshoes (featuring a more aggressive crampon built for traversing on angles or icy, steep inclines), and running snowshoes, which are a more narrow at the heel. Some other shoes may be designed for fitness or climbing purposes.

“We like to call it a 12-step program,” says Bondi with an arched eyebrow. “Take 12 steps and you’ll figure it out.”

“It’s really intuitive,” says Lewis, adding that some novice practitioners just need to develop their confidence in maneuvering downhill and trust the crampons (the traction devices beneath the shoes that dig into the snow and ice) to support them.

Cook, who has been snowshoeing and leading tours for some 35 years, explains that snowshoeing is one of the safest outdoor winter activities — and that unlike Alpine or Nordic skiing, it is pretty difficult to get injured snowshoeing.

Though some snowshoers use poles, which Connecticut Outdoors’ Faber recommends for tackling steep hills, Cook says they are not essential and are used mostly for balance rather than to propel one forward. The sport primarily involves leg work.

“Just be a little bit brave and venture out,” says Cook, emphasizing that people stay indoors “way too much” in the winter.

Some people may actually walk sideways downhill when they aren’t using poles, Faber explains.

“It’s harder than hiking in terms of energy expenditure,” notes Lewis.

Snowshoers can walk, jog, run or climb, all which seem to be increasingly popular.

“It’s a different kind of workout when you incorporate poles,” says Faber. “Your whole body is involved,” similar to a user of an elliptical trainer.

She says like any other vigorous outdoor winter activity, significant aerobic output is involved. Snowshoeing is great for 0precious hearts and lungs.

Lewis explains snowshoers don’t exactly “float on top,” but they don’t sink as far down to what would otherwise be a considerable depth wearing shoes or boots. Beginners have to get used to the wider stride,

Though skiers use poles, Lewis emphasizes that snowshoeing involves nothing like the skill level of Nordic (cross-country) skiing, adding that many snowshoers are people who find cross-country skiing

Indeed, snowshoers can burn more than 600 calories per hour.

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Sizing is based on the user’s weight and height (which affects length of stride), and the shoes are designed to maximize the ease of stride.

The activity takes more out of you than hiking,

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but the terrain is —literally — more easily navigated, as the snowfall layer typically forms an even blanket over a broad land area.

S WITH IN O

CO IT Y

LIVI

EF E LI

“It levels the playing field [and] makes the terrain friendlier,” Lewis explains. In deep snow, “You can be walking over stone walls that you don’t even realize are there.”

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All agree the beauty with snowshoeing is that a person can go virtually anywhere. They recommend any of the usual hiking sites where outdoorsy types typically venture — ski areas, golf courses, parks or simply open areas around one’s home. “[There is] nowhere you can’t go within reason,” says Cook. Though snowshoers in Connecticut have virtually unlimited choices of winter terrain to enjoy, Black Rock State Park is a favorite for Faber, as well as White Memorial Foundation in Litchfield, and even local reservoirs. Cook and Lewis agree that Macedonia Brook State Park in Kent has superlative hiking. Armstrong says Winding Trails, which offers snowshoe rentals and group walks, offers mainly mild trails which are designed around a glistening lake. The group sees a lot of beginners in the winter season. The park offers some “moonlight” nighttime outings, accompanying their single tracks which span about five kilometers (3.1 miles) around the park. REI offers several classes for beginning snowshoers, affording them an introduction to the sport, types of snowshoeing, where to go, what to wear, and progressing into more in-depth instruction, whereby participants can take part in field outings with instructors who lead guided walks. “Snowshoeing is a very affordable way for people to stay active in the winter,” says Bondi. “That may be why there [is] a trend. It’s fun for the whole family.” Wild Earth Adventures offers group trips exploring different woodland and mountain ranges in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. A typical outing may consist of stopping at scenic points of interest and breaking for lunch. Retailer Connecticut Outdoors provides group outings as well, often characterized by the acronym “BYOL” (Bring Your Own Log), where each hikers throws a piece of wood in his or her backpack and saves it for

relaxing by a fire with hot chocolate. Other snowshoe outings, such as the Connecticut tours offered by Bredeson, involve a less spartan experience. Groups travel to a vineyard for the day, enjoy a meal, wine tasting and the beautiful open, snowy landscape. These are moderate-exertion tours “with a twist,” Lewis explains. For those of you who like to spend time cozying up with wine or hot chocolate indoors, the snuggling and other comfortable, at-home habits we tend to have seem all the more better after an exhilarating outdoor activity, as Cook notes. “It’s beautiful out there. Anyone who loves nature knows it’s never a mistake to go out and do something active,” says Cook. And when the time comes for gearing up, Cook says the general rule is to venture out on at least one foot of snow, though folks can enjoy snowshoeing on six inches of smooth, flat ground. He says if a person is used to hiking a certain amount of miles on dry land, she or he should reduce that distance by about 30 percent to get an equivalent workout on snowshoes. Aside from the beckoning of ice crystals dangling from clustered trees along fluffy snow paths, open white mounds and silent, peaceful trails, snowshoeing seems to have adapted an allure of its own. The winter scenes to indulge in are a leading attraction, but the benefits do not fall short of exceptional. Armstrong adds in addition to much publicity recently surrounding the sport, it may have “caught so quickly” because many other winter sports are expensive. Though with snowshoeing, all you need, essentially, are the shoes and some snow. “I would say [snowshoeing is] just, mentally, really wonderful,” says Lewis. “Like going on vacation.” As an easy accessible escape from mid-winter cabin-fever confinement, snowshoeing entices not only the best of outdoor enthusiasts, but those looking to get, quite literally, a breath of fresh air. Cook agrees. “As long as there’s snow,” he observes, “people will be snowshoeing.” v

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HERE’S TO A HEALTHY & PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR! Jack Hill, Realtor 203.675.3942 jhill@seabury.com

Serving the real estate needs of Greater New Haven, Yale & Shoreline since 1926 203.562.1220 • seaburyhill.com

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! Thank You For Making This Past Year Our Most Successful Year Ever! Looking Forward To Working With You In 2014 Selling, Buying or Renting Your Home or Investment Property. 15 PAWSON ROAD, BRANFORD, CT

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Wood shingle 1920’s Cape w/access to 3 priv beaches overlooking Thimble Islands. LR w/stone FP. Screen-in porch leads to deck, hot tub & backyard. This charming 4 bedroom, 2 bath home offers year round living in Branford in the Linden Shores neighborhood, steps to beach and Long Island Sound. Near Lenny’s, a popular seafood restaurant & 5 minutes to Branford Green & the charming town of Branford. New Haven & Yale are less than 20 minutes away. Offered at $599,000. Call Cheryl Szczarba at 203-996-9328 for a private showing.

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382-384 CROWN ST, NH - Great opportunity to buy an investment property in downtown New Haven. Steps to Yale, hospitals, restaurants, shops & more! Fully occupied, legal 5 unit bldg w/sep utils. Rents below market! Some cosmetics needed. $539,000 Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942.

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215 GREENE ST, WOOSTER SQ, NH - Wonderful investment property in Wooster Sq & steps to Yale, hospitals & great pizza! Legal 6 unit bldg, fully occupied w/great tenants & sep utils. Large yd. Low taxes. $499,900 Jack Hill 203-675-3942

14 HUGHES PLACE,WOOSTER SQUARE, NH Charming 3 BR, 2.1 Bath Townhs condo! This home boasts private entrance, 2 gas fps, HW flrs and 2 car garage. It’s spacious w/plenty of light & lots of storage. MBR w/balcony & walk-in closet. Walk to pizza, dntown, Yale & more. $399,900. Cheryl Szczarba 203-996-8328 . 91 OLIVE ST, #3, NH Lovely 2 BR condo. Lots of light. Laundry. HW flrs. Eat-in Kit. Plenty of charm! In Yale Homebuyers Program. Don’t miss this exceptional home offer at $294,500. Call Cheryl Szczarba at 203-996-8329

85 OLIVE ST, #T, WOOSTER SQ, NH - Architecturally renovated 1 BR condo in home previously owned by Gary Trudeau. Hardwood flrs. laundry. In Yale Homebuyers Program. $194,500 Call Cheryl Szczarba at 203-996-8329

44 TEMPLE COURT, NH - Elegant , light filled condo at sought after Whitney Grove. 2 BR, plus additional BR/FR/Office on 3rd flr. 2.5 baths. Large deck. 2 Secure garage pkg. Walk to Yale & downtown. $599,999. Call Cheryl Szczarba at 203-996-8328

100 YORK ST, “ UNIVERSITY TOWERS”, NH Downtown co-ops: Studios, 1 BR & 2 BRs. Views. Elevator bldg. Pool. 24 Hr security. On-site Mgmt. Decks. Offered from $39,500 to $140,000. Cash only. No investors. No pets. Cheryl Szczarba 203-996-8329. R E N TA L

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249 HEPBURN RD, HAMDEN - Spacious 3 BR Ranch w/lovely yard. Eat-in Kit. HW flrs. Full Bsmt. 1 car garage. Family Rm. FP. Nicely maintained. Offered at $199,900 Call Cheryl Szczarba at 203-996-8328

1190 QUINNIPIAC AVE, New Haven - Beautifully remodeled 4 BR, 2.2 Bath, 2500 SF home w/HW flrs, Kit w/granite counters & SS appliances + Master Bath w/jacuzzi & shower. 1100 SF Deck w/built-in benches. 10 Min to Downtown, Yale & Quinnipiac. $2200 for short term rent. Higher starting in summer. Sarah Beth Luce - Del Prete 203-887-2295

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An independent, family owned and operated real estate company serving the family owned and operated real estate company serving the An independent,

Finding Design A young couple finds a home they love — and make it even more lovable

A power couple roost richly in the ‘Brooklyn of New Haven’

By DUO DICKINSON

Photos: Lesley Roy

30 J anuary/February 2014

The addition: A signature gable effectively echoes the original home’s shape, and houses a desk below and a bunk bed above. A new rear door (at right) bypasses the new office, guest bedroom, music room, bathroom and storage space. NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

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I N S TYLE ATH O M E Thomas Parker is an assistant professor of French and Francophone Studies at Vassar College. His wife, Pauline LeVen, is an assistant professor of classics at Yale.

Paris in 1997 at the École Normale Supérieure and were married in 2011. Thomas started teaching at Vassar in 2005 and when Pauline finished her Ph.D. and got a job at Yale, they moved to New Haven in the fall of 2008.

OF NO T E S

Like so many other young academics settling in New Haven, they love the sense of community, local restaurants and cultural infusion that makes our wee New England city unique. But more, even though their lives are language and literature, they love design. The couple met in

Recounts Parker: “We were already commuting back and forth from Poughkeepsie [N.Y.], where I had been employed at Vassar College since 2005. I now commute from New Haven.” Looking around for a place they could afford, they found a distinctive home between Orange and State streets. The house was built in 1853 as a tiny two-family. It’s a semi-Federal/lightly Queen Anne style home — consistent with the structures surrounding it, but clearly a smaller version of the neighborhood norm.

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In This Market, It’s Experience That Counts

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WOODBRIDGE -Newer 6 BR, 4.5 bath col. Kit. w/granite, pantry & French drs. to deck. FR w/ FP & vault. ceils., LR w/FP, 1st flr. BR w/bath (in-law), MBR suite w/gas FP, more. $740,000. Susan x126

NO. HAVEN - Architect designed modern-style 5 BR brick home w/slate roof, courtyard w/pond, LR w/FP, DR, game rm. & wine cellar, heat. 4-car gar. Terrace, screen porch, pool. $825,000. John x124

HAMDEN - Bright 3 BR, 2.5 bath col. First flr. den w/FP, 2nd flr. bonus rm. could be 4th BR. HW flrs., irrigation & sec. sys., whole house generator. Country setting. $389,900. Roberta x136/Marcia x192

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HAMDEN- Dramatic 3 BR, 2.5 bath contemp. in Edgehill area! Lots of wins. & French drs. separate 32 x 14 & 32 x 12 decks. Chef’s kit. w/adjacent pantry/laundry rm. Work space/ wine cellar in back of OS 2-car gar. $695,000. John x124

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NO. HAVEN - For lease. High quality, newer 26,088 s/f free-standing, high bay, 10 drive-in door ind./whse. facility w/8,880 s/f high quality office space. Built in 2000. Immed. access to I-91. Stephen Press x123

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The house is perhaps just 19 feet wide, with a second floor completely given over to a master suite as part of a whole house renovation done in 1987 by architect Roger Manny. As a consequence of its ongoing renovation, the home had a compact but open plan. Beyond the undeniable cuteness of its scale and whimsical remodeling, the backyard was quite deep, and was the springboard for its first personalization by the new owners. “The main part of the house mostly existed as you see it now,” explains Parker. “We painted it, put a new roof on. I hired a backhoe and dug a fire pit in the backyard with the guidance of my neighbors, who are architects and builders themselves.” But it was the home’s back story that provided the most intrigue for the young couple. Two previous owners were rumored to have met with dramatic fates — death or breakups (or both) — with details “that only a filmic imagination could invent,” Parker says. The rumors of these horrific events seemed to have generated a consensus that the home’s basement was haunted.

Thomas Parker and his wife, Pauline LeVen, are proud of their eclectic taste in furnishings as well as their evolved home’s interior.

Given the tight confines of the overall size of the home as it existed, and the complete openness of the entire second floor, there was no guest room for the nine — count ‘em, nine — parents

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educe Price R

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East Haven- New listing, 3 bedroom, 2 full bath Raised Ranch at the end of a cul de sac with updated kitchen with granite and 2 full updated baths, new hardwood floors, new gas furnace, central air, lower level tiled family room, double decks over looking beautiful perennial gardens with garage under. 269,900. Gena x 203

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New Haven- Turnbridge Crossing, 1 bedroom Ranch unit in small complex with central air, overlooking Quinnipiac River in the Historic District of Fair Haven Heights, off street parking, minutes to 91/95, Yale and down town. Alternative to renting. 90,000. Diana x 208

New Haven -Westville, Beautifully renovated and maintained two family on wide lot, lots of natural light, dining room with fire place, and built ins, spacious kitchens, new baths, upper unit with 5 bedrooms and 2 baths, carriage house makes great studio, walk to Westville village and library. 449,900. Jeff x 210

Walingford- Stafford Commons, Wonderful price for a fabulous townhouse! New kitchen appliances, open floor plan, new hardwood floors, gas fire place, deck, mast bed with walk in closet, tastefully painted, great storage and 4 parking spaces. 151,000. Katherine x 219

sting New Li

East Haven- New Listing, Grand 3 family home in center of town location, well maintained and updated exterior, newly paved driveway with garage, mechanicals estimated at 5 years old, updated bathrooms and tile. Good owner occupant or investment home. 269,900. Gena x 203 d

educe Price R

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Milford - Wonderful spacious 2 family home just one block from the water, Gorgeous updated apartments in move in condition. 1st floor 1 bedroom unit featuring french doors, bright and open layout and hardwood floors, 2nd floor is 3 bedrooms, with deck, w/d and very open floor plan. 375,000. Katherine x 219

New Haven - Historic Wooster Street, Wooster Court Condominuims, two bedroom tnhouse, end unit with balcony over looking Wooster Street, newly remodeled kitchen and bathrooms, new hot water heater, newly painted, new windows, new hardwood floors, slider to balcony, car port. Walk to Yale, train, pizza and coffee. Better then renting! 174,900. Gena x 203

New Haven- Westville, Stately Tudor Duplex on a 1/2 acre across from Yale Bowl. Owners unit has new master bath, lovely details included fire places, leaded glass windows and dining rooms with built ins, hardwood floors, natural woodwork, slate roof, updated electrical and furnaces. 3 car garage. 439,900. Jeff x 210

New Haven- Exceptional condo in 1871 French 2nd Empire Brownstone directly across from Historic Wooster Square, Superb details, new baths, updated kitchen, give the perfect blend of modern amenities combined with glorious architecture, high ceilings, fire place, 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, open floor plan. 259,900. Gena x 203

Branford - New listing, The Greens, Newly remodeled end unit condo with beautiful hardwood floors, granite counter topes, fire place, new furnace and central air unit, 2 bedrooms, garage, club basketball and tennis. 152,000. Maria x 214

educe Price R

New Haven- Rare 1 family Colonial on Wooster Square, Fantastic views of park, Interior completely gutted and remodeled, open floor plan, wide plank floors, French country kitchen with exposed beams, first floor bedroom with full bath, 2nd fl master suite with full bath and laundry, total 4/5 beds with 3 full baths, fantastic yard with grape arbor and so much more... Priced to sell. 599,900. Gena x 203

educe Price R

Hamden - 4 bedroom Colonial, hardwood floors through out, living room with fire place, dining room, first floor den or 4th bedroom, large eat in kitchen, lower level finished with ceramic tile, 2 full baths, large master bedroom with great closet space, fenced in yard with new deck. Priced to sell, 211,000. Gena x 203

East Haven - 1835 Greek revival home completely rebuilt in 2010, all systems, wiring, windows, insulation, roof, from top to bottom. 3 beds, 1.1 baths, over 2600 sq ft, garage/barn with loft, columned court yard accessible from kitchen, 16x37 family space and den, a designers home, truly one of a kind! Priced to sell. 495,000. Jeff x210

New Haven - Magnificent transformation of this 1825 riverfront home, open flr plan, living room w/ fire place, dining room open to great kitchen with fire place, first floor family room opens to large deck overlooking river, master bedroom with cathedral ceiling and loft space, walk out basement with office and den. 3 beds, 3 baths, central air and garage. 499,900. Jeff x 210

North Haven- Colonial, 4 bedrooms, 2 full bath, nice floor plan with large rooms, eat in kitchen, 2 fire places, hardwood floors, big level yard, 2 car detached garage on a half acre. 273,156. Gena x 203

educe Price R

& Realtors, LLC Waterbury - raised Ranch with 4 bedrooms, 2 fire places, central air, walk out lower level with family room, garage, nice yard, priced to sell at 140,000. Diana x 208

Hamden- 1926 George H. Grey home, later to be Paier school of Art, a stone Tudor with magnificent roof lines has been restored and updated with high end luxury amenities is a mini estate with in ground pool at the end of a cul-de-sac with in the Yale Prospect Hill area. Over 9,000 sq ft with 7 bedrooms and 10 baths, exposed beam ceiling conservatory, library and so much more.... 2,200,000. Gena x 203

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and stepparents who regularly visit, nor precious little quiet space for a music room, an office, and a threequarters bath to augment the master bath and powder room. But the couple wanted to maintain the existing flow of the house, use green materials, design any remodeling to be energy-efficient, and most importantly to “leave our creative stamp, while preserving the existing ambiance,” explains Parker. “Mostly, we wanted the design and building experience to tell a story.” In building what they built and whom they built it with, all those goals were met. Fulfilling their ambitious list and confronting the home’s disquieting history, LeVen and Parker thought the practical and the supernatural issues might share a common solution. “We don’t believe in spirits, but there was direct access from the kitchen to the old stone basement. We decided to block that access to create more floor space,” recalls Parker. “As an added benefit, we have had no problems with death and despair. By the way,” he adds, “our 100-pound golden retriever remains deathly scared of the basement.”

36 J anuary/February 2014

couple’s design requirements was to create a renovation that “that preserved the spirit and style of the house, which was renovated in a [postmodern] style.” So, like all good house designers, Turner began to absorb how the owners saw their home. The architect explains: “It fits perfectly with their lifestyle, and I —being of course a chameleon architect — switched gears very quickly, and espoused the project in its postmodernist terms.” Brooks soon came to understand that the two academics used the home “as a place of an endless series of wanderings, music and writing and pondering, all conceived as just pauses in this peripatetic event.” In fact, Parker puts their best hopes for their house in these terms: “We wanted a space that actualized interstitial divides — an architectural creating of Homi Bhabha’s discourse on ‘Locations of Culture.’ Bhabha quotes Heidegger: ‘A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing.’ This is the relationship we wanted a step into the new space to actualize.”

vvv

With multiple missions defined, the couple sought professional design help. They ended up at the nearby office of Turner Brooks. The eclectic, animated and small-scale home had an immediate resonance for Brooks, an adjunct professor at Yale’s School of Architecture. Practicing for more than 40 years — first in Vermont, then as a Rome Prize recipient and teaching all over the country — Brooks alighted in New Haven, where he has designed the Gilder Boathouse for the Yale crew teams and is presently working on the renovation of the Cold Spring School.

Beyond the magic marriage in design the owners felt with the home and Turner Brooks, and the clarity of their vision, the fit of the design process, the designer and the client is inevitably organic. And Turner understood that a small project with high content on a limited budget required time for hands-on interplay that he simply could not provide at an affordable fee. So, in his words: “I gave the project to a student/employee of mine, the great Alice Tai. She produced something that, weirdly, seemed to have come right out of my own head.”

His extraordinary career was launched with exquisite tiny homes in Vermont, featured in Vincent Scully’s transformational 1974 book The Shingle Style Today. The scale and delightful idiosyncrasy of his work resonated with LeVen and Parker.

But that channeling happened only after a fair amount of preloading. As Parker recounts: “Turner referred to Alice as a ‘jet engine of creativity,’ and a lot of good wine was consumed between Turner, Alice, Pauline and I as we brainstormed before beginning the project.”

When Turner saw the house he thought the postmodern second floor renovation should be reinterpreted. But part of the

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The bathroom: The addition is set two feet lower than the existing home. The kitchen sink window (upper right) was kept and overlooks the new bath sink and the new room’s cathedral ceiling. The shower (at left) employs glass blocks to share light and light box shelving.

yard. The new wing creates a true back door that bypasses the new room directly entering the existing kitchen. The “head” of the addition is a small gable that distills the whole house shape, and incorporates the multicolored trim and siding to further unify is angled projection to the host/parent home. The new space answers all the questions posed by the owners using two tools. First, by dropping the floor of the new space to grade level, two multitasking benefits allowed spaces to overlap. The lowered new floor affords a view over the new bathroom from the existing kitchen sink window that once looked outside. And by nestling a new bed up into the new end gable a desk can share its floor area below. Second, the use of built-ins — shelving, storage, cabinetry — allows books, music, sitting, bathroom activities and office functions to be simultaneously accommodated around the new space’s perimeter.

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But the results of intensive designing are always subject to financial realities. “We contemplated having a wine cellar built in and I desperately wanted there to be a root cellar with a glass trap door that you could see into from the landing leading into the new room,” Parker explains. “Alice and Turner designed it, but we ran out of money.” Even after so much musing, planning and vetting, Parker further recounts a classic panic attack just prior to commencing construction: “Pauline loved the project until several trees in the back yard were cut down and a pit was dug. At that point she woke up at 4 in the morning, proclaimed that the project was off, threatened to ‘fire’ me too and move back to France.” “Alice jumped in with a computer simulation that showed that there would be enough light in the new addition and that the garden would not be ruined,” he explains. “Pauline allowed us all to come back on the job.”

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In the 1980s the entire second story was opened up by previous owners to be a sea of open space and a celebratory postmodern event in which the bath (center) is featured as an architectonic piece with a ridge skylight flooding light while the bed is tucked around one corner (at right) and closets fully laminate the other side (left).

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The final result made everyone bask in the glow of satisfying expectations on a budget with creative zest and practical insight. But no project with so much input can be built with finite funding (is there any other kind?) without a great builder — and one was found. Enter Dana and Darren Peterson, of Peterson Brothers — a thirdgeneration business located in the neighborhood that specializes in renovations to existing homes. “I’ve built two of Turner Brooks, projects and on both he finessed the delicate balance of the owner’s needs, the budget and specific building challenges — melding these elements, he ended up with results that revealed his potent hand and simple, unmistakable aesthetic,” explains Darren Peterson. “On this project he really managed to marry a perfect proportion of the owners’ eccentricities with the needs of an old New Haven building. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of it.”

One consequence of the collaboration was the creation of a mutual admiration society: “Dana and Darren were great,” Parker gushes. “Fantastic work and craftsmanship. Aside from being patient with us, everybody in the neighborhood with knowledge of these things commented on the quality of the work, which was well above and beyond the norm. Darren was the philosopher and Dana regaled Pauline with stories about his chickens [a fascination of Pauline’s]. What more can I say?” Sometimes places and people combine to create a remarkable reality none of the participants could have predicted — but a result that could not have happened without each contributor. A great symphonic performance, a great civic document like the Constitution — or, more personal and precious, the creation of a home. At the heart is what all good design synthesizes: humanity, aesthetics and craft. Homes can be all of that, and more — a place where family happens. v

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PHOTO: John Mordecain

Elm City music scenester Chad Raines enjoys a breakout year By JOHN MORDECAI

When it Raines, it Pours “This was a year for the ages, man,” Chad Raines says, blowing smoke from a half-finished cigar. “It was a great ride, but i’m ready for it to be over.”

It’s a mid-afternoon twilight in late December and Raines is lounging in a leather chair at the back of a dim New Haven cigar bar catching up with a friend, occasionally puffing away and sipping a whiskey on ice.

in 2005 when he started the band as a sort of reaction to the experimental and classical music he had his nose in most of the time, pulling influences from influences as disparate as post-punk and Stevie Wonder.

The 33-year-old musician and songwriter has been about as busy as a musician could be these days, having spent the bulk of the past year on tour all over the world, both with his danc-y electro-rock band the Simple Pleasure, and as guitarist with singer Amanda Palmer. Add a relocation to New York and the finalizing of a divorce to the mix and then ask yourself how crazy a year you’ve had.

“At the time you’d go see bands and it looked like no one was having any fun and the musicians didn’t look like they were having a good time,” he recalls. “So I decided I was only going to play music where I would have a blast playing it, and if anyone else wasn’t having fun — f**k ‘em. I’m not afraid to just appeal to your base.”

Dressed down on this weekday afternoon, Raines is a far cry from the last time this writer saw him on stage decked in all his glam-rock regalia (more Marc Bolan than David Bowie, he points out). If his presence in Amanda Palmer’s band (known as the Grand Theft Orchestra) seemed larger than life to those unaware of him, the guitar histrionics, sexy dance moves and overall brazen rock ‘n roll attitude are already familiar to those who know the party that is the Simple Pleasure, the band to which he’s devoted the better part of ten years, in one incarnation or another. Raines was studying music at Texas State University

Raines came to New Haven in 2006, he says, to follow a girl (eventual bandmate and future wife Tamara Chiba), and eventually settled into the music scene here, enjoying fast audience-building and word of mouth that comes with playing a small city, filling the clubs and venues after only a few months. He fondly remembers those early days, but is quick to point out the inherent limitations of being a band in a place like New Haven. “It felt like it was right, but it’s really hard to keep the interest up,” he says. “It only took three months to play for every single person who’s basically interested, now how do you get them to come back?

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You can only really play here once a month at most, otherwise you’ll tire everyone out.

people just stop calling you.” The decision to dive into grad school certainly meant a quiet few years for the band, but it eventually revealed itself to be a sound decision (no pun intended). Raines is now a theater sound designer in New York, which pays the bills and allows him to continue making music. It has even brought him back to New Haven: This month he’s working on The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, which runs January 31 through February 22 at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

“The fact is, you have to go and play somewhere else — tour, go play in New York, just keep it moving.” So the Simple Pleasure did just that for a little while, until Raines felt the lure of Yale, entering a graduate program in sound design at the graduate School of Drama in 2009 (he graduated in 2011), which appropriately led to him playing lead roles in the rock musicals Hedwig and the Angry Inch and The Who’s Tommy (Raines admits he “can’t act his way out of a paper bag,” so his dramatic roles were not coincidentally music-based).

vvv It was also about the time school was winding down that a mutual friend introduced Raines to singer/songwriter Amanda Palmer, a Wesleyan grad who was the erstwhile half of cult Boston punk-cabaret duo the Dresden Dolls. Palmer was in the process of putting a band together for an upcoming solo album. Raines was even able to get use of a recording studio at Yale to record and guest with Palmer on a cover of Nirvana’s “Polly” for a Spin magazine tribute album.

But what he thought would be a trickle-down boon for his band ended up being stifling, and gigging out had to be put on hold for a while. But who said graduate school would be easy? “As soon as I got into Yale, I couldn’t book a date. It was impossible, and really frustrating,” he says. “Everything conflicted with the Yale schedule, so I had to cancel a lot of shows. And if you keep saying no for two or three years,

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Joining Palmer’s Grand Theft Orchestra, Raines ended up smack in the middle of what would become a major case study for the potential future of independent music: Palmer started a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the recording, release and promotion of her 2012 album Theater Is Evil. Much to the surprise of just about everyone involved, it became the most successful such project ever for a musician up to that time, raising nearly $1.2 million. Raines ended up pulling double duty for most of the album’s worldwide promotional tour (which lasted from summer 2012 to November 2013): he not only was Palmer’s guitarist, but the Simple Pleasure toured with the band as opening act on many dates. He even set about to record and release a new Simple Pleasure album for the tour. But by the time they finally hit the road, the Simple Pleasure hadn’t even seen the stage in some time.

hadn’t even played a show in three years!” he laughs at the absurdity of it. “It was pretty extreme.” Extreme would be a good word for the year that followed. The shows on the Theater Is Evil tour combined over-thetop glam theatrics with the visceral unpredictability of punk rock chaos, all in good fun. “That’s what’s great about playing rock shows; you don’t have to pretend like you’re happy if you’re not happy,” says Raines. “You just try to stay real and in the moment, and that’s one of the few occupations where you get to tell the truth.” The Simple Pleasure was fortunate to play to many audiences on that tour, especially those made up of Palmer’s staunchly devoted fans, who take her recommendations seriously. “I’m much more frightened with an acoustic guitar in front of five people than playing with my band in front of 2,000,” he says. “[The tour] made me appreciate the way bands foster and keep an audience, take care of them and get them to come back for another show.”

“We just started up again, and luckily it wasn’t a problem. But all of a sudden we were playing for sold-out thousandseat venues in New York, and we SCSU_MBA_NH_Mag_8.25x5_accelerated_Layout 1 12/30/13 1:12 PM Page 1

That said, Raines never thinks about catering to an audience, either. “If I’m feeling it and it sounds right, it doesn’t matter what the reception is because that’s satisfying enough for me — playing to some higher being, whatever you want to call it.” It was admittedly a small shock coming back home after that tour and playing for 30 people at a bar again, he says, but keeping things in perspective is key, Raines says — it’s just more people to win over again. The relief of being off a massive tour and busy year may be settling in, but Raines is hardly slowing down. The Simple Pleasure just premiered a music video for its new song “Young Professionals” online (the video was shot in the former Union Trust bank building at Church and Crown streets), and a number of live dates are being planned through the spring, including a February 22 stop at Café Nine. But there’s also no hurry to get the band signed to a record label — all three of the Simple Pleasure’s records have been self-released, the last one having sold out while on tour.

“I should be trying to broaden my reach, but I’m trying to make it happen organically,” he says. Of being bound to a contract with a label, “You can get in trouble and a lot of debt, and it can happen really fast,” Raines cautions. “Right now I’m fine making 80 percent of the profit. Even if I just sell 1,000 CDs, I’d be making more money than if I sold 10,000 through a record label.” Raines is in the enviable position of making a living concurrent with his art. But he knows all too well that nothing comes easy, especially trying to do something as seemingly feckless as being a professional musician in the 21st century. “Anyone who’s been in bands before, you’re not doing it for the money,” he allows. “You have to be willing to suffer and die for it, which ends up weeding out the weaklings, the people who aren’t completely ready to devote their lives to it,” he says with the authority of someone who’s already jumped off the cliff. But still, he adds, “It’s scary.” v

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‘Money Takes the Mask Off BI BLIO FILE S ’ By BROOKS APPELBAUM

WO Director R DS o f MO UT H Fagan on Long Wharf’s world premiere of Heidi Schreck’s The Consultant

F Ê TES Director Kip Fagan doesn’t

so much gravitate towards specific themes. Rather, he I NS Y LE tastes. And, hasTparticular judging from what I’ve seen of his OUT D Owork, O Rhis S taste is unassailable. Take for example his direction of Jesse Eisenberg’s first and second scripts, Asuncion, produced by Rattlesnake Playwrights Theatre in the fall of 2011, and The Revisionist, produced by Rattlesnake in the winter of 2013. I wasn’t fortunate enough to see Asuncion, which received strong reviews. But I did see Fagan’s brilliantly clear and at the same time invisible (in the best sense) direction of The Revisionist, starring Eisenberg and Vanessa Redgrave. Eisenberg’s script expertly combines sharp wit, deep melancholy and surprise; and Fagan’s sensitivity to the characters’ complex and mutable relationships brought out every possible nuance. I was drawn to the play initially by its actors; I left the theater equally impressed with the director. Among the many productions I’ve seen in New York and Connecticut, The Revisionist stayed in my mind. So when I learned that Fagan would be directing the world premiere of Heidi Schreck’s The Consultant at Long Wharf Theatre, I was eager to speak with him about his vision of the script.

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Set during the financial crash of 2008, The Consultant takes place in the lobby of a pharmaceutical marketing firm that was, as Fagan says, “once a robust company, but is now not so robust — in fact, the company is on the edge of a meltdown.” At the play’s opening, a valued advertising designer, Jun Suk, is perilously close to being fired; Jun Suk’s interactions with potential clients have been so 44 J anuary/February 2014

Clare Barron plays the role of Amelia, the ‘destabilizing stranger’ in LWT’s production of Heidi Schreck’s The Consultant.

disastrous that he cannot be kept on unless he learns to present his brilliant advertisements for the company’s product effectively. Into this stressful situation bounds Amelia, an NYU student who has been hired to train Jun Suk in presentation skills. In addition to Amelia and designer Jun Suk, the characters include Tania, the frenzied receptionist, and Mark, an employee who

is desperately attempting to maintain his smooth and suave affect despite his underlying panic. Fagan appreciates the high stakes of this theatrical world: “When people’s jobs are on the line, their inner strangeness comes out — money takes the mask off.” Although we have our share of workplace comedies and dramas, a more frequently explored highNEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

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Director Fagan (in red jacket with cast on first day of rehearsals) says he considers The Consultant ‘very much an ensemble piece.’ Photo: T. Charles Erickson

stakes genre is the family play: Family gatherings have a way of stripping the polite masks from our faces and creating interior and exterior meltdowns. For Fagan, although The Consultant “is not explicitly a family play [as was Eisenberg’s The Revisionist], the setting and characters create a strange, dysfunctional, worried kind of ‘family’ in which everyone is in a heightened emotional state.” Playwright Schreck, also an Obieaward-winning actress, has said that she couldn’t possibly write a character that she wouldn’t be excited about playing. In The Consultant, notes Fagan, “Every character is completely realized.” “It’s very much an ensemble piece,” he says, “and all ensemble pieces can be considered, in a sense, family plays.” Often, the family play envelops another genre within it: that of a stranger entering an established group and disrupting the dynamics, the plot and the relationships forever. Think of the Gentleman Caller in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, Hal Carter in William Inge’s Picnic, or even the Sicilian cousins, Marco and Rodolpho, in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, all recently revived on Broadway. In The Consultant, Amelia plays the role of the destabilizing stranger, Fagan explains, and her role in the plot is heightened by the circumstances of her arrival. She is unlike the Gentleman Caller, Hal or even Marco and Rodolpho in that, as Fagan makes clear, “Amelia is operating out of

immediate need — she really needs this job.” And her need makes her “the engine of the play and also one important source of its comedy.” Amelia works “endearingly hard to identify how to help Jun Suk,” but her efforts are complicated by the reality that Jun Suk’s problems go far deeper than presentation stage fright. Of Fagan’s taste in scripts, one of the qualities of The Consultant he values most is its “subtle and delicately drawn” nature, which combines with the work’s comic tone, which is sometimes broad but always unusual and surprising. We spoke on the day following the first run-through, and he described his work at that point as that of making “small calibrations,” and asking for adjustments as though “looking through a magnifying glass” to make sure that every thread was in place. The script is “like a house of cards,” notes Fagan, meaning his analogy as a compliment to Schreck’s clever plotting. He wants to be sure that the delicate structure that he, Schreck and the cast have created prepares the audience for — without revealing until the last possible moment — the play’s dénouement. If family plays are a time-honored artistic genre, directors — good ones, that is — function as the father or mother figures for smoothly running productions. Fagan’s evident respect for this script, this cast and these characters makes it clear that his ensemble — his “family” — is a fortunate group. v

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BI BLIO P HILES

Behind Windows of Marble

LI OPHIL ES

By Michael C. Bingham

By MICHAEL C. BINGHAM

Fifty years after its opening a new book celebrates the Beinecke Libraryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s astounding collection

An Inspiration to All Who Enter: Fifty Works from Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, edited by Kathryn James. Published by Yale University Press (2013). 128 pps., 61 color illustrations. $25 (paperbound with ﬂaps).

It’s just a guess, but I’d wager that of all the New Haveners (including highly educated ones) who know of the existence of the Yale Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, only a small fraction could tell you much about the treasures that lie within its climate-controlled walls. In commemoration of the Beinecke’s 50th anniversary, Yale University Press in October released the aptly titled An Inspiration to All Who Enter, an anthology celebrating 50 notable, representative works from the library’s collection. Most people know that the Beinecke houses one of the only 21 Gutenberg Bibles known to exist in complete form. And anyone who has

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ever ventured inside the Wall Street edifice is instantly struck by the ambient light filtered into the structure by its translucent marble windows (you read that right — marble), the brilliant conceit of architect Gordon Bunshaft. “I happen to love books,” Bunshaft said if his creation years after its opening, “and I thought it ought to be a treasure house and express that by having a large number of books displayed behind glass.” And a treasure house for books it is. But the Beinecke houses much more than old books — a pair of Walt Whitman’s eyeglasses, a lock of John Keats’ hair, children’s chairs created by Pablo Picasso and Alice B. Toklas, a cigarette case that once belonged to poet Langston Hughes. In his preface to An Inspiration to All Who Enter, Beinecke Director Edwin C. Schroeder notes

The most enigmatic (literally) object in the vast Beinecke collection is the Voynich Manuscript, a 15th-century (maybe) central European (perhaps) illustrated manuscript that has defied all attempts to decipher what appears to be an encrypted language. Even U.S. Navy cryptographers, whose secret deciphering of the Japanese Navy’s JN25 code helped to win World War II, have been unable to penetrate the Voynich’s secrets.

that “Although the Beinecke is still young, its collections date to the founding of Yale University” in 1701. The university’s first library catalogue was printed in 1743, and the surviving books from that collection now reside at the Beinecke. The Beinecke’s creation in 1963 drew together collections of the Rare Book Room, the Yale Collections of German Literature, American Literature, Western Americana Collection and, shortly after the library opened, the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection of English Literary and Historical Manuscripts.

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In the ensuing half-century the Beinecke has continued to build on those core areas of strength while branching out into related fields: Modernism and the avant-garde, music, photography, archives of contemporary writers and documentation of pivotal historic epochs such as the 18th-century transatlantic world and the post-was European counterculture. In a 1994 guide to the Beinecke collections, thendirector Ralph Franklin noted that “The library’s holdings have achieved a depth that makes brief description sound superficial, and a breadth that resists summary.” That is even more true today, and the 50 items selected for this book afford only

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the briefest and most tantalizing window into the Beinecke’s unmatched treasures. What kind of treasures? There are notes, sketches and corrected drafts of Long Day’s Journey into Night made by Eugene O’Neill circa 1939-40. Music-lovers will appreciate the painstakingly meticulous pen of composer Claude Debussy in a detail from the score of Pelléas et Mélisande, breakthrough work of modern opera that roiled the ﬁn de siècle music world. Elm City history buffs will appreciate the penand-ink sketches of captives of the slave ship Amistad by prominent New Havener William H. Townsend (who is buried in the Grove Street Cemetery), created by the 18-year-old Townsend in 1839 at the captives were awaiting trial for mutiny, murder and piracy in 1839. (They were of course acquitted, freed and in 1842 returned to their native Sierra Leone.)

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It’s an astonishing collection, and this volume barely scratches the surface, although the editors have done a fine job in selecting works that defy boundaries that separate disciplines of literature, art and even science. One hopes that publication of An Inspiration to All Who Enter will serves as just that — and even more so, as an invitation to those who might enter or who never have. As the Beinecke is free and open to the public, those of curious and inquiring mind have only themselves to blame for not planning a personal encounter with this remarkable world-class resource. v

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A finalist for the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls marks the Yale Rep debuts of Whiting Writers’ Award-winning playwright Meg Miroshnik and two-time OBIE Award winning director Rachel Chavkin, who most recently staged the celebrated musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 in New York. The production includes scenic design by Christopher Ash; costumes by KJ Kim; lighting by Bradley King; sound design, music direction, and original music by Chad Raines; vocal and dialect coaching by Jane Guyer Fujita; dramaturgy by Amy Boratko; and stage management by Hannah Sullivan. January 31-Febrary 22 at Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven. $98-$20. 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.

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Cabaret A world-premiere play written by former New York City public school teacher Elia Monte-Brown, The Defendant investigates urban education through the lens of a young teenage girl standing trial for murder. Interweaving criminal justice with the urgent need for education reform, the play refuses to succumb to the bleak narrative surrounding public education, instead finding hope in the halls of a Bronx high school. Leora Morris directs. 8 p.m. January 23, 8 & 11 p.m. January 24-25 at Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $20. 203-432-1566, yalecabaret. org. The Yale School of Drag is a one-night-only extravaganza featuring skyscraper heels, sequined getups and an array of fabulous gender-bending performances. 8 & 10 p.m. February 7, midnight February 8 at Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $20. 203-432-1566, yalecabaret.org.

opening Death & Taxes, a comedy by Pat Cook. Part comedy, part mystery, its story is set in the indistinct town of Hendricks, USA. where a visitor has been murdered, and the culprit is one of nine characters, including the mayor, the sheriff, a doctor, a drama teacher and a town busybody. 8 p.m. Fri.Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. January 25-February 2 at Phoenix Stage Co., 686 Rubber Ave., Naugatuck. $22 ($18 seniors). 203-632-8546, phoenixstagecompany.com. ArtsPower presents: Are You My Mother? A play based on the classic children’s book of the same name. 3 p.m. January 26 at Katherine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $16 ($10 children). 860-510-0473, katharinehepburntheater.org. ACES Educational Center for the Arts presents a Shakespeare Festival. One-act versions of Shakespeare’s As You Like It

(1/30) and the Twelfth Night (1/31). 7 p.m. January 30-31 at ACES ECA, 55 Audubon St., New Haven. $10. 203-777-5451, aces. org/schools/eca. The classic musical Fiddler on the Roof tells the story of Tevye, a poor milkman who is trying to keep his family’s traditions in place. Yet, times are changing. When Tevye’s daughters want to make their own marriage matches, he must choose between his own daughters’ happiness and those beloved traditions that keep the outside world at bay. Score includes “Tradition,” “Matchmaker,” “If I Were a Rich Man,” and “Sunrise, Sunset.” 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. January 31-February 16 at Center Stage Theatre, 54 Grove St., Shelton. $25. 203-225-6079, centerstageshelton.com. Ibsen: Hedda Gabler, Act II. Hedda Gabler has it all: a husband on the verge of success, the house of her dreams, a baby on the way, and the adoration of nearly everyone she meets. So what’s the problem? Why does her “thirst for life” drive her to intervene when her ex-lover, pursued by another woman, returns as her husband’s professional rival? With keen intelligence and fierce will, Hedda deftly redirects the destinies of those around her — but can she keep control of her own? 8 p.m. February 1-7 at University Theatre, 222 York St., New Haven. $20. 203-432-1234, drama.yale.edu. Choate’s theater department presents an adaptation of Mary Zimmerman’s Tony Award-winning play Metamorphoses, based on Ovid’s narrative poem. 7:30 p.m. February 13-15 at Paul Mellon Arts Center, 333 Christian St., Wallingford. $15 ($10 seniors). 203-697-2398, choate.edu/boxoffice.com. Twenty-one-year-old Leo is lost. He has just biked 4,000 miles form Seattle looking for life’s answers and is now holed up in a Greenwich Village apartment with his 91-year-old grandmother, Vera. To his surprise, this is just what he needs as his feisty left-wing grandma offers him a new perspective on the world. These unlikely roommates bicker and infuriate each other, but

never lose their unquestioning love as they discover new ways to learn and grow together in Amy Herzog’s 4,000 Miles. Eric Ting directs. February 19-March 16 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $79.50-$44.50. 203-787-4282, longwharf. org. A story of love, loss and survival told through three generations of Irish sisters. Mary Hanes’ The Crimson Thread spans the years from 1869 to 1911, from a poor farm in Ireland to the fishing port of New Bedford, Mass., and reaches its climax in New York City. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat.-Sun. February 20-March 16 at Seven Angels Theatre, 1 Plank Rd., Waterbury. $32.50. 203-757-4676, sevenangelstheatre.org. Featuring an ensemble of actor/musicians who play their own instruments onstage, Once tells the tale of a Dublin street musician who’s about to give up on his dream when a beautiful young woman takes a sudden interest in his haunting love songs. As the chemistry between them grows, his music soars to powerful new heights — but their unlikely connection turns out to be deeper and more complex than your everyday romance. 7:30 p.m. February 26-27, 8 p.m. February 28, 2 & 8 p.m. March 1, 1 & 6:30 p.m. March 2 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $125-$15. 203-562-5666, shubert.com.

Continuing After a series of brutal layoffs at Sutton, Feingold & McGrath, a precocious young consultant is brought in to save a middleaged adman’s job — and maybe his life. Heidi Schreck’s world premiere The Consultant affords an intimate and hilarious look at how money and work shape the human heart — and what we owe to others when everything around us is falling apart. See feature this issue. Through February 9 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $74.50. 203-787-4282, longwharf.org.

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music Classical Yale’s Horowitz Piano Series presents acclaimed Debussy interpreter Pascal Rogé in recital. DEBUSSY Suite Bergamasque and Preludes, Book I; POULENC Les Soirées de Nazelles. 8 p.m. January 29 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $30-$20. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu. The Yale School of Music’s Faculty Artist Series presents harpsichordist Arthur Haas in a program of works by Rameau. 5 p.m. February 2 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu. The Yale School of Music’s Faculty Artist Series presents violinist Serita Kwok and Wei-Yi Yang, piano. in a program of works by Janáček, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Ravel. 8 p.m. February 3 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu. New Music New Haven offers a program of works by featured Yale School of Music faculty composers Martin Bresnick and David Lang. Featuring the Yale Baroque Ensemble and violinist Sarita Kwok. 8 p.m. February 6 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu.

In collaboration with Yale Choral Artists and the Yale Baroque Ensemble, the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale presents a performance of Mozart’s transcendent Mass in C minor. 8 p.m. February 8 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu. The New Haven Symphony Orchestra Jazz Quartet and storyteller Tom Lee bring Tales and Tunes to life in a charming family program. With rhythm as the focus of this interactive concert, all can join in on the telling of pattern stories and the singing of familiar songs. The enchanting event promises to engage the whole family in the wonderful world of musical stories with foot-stomping tunes from the NHSO. 2 p.m. (1:30 p.m. Instrument Discovery Zone) February 9 at Shelton Intermediate School, 675 Constitution Blvd., Shelton. $15 (includes admission for one child; additional children $5 each). 203-865-0831, newhavensymphony.org. The Essex Winter series presents guitarist Jason Vieaux. Hailed by Gramophone magazine as “among the elite of today’s classical guitarists,” the renowned American virtuoso will perform works from Bach to Pat Metheny, including music by 19th-century masters such as Mauro Giuliani and Isaac Albéniz and modern classical and popular composers such as José Luis Merlín and Antonio Carlos Jobim. 3 p.m. February 9 at Valley Regional High School, 256 Kelsey Hill Rd., Deep River. $30. 860272-4572, essexwinterseries.com. Pianist Melvin Chen performs music of Bach and Brahms as part of the Yale School of Music’s Faculty Artist Series. 8 p.m.

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February 10 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu. The Yale School of Music’s Faculty Artist Series presents pianist Joel Wizansky & Friends performing music of Schumann, Bartók and Fauré. 8 p.m. February 13 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu. Celebrate Valentine’s Day with someone sweet at the Yale Concert Band’s Music in Motion. Featured works include What We Do Is Secret: Concerto for Brass Quintet and Wind Ensemble by Lansing McCloskey; Warren Benson’s Solitary Dancer; and Gabrieli Infusion by Alfred Cohen. 7:30 p.m. February 14 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu. Alternately, you could celebrate V-Day with an evening of classical and Romantic music performed by 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Gold Medalist Vadym Kholodenko in the intimate confines of Crowell Concert Hall. This performance by the 26-year-old Ukrainian phenom will be his Connecticut debut. 8 p.m. February 14 at Crowell Concert Hall, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. $22-$6. 860-685-3355, wesleyan.edu/cfa. Yale Opera presents Giacomo Puccini’s beloved La Boheme. 8 p.m. February 14-15, 2 p.m. February 16 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. 203-562-5666, shubert.com. The Yale School of Music’s Oneppo Chamber Music Series presents the Artis String Quartet in recital. MOZART Quartet in D major, K. 575; ZEMLINSKY Quartet No. 4; BRAHMS Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2. 8 p.m. February 18 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $40-$30. 203-432-4158, music. yale.edu. The Yale Institute of Sacred Music presents the eight-voice ensemble the Yale Voxtet in a program titled “Barocco Italiano.” James Taylor directs. 8 p.m. February 20 at Marquand Chapel, 409 Prospect St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu. Music Haven joins forces with colleagues from Providence, R.I.’s Community MusicWorks to present Revolution Harmony, featuring music by Stravinsky, Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky. 7:30 p.m. (pre-concert talk 6:30) February 22 at Unitarian Society of New Haven, 700 Hartford Tpke., Hamden. $20 ($10 students, seniors, USNH members). 203-745-9030, musichavenct.org/concerts. The New Haven Symphony Orchestra presents “Wind on the Water: Augusta Read Thomas.” In celebration of the composer’s 50th birthday the NHSO performs the world premiere of Thomas’ Saxophone Concerto performed by Frederick Hemke, famed teacher of international recording star David Sanborn. Also, Ravel’s Mother Goose. With soprano Tony Arnold and the Elm City Girls Choir. 7:30 p.m. February 27 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. $69-$15. 203-865-0831, newhavensymphony.org. Collection Concerts presents the Smithsonian Chamber Players Piano Trio — Vera Beths, violin; Kenneth Slowik, cello; Pedja Muzijevic, fortepiano — performing music of Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn. 3 p.m. March 2 at Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, 15 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven. $20 ($10 students). 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu. Join the Haven String Quartet for Music Beneath the Stars, a beautifully choreographed program to benefit the transformative work of Music Haven. 7:30 p.m. March 7 at Leitner Observatory & Planetarium at Yale, 35 Prospect St., New Haven. $50. 203-745-9030, musichavenct.org/concerts.

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40 Both events are free; no tickets required. Presented by Yale Institute of Sacred Music, celebrating 40 years at Yale. ism.yale.edu

52 J anuary/February 2014

Michigan bluegrass band Greensky Bluegrass have been together for more than 11 years and play nearly 175 shows per year. They keep it to the basics with a five-person guitar/dobro/ banjo/mandolin/upright bass arrangement. 7:30 p.m. January 29 at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $17 ($15 advance). 203-624-8623, toadsplace.com. Electronic dance rockers Panic! At the Disco enters its tenth year with the release of a new album and tour that stops at the Oakdale to inspire some youthful dance action. 8 p.m. January 29 at Oakdale Theatre, 95 South Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $41.75. 203-265-1501, oakdale.com.

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American guitar virtuoso Jason Vieaux performs as part of the 36th Essex Winter Series February 9 in Deep River. Spirit Family Reunion creates, well, spirited Americana that wouldn’t be out of place in a music hall or at a barn dance — all of it involving the audience with some footstompin’, hand clappin’ and hollerin’. 9 p.m. January 30 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $15 ($12 advance). 203-789-8281, cafenine.com. NRBQ (originally the New Rhythm & Blues Quartet) first formed in the late 1960s, playing diverse styles including rockabilly, pop and jazz, and have had their music used in various TV shows and films in the meantime. This year they make a return visit to the Kate. 8 p.m. January 31 Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $38. 877503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org. Late ‘90s pop-punkers Yellowcard are unique to their genre for incorporating an electric violin into their sound. They’ll be stripping things down this time around for their “Ocean Avenue Acoustic” tour. 8 p.m. February 3 at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $25 ($20 advance). 203-624-8623, toadsplace.com. Matthew Houck, otherwise-known-as Phosphorescent, is prolific by today’s standards, releasing five albums over the past ten years of varied art rock that can at times be straightforward or atypical, depending on his whims. He stops in Hamden after a multi-night sold-our run in New York. 8 p.m. February 5 at Spaceland Ballroom, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $20 ($18 advance). 203-288-6400, spacelandballroom.com. Formative post-punk group Mission of Burma are touring on the heels of its experimental fifth studio album Unsound, which arrives 30 years after the band’s original run ended. They return Connecticut for a gig at Spaceland. 9 p.m. February 6 at Spaceland Ballroom, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $25-$20. 203-288-6400, spacelandballroom.com. Indie pop duo Cibo Matto have returned from a decade-long hiatus with a new album, Hotel Valentine, a score to a movie that doesn’t exist. Best known for writing quirky songs about food (the band’s name is “crazy food” in Italian), this Japanese pair experiments with so many music styles it’s impossible pin them down unless you see for yourself. 9 p.m. February 7 at Spaceland Ballroom, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $20. 203-288-6400, spacelandballroom.com.

Singer-songwriter Dar Williams uses her literary talents to craft stories about people and life into songs. Her latest album, In the Time of Gods, was released in 2012. 8 p.m. February 8 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $38-$35. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org. The Oakdale will become a house of the holy rock gods when Ged the Led Out will unleash the music of Led Zeppelin in recreations of that band’s beloved album tracks with a six-person lineup to fully flesh out the arrangements onstage. 8 p.m. February 8 at Oakdale Theatre, 95 South Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $35. 203-265-1501, oakdale.com.

Beatles tribute band Rain plays note-for-note covers of songs across the Beatles’ catalogue in a multimedia show that features a revolving lineup of musicians channeling the various eras of the Beatles. The production will stop in Wallingford for afternoon and evening shows. 2 & 7 p.m. February 15 at Oakdale Theatre, 95 South Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $75.50-$25.50. 203-265-1501, oakdale.com.

Minnesotan roots musician Charlie Parr uses a trio of banjo, acoustic guitar and dobro to perform his folk blues and traditional spirituals, inspired by his rural environs. He’s easily spotted by his scraggly blue hair and long beard. Chances are you won’t miss him at the Nine. 8 p.m. February 24 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $10-$8. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Silly synth-rockers Reggie and the Full Effect is the solo project of Get Up Kids keyboardist James Dewees. After years of playing tricks on record buyers with hidden discs, he returns for a new album and tour that’s decidedly less silly — but no less fun. 7:30 p.m. February 18 at The Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $16 ($13 advance). 203-288-6400, thespacect.com.

Guitarist Dweezil Zappa had to re-define his guitar technique in order to play the complex melodies in the songs of his father, the late Frank Zappa, in his Zappa Plays Zappa show, and even started his Dweezilla music camp to teach others. Zappa rolls into New Haven for a show at Toad’s, preceded by an afternoon master class on his unique style before the show. 3 p.m. (class) & 8 p.m. (performance) March 2 at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $35 (concert), $75 (class). 203-624-8623, toadsplace.com.

With a pun of a name just waiting to be used, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers are a self-described “bagrock” band, taking on covers of traditional tunes and contemporary rock/pop songs with the distinctly Scottish flavor of bagpipes with standard rock instrumentation. 8 p.m. February 21 at Palace Theatre, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $35. 203-346-2000, palacetheatrect.com. Folk singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler is known for her emotive voice and evocative storytelling, as well as her devilish sense of humor that she’s kept going for a more than 20-year career. Set lists for live performances are typically made up on the fly. 8 p.m. February 21 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $35. 877503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

Café Nine welcomes a punk legend and another former New York Doll in March when original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock comes to town with New York Dolls guitarist Sylvain for a joint acoustic tour that will feature the pair playing music from their careers both solo and together. This show is a make-up for a cancelled gig earlier in the year. 9 p.m. March 5 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $15-$18. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com. Actress and teen pop singer Demi Lovato brings her Neon Lights Tour to the Oakdale for a two-night stand in March. 7:30 p.m. March 8, 7 p.m. March 9 at Oakdale Theatre, 95 South Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $83.50-$38. 203-265-1501, oakdale.com.

The NHSO Jazz Quartet and renowned Connecticut storyteller Tom Lee bring Tales and Tunes to life in a family program; an interactive concert with a focus on rhythm that invites all to participate in storytelling and song-singing. The show will be performed at two schools on consecutive afternoons. 2 p.m. February 8 at Davis Street School, 35 Davis St., New Haven, and 2 p.m. February 9 at Shelton Intermediate School, 675 Constitution Blvd. North. $15. 203-865-0831. newhavensymphony. org. Often referred to as the Queen of the Minor Key, singer-songwriter Eilen Jewell regularly stops in New Haven to bring her gritty, melancholic tunes to a darkened stage. 8 p.m. February 12 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $15-$12. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com. Hard to tell what you’re going to get with David Johansen. The legendary rock singer is notorious as the lead singer of proto-punk glam rockers the New York Dolls, and famous through the ‘80s for his bluesy chart-topping alter ego Buster Poindexter. Even more interesting is that he’ll take the stage for an incredibly intimate gig at Café Nine, where he’ll likely be hard to miss. 8 p.m. February 13 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $25$20. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com. Long-time vocalist for the Saturday Night Live band Christine Ohlman will rock live, from Old Saybrook, on Saturday night with her band Rebel Montez and the Sin Sisters to bring vintage rock ‘n’ roll to the masses for a Valentine’s Day celebration. 8 p.m. February 15 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $28-$25. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

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ART opening New works by Lucky Mink and Farrell Brickhouse. January 24-February 22 at Fred Giampietro Gallery, 91 Orange St., New Haven. Open 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Free. 203-777-7707, giampietrogallery.com. Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Exhibition includes William Henry Jackson’s 19th-century celebrations of the railroad in the American West, Jacques Henri Lartigue’s action shots of early French automobile races, and the abandoned Ford cars of Robert Sheehan. Drawn from the permanent collection of the Davison Art Center, the exhibition also features photographs by Berenice Abbott, Danny Lyon, Walker Evans, Louis Faurer and Garry Winogrand. January 31-March 6 at Davison Art Center, 301 High St., Middletown. Open noon-4 p.m. daily except Mon. Free. 860-685-2966, weselyan.edu./dac. Mary Heebner: Silent FacesAngkor, a multi-dimensional installation. February 5-May 25 at Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies Gallery, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown. Open noon-4 p.m. daily except Mon. Free. 860-685-3355, wesleyan.edu/cfa. Evan Roth: Intellectual Property Donor. The images, objects and experiences in this exhibition suggest a new way to exist within the current environment shaped by our participation in an increasingly cyber and global world, yet grounded in our need for materiality and personal connections. February 5-March 2 at Ezra & Cecile Zilkha Gallery, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. Open noon-5 p.m. daily except Mon. Free. 860-6853355, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Byobu: The Grandeur of Japanese Screens. Japanese folding screens, or byobu, were originally constructed to mark spatial divisions within a room. Sometimes monumental in scale and sumptuously decorated, byobu have been created by some of Japan’s most prominent artists. This exhibition features screens dating from the 16th century to the present, representing diverse themes painted by most of the predominant schools of the period, particularly from the 17th and 18th centuries. February 7-July 6 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.); 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Lucio Pozzi and Richard Tuttle. While the Vogel collection has been highly regarded for its Minimal, Postminimal and Conceptual objects, the selection on view at YUAG reflects the broader variety of work produced in New York during this period. Through January 26 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.) 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-4320600, artgallery.yale.edu.

Continuing

Small Works is a not-so-small group exhibition of works in media from metals to encaustics by seven national artists: Mary Black, Daphine Taylor, Robert Reynolds, Margot Nimiroski, Geoffrey Pagen, Bradford Johnson and TJ Volonis. Through February 1 at Reynolds Fine Art, 96 Orange St., New Haven. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. (until 6 p.m. Fri.). Free. 203-498-2200, reynoldsfineart.com.

Flat/Not Flat is an exhibition of works by artists Jennifer Davies, Karen Dow, Alisa Dworsky and Martha Lewis. The “flat” component of the exhibition draws from each artist’s entry in the Flatfile, Artspace’s permanent collection of works on paper that represent a diverse and affordable range of approaches in art making. The “not flat” portion represents vibrant multidimensional works by these four artists that exist beyond two dimensions. Through January 25 at Artspace New Haven, 50 Orange St., New Haven. Open noon-6 p.m. Wed. & Thurs., noon -8 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Free. 203-772-2709, artspacenh.org. Harry Holtzman & American Abstraction is the first retrospective of abstract painter, teacher and writer Harry Holtzman (1912-87). Drawn from the holdings of the Holtzman Trust, public collections and private lenders, the exhibition brings new attention to the role Holtzman played in shaping abstract art in America from the 1920s to the 1980s. Through January 26 at Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme St., Old Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $9 ($8 seniors, $7 students, 12 & under free). 860-434-5542, flogris.com. Many Things Placed Here & There: The Dorothy & Herbert Vogel Collection. This student-curated exhibition presents as a whole for the first time New York collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel’s vast and uniquely perceptive collection of contemporary art. Artists include Robert Barry, Lois Dodd,

Revisions: Works by Freddi Elton and Myra Serrins. Through January 26 at City Gallery, 994 State St., New Haven. Open noon4 p.m. Thurs.-Sun. Free. 203-782-2489, city-gallery.org.

In Relief: A Small History of the Woodcut: an exhibition tracing the history of the woodcut with notable original prints from the collection of master printer James Reed. Through February 8 at Institute Library Gallery, 847 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. Free. 203-562-4045, institutelibrary.org. Drawings and Visions: Works by Tom Edwards. Recent Extended Work: Photographs by Keith Johnson. Through February 9 at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., New Haven. Open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Thurs.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Free. 203-389-9555, kehlerliddell.com. Artists at Work: Photographs by local artist Chris Randall. Through February 15 in vacant storefronts throughout the Audubon Arts District, Audubon St., New Haven. Free. 203-772-2788, newhavenarts.org. The Arts Council of Greater New Haven presents Vibrant: A Look at Contemporary Lyricism, curated by Insook Hwang and Debbie Hesse. Participating artists include Kwadwo Adae,

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54 J anuary/February 2014

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West, this exhibition offers a rare chance to see Bierstadt’s faithful depictions of botanical and geological details in the unspoiled wilderness, mountains and meadows of the White Mountains, Hudson Valley and New England primeval settings. Through March 2 at Mattatuck Museum Arts & History Center, 144 W. Main St., Waterbury. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun. $5 ($4 seniors, children under 16 free). 203-753-0381, mattatuckmuseum.org. Still Life: 1970s Photorealism displays works associated with Photorealism — a movement of painters who took photography as their subject and sculptors who recreated the human body with surprising accuracy. A significant trend in 1970s art, Photorealism has sometimes been described as a more mechanical offshoot of 1960s Pop art. However, the works in Still Life make a compelling argument that Photorealists captured life in the 1970s with a grittier honesty than has previously been acknowledged. These works have renewed relevance as the ability of photography to capture “the real” has undergone dramatic changes and continues to develop in unanticipated ways. Through March 9 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.) 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

’Hurricane of My Heart’ by Teresa Fortsch, from the exhibition Once in a Lifetime opening February 7 at the Arts Council’s Sumner McNight Crosby Jr. Gallery.

Sculpture by Nicola Hicks featuring seven recent sculptures by Nicola Hicks and a selection of 18th- and early 19th-century paintings from the collection of the Yale Center for British Art which have been selected by Hicks based not on art-history criteria, but on a personal, subjective response to the works. The selections underscore her interest in art that captures expression and emotion, and that demonstrates human empathy for the life force of different creatures. Through March 9 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5p.m. Tues.-Sat., noon-5p.m. Sun. Free. 877-274-8278,britishart.yale.edu.

Cat Balco, Leticia Galizza, Bob Gregson, Chris Joy (sculpture/ wall piece), Bob Keeting (sculpture), Will Lustenader and Annie Sailer. Through February 22 at Perspectives Gallery at Whitney Center, 200 Leeder Hill Rd., Hamden. Open 4-7 p.m. Tues. & Thurs., 1-4 p.m. Sat. Free. 203-772-2788, newhavenarts.org.

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A Rainbow of Art. New works by New Haven artists. January 12-February 28 at Elm City Artist Gallery, 55 Whitney Ave., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily except Sun. Free. 203-922-2359, elmcityartists.com. New Works by Don Voisine. Through March 1 at Fred Giampietro Gallery, 91 Orange St., New Haven. Open 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed.Sat. Free. 203-777-7707, giampietrogallery.com.

“The Language of the Future”

Albert Bierstadt in New York & New England. Organized by the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and curated by Annette Blaugrund, this exhibition focuses on the artist’s East Coast paintings. Better known for his iconic images of the American

Red Grooms: Larger than Life. This installation of oversized paintings and works on paper by American artist Red Grooms from the recent bequest of Charles B. Benenson (Yale College 1933) includes “Picasso Goes to Heaven” (1973), “Studio at the Rue des Grands-Augustins” (1990-96), and the great 27-footlong “Cedar Bar” (1986). Through March 9 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.) 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-4320600, artgallery.yale.edu. At the Crossroads of Hope and Despair: America Since the Crash. Photographs by Matthew Frye Jacobson taken across the country from 2009 to 2013 that speak to the complexities of this moment. Through March 28 at Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St., New Haven. Open 3-5 p.m. Mon. & Wed. Free. 203432-0670, yale.edu/whc. A Great Crowd Had Gathered: JFK in the 1960s. This exhibition examines John F. Kennedy by way of his public — those who elected him to the presidency, provided crucial support during his term in office, and were profoundly affected by his assassination in 1963. Featuring work made during the 1960s by artists including Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand, as well as key wire photographs from the press, the photographs in this exhibition not only trace the rise of irony, self-reference and ambiguity in photography but also bear witness to the saturation of Kennedy’s likeness in the public sphere throughout the decade. Through March 30 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.) 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-4320600, artgallery.yale.edu. The Art of War is a display of reproductions of World War I posters to document both the popularity and effectiveness of propaganda in support of the American war effort. Through May 31 at Knights of Columbus Museum, One State St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Free. 203-865-0400, kofcmuseum.org.

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