Culture & Community | International Festival of Arts & Ideas | Music | Arts & Culture | Puppetry
Top: Johnny Rivera and Elena Hogan-Perez. Bottom: The Queen gets her moves on. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Johnny Rivera could feel the salsa traveling through his legs even before he started moving. On stage, Nino Ciampa and the Hartt Salsa All-Stars were putting their own spin on Chelsea Feliciano’s “El Ratón,” their hips swaying as they stood in place. Rivera stopped walking and let the music flow through his body.
Esto sí es serio, mi amigo, the group sang, and he parked his bike to create space to dance. Oye que lio que lio se va a formar! He offered two hands to Elena Hogan-Perez and began to move. For a moment, everything else in the world fell away.
It was one of the ways that music, paired with larger-than-life artmaking, conjured magic Friday night, as the International Festival of Arts & Ideas entered its final weekend in downtown New Haven. Performing before Afropop sensation Dobet Gnahoré, both the Hartt Salsa All-Stars and Anne Cubberly’s Giant Puppets set the tone for an evening of enchantment, delighting attendees as the sun began its long descent over the Green.
“This feels great,” said Rivera, who is currently homeless and called the evening a chance to lift his spirits. “It’s fun. I’m a percussion player, so I love salsa. It keeps you motivated.”
The artist Ym, who transformed into the large purple puppet Pinto Bean the Cat.
Around him, an excitement for the evening— the first cool and dry Friday in weeks, it seemed—felt contagious. As she leaned down and extended a huge papier-mâché hand to 13-month-old Zevi Emmanuel, Mother Earth purred a delighted hello, bowing her branch-and-leaf festooned brow to turn her face toward the stage.
Zevi, wide-eyed and beaming, reached out to give her a handshake. In her palm, his fingers appeared doll-sized, as if she had cast a shrinking spell on the world. From his mom’s arms, he pulled his head back to take in the full sight. Inside the puppet, Hartford-based dancer Savanna Jones smiled back.
“It’s been great,” said Zevi’s mom, Ginger Tait. After coming on the first night that the puppets were out on the Green, they returned to see their beanstalk-tall friends again before they left New Haven. “The first time we saw them, we thought they were on stilts.“
Just yards away, four-year-old Eebee and her mom Sharon (they declined to give their last name) had stumbled into a conversation with The Queen, a giant regal puppet with a crown nestled in her close-cropped red Afro. Dainty swirls and squiggles of pink adorned her hands.
Top: Mother Earth, brought to life by dancer Savanna Jones. Bottom: Zevi Emmanuel and his mom, Ginger Tait.
"And who is that?!” Eebee squealed, pointing toward Mother Earth with a flourish of her little arm.
”That’s Mother Earth,” The Queen responded, as puppet master Matthew Horowitz did a theatrical curtsy. “Everyone knows Mother Earth.”
“No!” Eebee replied defiantly. “I don’t!”
“Sure you do!” The Queen ventured. “Have you been outside?”
Eebee’s face split into a grin, followed by peals of laughter. Nearby, Chris Snock held his two-year-old son, Lukas, up to Mother Earth so he could get a closer look. For a moment, their two pairs of eyes were bright with wonder, as if they were seeing the world in a completely different way.
Snock, a playwright who grew up in Philadelphia and lived in Bridgeport for several years, said he’s been coming to the festival for almost a decade—but only for a few years as a dad. For him, activities like the concerts on the Green are wonderful, because kids can run around, make noise and dance in the grass. This year, the giant puppets made it extra magical.
Chris Snock and his two year old, Lukas.
Liz Castle, gig manager for Anne Cubberly’s Giant Puppets, said that’s part of the point. When the puppets can come to the same space multiple weeks in a row, it gives kids of all ages a chance to get to know them, and their operators. On Friday night, they included Jones, Horowitz, and the musical and multimedia artist Ym.
“It’s very sweet,” Castle said. “A lot of the kids are getting to know our puppets, and I feel like they’re making friends.”
Overhead, the sun dipped lower in the sky, bathing the Green in a thick, honeyed light that a person could almost reach out and touch. As Nino Ciampa and the Hartt Salsa All-Stars swept onto the stage, attendees cheered and bobbed their heads and shoulders. For a moment, the crowd was surprisingly still, letting the sound soak the space around them.
And then, something woke them up. Ciampa swayed to the beat of the bongo, introducing the instruments one by one. “The basis of the salsa, la clave!” he announced as new percussion came in with a signature tap. “From the Indigenous in the Caribbean islands, el güiro!” A purring sound entered the mix. “El timbal—el corazón de la salsa!”
Eight-year old Peyton Joyner (in the pink shirt with the decorated pocket) praised the puppets' design.
He continued, feet keeping time with the drums. There was the bass—el bajo—with a moody strum that could set the stage ablaze. There was the piano, with keys that made the instrumentals feel suddenly full. By the time sax and brass entered the fray, he was dancing—and so was the audience. The smooth, buttery vocals sailed over the Green.
Halfway through the Green, Rivera parked his bike to listen. Growing up in New York and then New Haven, Rivera fell in love with salsa, learning its steps from the music he heard at home and later in the neighborhoods that raised him. To this day, he can talk about Celia Cruz and Willie Colón in his sleep.
The dance has stayed with him through multiple struggles, he said, including homelessness. When he hears the music, it lifts his spirits. Friday, there was no question in his mind about whether he would dance. Hogan-Perez, who works for the festival and has done cumbia, was happy to jump in as a partner.
Without saying a word, they’d unlocked something: couples began to sway and salsa on the grass and across the Green’s walkways. Close to the hospitality tent, Mother Earth busted a move, Jones beaming as she controlled the puppet.
Just feet away, The Queen wiggled her hips, Horowitz rocking just slightly. By the stage, two friends rose, took each other by the hand, and burst into giggles as they began to dance.
“Everybody, salsa!” Ciampa cried from the stage. There was no need to say it twice: the audience had already gotten the hint. And note by note, they were ready to dance the night away.
To see more from the performance, check out the video above.