Culture & Community | Dance | Music | Arts & Culture | West Haven
Co-emcee Samantha Myers Galberth. Danielle Campbell Photos.
Just off Bull Hill Lane, Galentine’s Day was in full swing. In the Music Back Then Performance Theater, the hum of conversation filled the room, wafting up through the darkness. Blue and purple light fell over the stage, setting it aglow. Basking in it, an all-woman band waited to dip into their set. Beside them, DJ LaRae Chantel waited with bated breath.
When hosts Samantha Myers Galberth and Gwendolyn Busch Williams burst onto the stage, the audience could feel the energy. This was a sisterhood, vibrating with excitement.
It marked the beginning of the inaugural Galentine Concert: It’s Ladies Night, a production from Andrea Daniels-Singleton that breathed life—and sisterhood—into a cold Saturday night earlier this month. A producer, writer, actor and mom, Daniels-Singleton put together the event as a way to highlight fellow women, and shout out their contributions in the community.
“I want women to rule tonight!” she said. "From the singers, band, host, DJ, honorees to the vendors. All Women! Who runs the world? Girls!!! It must be admitted ... We love the Men but tonight is about the celebration of a Woman and the many roles we represent."
Top: An impromptu praise break after Elder Tarishia Martin receives her award. Bottom: Sharron Solomon-McCarthy, named Trailblazer of Education.
Daniels-Singleton created the Galentine’s event to highlight the power of unity among women. As an artist and a writer, she has for years held her ensemble performance of The Cry Within each December, as a way to usher in healing through theater. This year, she said she was excited to carry the celebration into February.
As a woman who relies on her girlfriends—and knows that they also rely on her—it gave her a chance to center and celebrate sisterhood.
As she put the program together, she designed it as part party, part awards ceremony, and all heart. That resonated all the way through her signature theme song (except in church, she said), Carl Carlton’s “She’s a Bad Mama Jama.”
"One of the missions of the Galentine Concert was to celebrate and acknowledge the superior women," she wrote in an email after the event. "The many outstanding women that made and continue to make a difference in the community and in the World! We are the real life superheroes. Juggling many hats gracefully. I’m proud to be called WOMAN!"
Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School (BRAMS) students at the top of the show.
From the beginning of the night to the end, attendees saw that in real time—and often were able to join in on the act of fêting each other. Early in the evening, Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School dance teacher and New Haven shero Nikki Claxton gathered her students in the theater, waiting for them to take the stage.
Under Claxton’s careful instruction, young dancers came prepared with a dance set to Citizen Soldier’s “Would Anyone Care?,” also performed during last year’s “Winterfest” at the school. At the core of the number is a focus on mental health, particularly among youth. Claxton developed the work last year, after talking to her students about suicidality and self-harm among young people.
In 2020, the National Institutes of Health reported that suicide was the second leading cause of death among people between 10 and 14 and 25 to 34. Before the performance, Betsy Ross Arts Coordinator Tavares Bussey said he was proud of the students for using their art form to share a powerful and all-too-timely message. He noted that they could not have done it without Claxton’s patient guidance.
“I am excited that these young people are taking the lead in starting conversation through their dance and through their art,” Bussey said. Right on cue, students filled the area in front of the stage, waiting for the music to begin.
Top: Co-emcees Gwendolyn Busch Williams and Samantha Myers Galberth. Bottom: Robin Higgins, named trailblazer of law enforcement.
As it crackled to life, smooth and powerful movements followed on the floor, with dancer Dakari Langley leading the way. With passion in their faces, dancers leapt, lifted their legs, carriages, and torsos, and lowered themselves to the floor as if in despair. At one point three dancers sat on the floor with their heads in their hands.
As they left to thunderous cheers and applause, hosts introduced the night as a celebration of community trailblazers, from arts advocates to ceiling-shattering lawyers, healthcare workers, and civil servants. In close to a dozen short speeches, it showcased both the village that Daniels-Singleton has built in New Haven, and the many ways there are to live a life and make a difference in the city someone calls home.
They included longtime city cop Sgt. Robin Higgins, music producer Cherrelle Crews, attorney Marcia Blake, educators Meghan White and Sharron Solomon McCarthy, Operating Room Nurse Manager Shantel Teel-Williams, Alder Honda Smith, Westville Village Renaissance Alliance (WVRA) Director Elizabeth Donius, stylist Samantha Myers Galberth, City Youth and Recreation Director Gwendolyn Busch Williams, and Alberta Brown and Elder Tarishia Martin.
Throughout the night, awardees often brought the audience to tears—and got them laughing and sharing stories with each other—with personal anecdotes and heartfelt remarks. Taking the stage as a “Trailblazer of Religion,” Martin recalled being on the highway behind an 18-wheeler that was swerving, and beginning to pray.
It was clear to her that the truck driver was exhausted: she prayed he would get off the road and rest. God spoke to her, she remembered, and told her to follow him off the exit. The voice urged her to make sure the driver was okay.
Taking a deep breath, Martin recalled getting out of her car, and told the driver she had been praying on his behalf. She now teaches the story with her own ministry, called Rising Intercessors. The group now takes prayer across Connecticut.
As she returned to emcee after the award, Williams seemed overcome with emotion, and found it hard to continue. After trying to read her notes and stopping, something caught in her throat. Without hesitation, the band began to play. Martin got back on the mic and started to preach. Shouts of affirmation and praise bubbled up from the audience, ringing out across the room for close to 10 minutes.
Other awardees took the time to shout out their own villages, from Westville and West Rock to West Haven. They weren’t alone: a gaggle of vendors from across the state also said it was the power of sisterhood that had helped them get there. As she bounced between vendor tables, attendee Darlene Duncan noted the importance of having spaces for women to be in community and “to support one another, always because women tend not to do that sometimes.”
Top: Lizzy Donius, named one of two Trailblazers of Community. Bottom: Lashayla Brown, who runs Royle Boutique out of Stamford.
At another table, Lashayla Brown showcased her new business, Royle Boutique out of Stamford. She used the power of social media to scan for vending opportunities and landed on the Galentine's event, she said Saturday. Her love of positive people and making people feel pretty shone through in her items including jewelry and t-shirts.
Behind the scenes, both Daniels-Singleton and friend Jessica Artemchuk buzzed from vendor station to stage to performer to awardee, often in motion. As she described it, Artemchuk was part decorator, part organizing staff, and part manager. For her and for Daniels-Singleton, it was part of showing that the evening was for and by women, particularly those who have helped lift up others in the community.
Back onstage, the band brought the house down, flowing through decades as they jammed together. From the moment vocalist Carla Zipay launched into Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody,” the audience was fully present, clapping along and calling out to the performers.
Top: Just a fraction of the band. Bottom: Photos from the event that Daniels-Singleton contributed.
With little pause, fellow singers joined in. Throughout the evening, they included Marissa Kendrick, Shanell Jefferson, Gwendolyn Wilkins, Stephanie Townsend, Tiffany Smith, Quanisha Morrison, Melissa Johnson, Ricarla Horsley, MeLisa Brown Fleming, and Erica Wilkins.
That musicians were a powerhouse together was only part of their magic. Only in a discussion afterwards did band members share that they had come together specifically for the event. Under the direction of R. Patrice Bryant, they included Crews on keys, Patricia Saulsbury on drums, Mary Orji on saxophone, and Row DaSilva on bass. DJ LaRae Chantel provided the music in between acts.
Before the end of the night, Daniels-Singleton also made time to spotlight her godmother, Jackie Brunson, who traveled from Florida to help her with the event. As the night progressed, she asked Gwendolyn Wilkins to sing their theme song, “From the Bottom of My Heart,” by Stevie Wonder. The words soon flowed over the audience.
“I'm always proud of what she does. I'm always happy that she includes me in that corner,” Brunson said. “So that's always a blessing for me.”