Our 2025 Top 10

Top row: A pop-punk riff on Hamlet at New Haven Academy; Sha McAllister is appointed Director of Cultural Affairs; Broke-O-Logy at CCT. Middle row: Artist Kwadwo Adae; Día de los Muertos in Fair Haven; Music Haven celebrates refugee voices. Bottom row: Alisa Bowens-Mercado leads "Salsa Beneath The Stars" in Westville; Asher, Felipe and Paméla Delerme at the ninth annual Puerto Rican Festival of New Haven. Lucy Gellman, Jarelis Calderon and Abiba Biao Photos.

Dancers in churches and reimagined warehouse spaces. Shakespeare that felt like it was written for Fall Out Boy and Death Cab for Cutie. Small theater companies making magic on a shoestring budget and music incubators telling the stories of New Haven's immigrant and refugee families note by note. A cultural connector breaking barriers at City Hall. A corner renamed for a dancer gone much too soon. 

This year, our top 10 criss-crossed art forms and genres and practitioners, from sweltering sidewalks in New Haven's Dixwell neighborhood to black box theaters and cacophonous, joyful gatherings in Fair Haven that went into the wee hours of the morning. They celebrated artists and arts organizations that have been doing their thing for decades, turned itinerant theater into breathtaking, heart-wrenching beauty, and kept us on our toes all year long.

This is not an exhaustive list; it never is. For every event that we make it to, it feels like there are at least a dozen things that we miss (usually many more, and we are endlessly grateful for the resources that our friends at the New Haven Independent dedicate to the arts)—and all of them are worthy of an article. This list could have been a top 20, or a top 30, or a top 100, and we would still have more to write about. Our youth arts journalists are worthy of their own list, as are all the vibrant young people making art in this city. 

Members of Ballet Folklórico Alma de México at Fiesta Latina in October 2025. Lucy Gellman File Photo.

This year, for instance, the arts saw several historic institutional anniversaries (more on that below), vibrant fairs and maker markets, magnificent open studios in New Haven and West Haven, poetry, oration and music that doubled as a form of prayer, and leadership transitions across the region. We documented mariachi in the shadow of a mosasaur, did some in-depth and breaking news reporting on the New Haven Public Schools and federal funding cuts at the NEA, NEH, and IMLS that we were really proud of. We followed theater educators and talented curators and musicians centering percussion like we've never heard before on a mainstage.

We worked with fabulous new writers like Shreya Menon and Emiliano Cáceres Manzano, got to more regional art and performances (although never enough—shoutout to institutions like the Milford Arts Council for keeping us on our toes!), and joined the Connecticut Student Journalism Collaborative, with which we're excited to deepen our partnership in 2026. We made connections with artists and creatives that we are so excited to grow in the New Year.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, to all of them. Even in a world that feels like it can be on its head, you make this job so joyful.  

Students at a musical pop-up from Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School at the end of October.

A small note before we get to the good stuff: what makes a publication like the Arts Paper possible is your support. In November, the Arts Council of Greater New Haven—under which the Arts Paper lives—enrolled in the State of Connecticut's Shared Work Program, designed to prevent layoffs by providing partial unemployment benefits to staff.

Currently, that means the Arts Council's four full-time staff members (Arts Paper Editor Lucy Gellman, Director of Programs Rebekah Moore, Operations Director Winter Marshall and Executive Director Hope Chávez) are only compensated for a fraction of the hours they normally work per week. We have fewer funds to pay freelancers (who, by the way, should be making more in this moment, not less), which translates to fewer articles. In an already tough economic climate, we are all feeling it.

If you have the financial resources to spare—and we recognize that many people do not—consider supporting us here and specify in the "Notes" section that it's going to the Arts Paper. And if you don't, but still like what we do, please amplify our work and let us know what you think we're missing. Some of our best stories have come from gentle (and not so gentle) call ins from the community. We appreciate all of them.

Okay. Without further ado, here it is.

Top: Dancers in a fundraiser for The Mercy Velvet Project in early December. Bottom: Students at Betsy Ross Arts & Design Academy dance out the 2024-25 school year in June. Lucy Gellman File Photos.

10. Lose Yourself To Dance

Earlier this year, one of our commenters suggested that "the dance scene is dead." It gave us pause and challenged us to reflect on what that actually means.

We are happy to report, after careful review, that it is very much alive. Fragmented? Yes, and that alone is deserving of more coverage in the next year. But definitely alive.

Dance thrived this year in schools, theaters, studios, churches and warehouse spaces (and as of last week, a Kwanzaa celebration at City Hall), carried by dreamers and doers who weren't afraid to take a leap of faith. At Betsy Ross Arts & Design Academy, it helped usher in Black History month, dance out a school year where emotions were running high, and welcome the winter season with a thoughtfulness and poise that is sometimes rare for middle schoolers. At New Haven Academy, it made for an emotional senior sendoff and end-of-year showcase.

At Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School, it soared, with classes from alum-turned-teacher Tavon Dudley that we are still thinking about (hold tight for a long-overdue piece in the New Year) and dramatic choreography from Christine Kershaw that transformed the stage into another universe, including in the school's performance of Into The Woods in March. 

We know what you're thinking, reader: those are just the schools! And you're right—although educational institutions are also where our future artists, audience members and patrons are cultivated. But across the region more broadly, dance also seemed to pop up again and again. The year opened with the inaugural dance residency at NXTHVN, where SYREN Modern Dance and kamrDANCE (which would later share its in-progress work, The Mercy Velvet Project, twice) took over a third-floor space on Henry Street for a week in January. 

Then Tia Russell Dance Studio made the move from Woodbridge to Hamden.  Breakdancing tutorials landed at Neighborhood Music School, during the seventh annual New Haven Hip Hop Conference. In Westville, salsera Alisa Bowens-Mercado conjured dance miracles under the stars, and then celebrated two and a half decades of dance at a fleet-footed celebration. In Wooster Square, Baila con Gusto and Melinda Marquez (of Chestnut Street Studio) kept doing their thing. Brian Jawara Gray and Dr. Hanan Hameen Diagne kicked off classes at Yale's AfAm House (an article on that is also forthcoming). And in Fair Haven, Ekow Body opened the doors to its first brick and mortar in Erector Square, where owner Candice Dormon now teaches soul line dancing. 

That focus on all-ages education became a through line. In August, a group of public school teachers who understood intimately the value of arts education opened the Elements Dance & Movement Conservatory (EDMC), a technique-centered dance studio that is housed within the Yarrow Center for Wellness at 17 Hazel Terrace in Woodbridge.

Yexandra Diaz, who is now the city's second poet laureate, wove it into her project "Three Degrees," an exploration of art across media. The Shubert Theatre brought a dazzling array of dance, from the Jamaican dance troupe Amalgamation to Ailey II to the Grand Kyiv Ballet. This month, dancers closed out the year with literal joy and mercy, with performances from the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble and The Mercy Velvet Project that were on the same bone-chillingly cold afternoon.  

Lastly: Dance gave us space to mourn this year, including the deaths of cultural champion Elaine Peters and modern dancer Annie Sailer. After a long and convoluted process, the New Haven Board of Alders approved Camryn's Corner, a space paying homage to the vibrant and too-short life of young dancer Camryn "Mooka" Gayle after her death in November 2021. When family members unveiled the corner in late June, many—including her former dance teacher, Lindsey Bauer—were there to process the heavy weight that many of them had been holding. 

9. A Pop-Punk Hamlet Leaves It All On The Stage

Never did we think that we'd say it: this Hamlet (er, Hamlets, all four of them) ate and left no crumbs. In November, New Haven Academy returned to the stage for its first show of the 2025-26 school year with a pop-punk, 90-minute adaptation of Hamlet that was more open, accessible, and biting than its three-hour source text. Spliced to feature four Hamlets instead of one, the work was judiciously edited and mined for feeling, with all the emotional heft of its language intact.

The show was a collaboration between Legacy Studios, the school’s popular after-school drama club, and Elm Shakespeare Company, which has been able to grow its educational footprint thanks to a grant from the Seedlings Foundation. It was directed by Elm’s Liz Daingerfield and “drama poppa” Ty Scurry, who first worked together on A Midsummer Night’s Dream last year. Earlier this month, it was one of four shows that travelled to Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury for the third annual Youth Festival of Shakespeare. 

It was also one of many gorgeous, surprising, sometimes weird performances and victories to come out of the schools. March, for instance, saw a dizzying high school musical theater season (whoever said a prayer for us, thank you), where drama dorks and committed staff members—often working on out-of-pocket funds—pulled ensemble productions together with a lot of hope and a little elbow grease (read more about those here, here and here).

May saw Wexler-Grant say goodbye to the school with a surprisingly moving Annie Jr. and James Hillhouse High School send a marching band to Washington. By the fall, creative writers and young playwrights had joined in on one side of town and high school musicians on the other. It was a reminder to us that some of New Haven's most exciting art is happening in its schools, where the arts are also teaching young people how to exist in the world.

8. Artists Honor The Family at Two New Haven Institutions 

In February, Made Visible: Unveiled Roots, a solo exhibition from painter Marquis Brantley, opened at Creative Arts Workshop (CAW). A lifelong New Havener and self-taught artist, Brantley created a space to both honor his family and recognize its inherent holiness, telling a story of Black men and boys allowed to dream, to love, to live out loud and fully, and to grow old.

At CAW, it became both a soul-nourishing tour de force and a template for how the organization could better reflect New Haven all year round. The show was curated by artist, poet, theater-maker and writer Jasmin Agosto. In late October, the Bitsie Clark Fund for Artists (named in honor of arts champion Bitsie Clark, who passed away in early October) announced that Brantley was one of its 2025 grantees.

Clark, who was 93, had called Brantley's art "wonderful" before she passed. 

Also paying homage to family—or more fittingly, many families—was Reverence: An Archival Altar, the months-long project of curator and artist Arvia Walker. The show, which ran at NXTHVN from June to November 23 of this year, highlighted eight New Haven families who have loved and lost fiercely, bridging past and present in the process.

Artists, telling the story of each family in mixed media, included Kulimushi “Kuli” Barongozi, Sydney “Syd” M. Bell, Marquis Brantley Sr., Shaunda Holloway (who has graced the pages of this paper!), Candyce “Marsh” John, Jasmine Nikole, and Mel Phillips. Pieces in the collection range from paintings to mixed media.. Read more about that here and here. 

7. Broke-Ology At Collective Consciousness Theatre

For years now, Collective Consciousness co-founder Dexter J. Singleton has wanted to program playwright Nathan Louis Jackson's work—and not just because the two are both sons of the American Midwest (Singleton, and not square pizza, may be the single best thing  to ever come to New Haven from Detroit). Jackson's characters, written with tight and seamless dialogue, felt like they could be New Haveners. Their struggles were instantly relatable. And when the playwright passed away at just 44 in 2023—way before his time—staging one of his plays  felt like a way to pay homage to the work. 

How blessed we in New Haven are to have such work in our midst—and to have a cast that carried it flawless  Jackson’s Broke-ology, which ran at Collective Consciousness Theatre (CCT) for two weeks in mid-November, provided a rare, intimate and extremely moving look into caring for an aging parent, with a specific focus on two Black sons coming to terms with their father's mortality. Set entirely inside a single Kansas City home, the play dove into brotherhood, poverty, and the meaning of family all under the weight of economic hardship, with a cast that makes the show feel intimately familiar. Long after the curtain closed, it stayed with us for its unflinching look at what it means to get older, and to make professional and personal sacrifices for family.

6. Anniversaries, Anniversaries, Anniversaries!

Happy anniversary to ... so many New Haven and New Haven area organizations that we're sure we forgot a few! It seems like 1985, 1995, and 2005 were all lucky years for this region, and we're so glad that they were. 

In April, the Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers celebrated four glorious decades of music making with a song- and prayer-filled afternoon at Immanuel Baptist Church, where the group has also held weekly rehearsals for years. That same month, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas launched its 30th season, with scaled-down "Pearl Anniversary" programming (and a pearl-festooned gala) that withstood leadership transitions and harsh federal funding cuts.

Then in September, our friends at the New Haven Independent (which has really ramped up its arts coverage, thanks largely to reporter Jisu Sheen and its new-ish culture arm, Midbrow) celebrated 20 years, and artist Kwadwo Adae rang in two decades of teaching at his studio, including six at its current location.

In Woodbridge, salsera Alisa Bowens-Mercado danced the night away to celebrate a quarter of a century—and look forward to many more years teaching movement in her Westville studio, and in classrooms and school gyms and auditoriums across the state. Somewhere in between, Best Video Film & Cultural Center also fêted 40 years of amplifying video—and camaraderie—in Hamden, including 10 as a not-for-profit organization. That milestone is perhaps even more miraculous given an emergency appeal that the organization sent out in February. It raised $54,967 among almost 650 donors in just a few days, in a testament to what a beloved community space the Hamden organization is.

5. Music Haven's Untold Stories Series 

Holy moly, did we need our tissues for this one. While Music Haven launched its series “Voices: Untold Stories” in the fall of last year, it gathered momentum in 2025, centering diverse and polyphonic voices from New Haven’s immigrant and refugee communities alongside work by the Haven String Quartet and visiting and guest artists. In February, it came to the Dixwell Community Q House with an installment from playwright Toto Kisaku and a special performance from elders at the Dixwell Senior Center.

Then in April, it held a sweeping conclusion of the series at its Erector Square space in Fair Haven, where storytellers joined guest artists and students who have made the organization their second home. In between the fall of 2024 and the spring of this year, storytellers included speakers from Mexico, Iraq, Mauritania, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Afghanistan.

Nowhere, perhaps, was the concept more breathtaking than in its final iteration, which included a performance of Colin Jacobsen and Siamak Aghaei's "Ascending Bird," written in 2007 and inspired by a Persian folk song that Aghaei learned growing up (listen to it here), alongside students and teachers from Music Haven. It reminded us of how the arts can be a door, inviting people to walk (or dance, listen, clap, and sing) in another person's cultural shoes. 

4. Pa que tú lo sepas!

Rhythmic bomba, heart-stirringly good salsa, and a sea of Puerto Rican flags and memorabilia filled downtown New Haven in early August for the ninth annual Puerto Rican Festival of New Haven on the New Haven Green. Organized by Puerto Ricans United, Inc. (PRU), the event has continued to grow into almost a decade, with a day of performances and thousands of attendees. This year, just as in recent years, it came on the heels of a gala celebrating PRU's roots, which over 400 people attended. 

It was, meanwhile, part of a sweltering summer of glorious festivals, which ran from the late spring right through the first whispers of fall. In April and May, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas kicked off its string of annual neighborhood festivals, with celebrations in Fair Haven, Dixwell (moved to September due to rain), West Rock/West Hills, The Hill and Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills. In June, the Elm City Freddy Fixer Parade marked the unofficial start of summer, and Arts & Ideas kept the good vibes coming downtown, with weeks of free programming on the New Haven Green and ticketed events that ranged from food tours to site-specific theater to a joyful and dazzling celebration of Juneteenth. The month ended with the 11th annual Caribbean Heritage Festival on the New Haven Green.  

In July, cultural organizers grew that artistic (and often mellifluous) footprint, as the fourth annual Seeing Sounds Festival made the move downtown and city officials launched the first Open Streets Festival, produced by Sweets & Sounds Entertainment Founder Angel Dahfay, manager of public programming and activation for the New Haven Green, and a film series on the New Haven Green. In August, artists kept the momentum going with an ever-expanding Black Wall Street Festival and the annual Puerto Rican Festival. 

3. Shamain McAllister Is Tapped To Lead The Department of Cultural Affairs

When city leader Adriane Jefferson announced she was leaving New Haven to run Atlanta's Office of Cultural Affairs in February of this year, it is not an exaggeration to say that we cried (and we thanked our lucky stars that Deputy Director Kim Futrell, who is the institutional brain and memory of the department, isn't going anywhere). During Jefferson's tenure, which began just a month before the Covid-19 pandemic hit New Haven, she transformed the department, from pandemic-era photo campaigns to the city's first-ever Cultural Equity Plan to Black Wall Street's success on the New Haven Green. 

So when she left, we thought: Okay. What now? And the answer was a hush-hush search that took months. 

In Sha McAllister, the city has found a dedicated public servant and dogged community connector for the job. Before taking the job in October, McAllister had already become known as a coalition builder, savvy stretcher-of-funds, and trusted confidant through her work at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Kulturally LIT, Best Video Film & Cultural Center (BVFCC), Cultured AF, Nasty Women Connecticut, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and a host of other city arts organizations. As she embarks on her first full year in the position, we are excited to see what she does next—and where the department will go.

Terrance Riggins in Unbecoming Tragedy. Curtis Brown Photography. 

2. Unbecoming Tragedy Finally Gets Its Due

What a gift it is to see a work like this. In May, Long Wharf Theatre and Collective Consciousness Theatre, working with the playwright Terrence Riggins and director Cheyenne Barboza, staged the long-awaited world premiere of Unbecoming Tragedy: A Ritual Journey Towards Destiny, as much a ritual as it was an autobiographical and lyrical feat. In its telling of Riggins’ life, this dramatic Matryoshka doll defied genre, inviting a kind of witness and wonder that felt (and honestly months later, still feels) profound. We are so grateful. 

“I have a responsibility as an artist, in my creative imagination and in the theater, to tell this story in the way that I'm telling it,” Riggins said in an interview last year, when he was still workshopping the play. “I had to really ask myself: Do I want to be this vulnerable? And then when I thought about it … my journey is like, I don't shy away from emotion. And despair and tragedy. I don't run from that kind of stuff.”

1. Banishing Fear, ULA's Día de Muertos Turns 15 In Fair Haven

A connection to culture—and a call to resistance—propelled Unidad Latina en Acción’s (ULA) “quinceañera” observance of Día de Muertos, held at Fair Haven’s Bregamos Community Theater in early November. As families across a diaspora welcomed ancestors into their homes, hundreds of attendees gathered to remember the lives lost to state violence, particularly immigrants who have died in federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in the past year.

Among them, sometimes for the first time, were dozens of "solidarity volunteers"—people willing to put their bodies on the line to protect people in the case of an ICE sighting or arrest. 

The parade has always married activism and tradition: past processions have honored immigrants who died trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, women soldiers in the Mexican Revolution, early victims of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the 43 students disappeared from Ayotzinapa, Mexico in 2014. But for many longtime members of ULA, who spoke passionately as they marched, shouted, danced and sang through the streets, it became a reminder that building community can be an antidote to fear. 

It wasn't the only celebration to make space for that night. Across town, Vivan las Autónomas observed its now-annual commemoration of “Día de Muertas” in beloved community. A collaboration with artists, activists, organizers, trauma workers and survivors across the community, the night featured not just artmaking and performances, but also remarks from the Children of Marsha P. Johnson, CT Students for a Dream, CT 4 Abolition, La Cocina de Sandra and the Decolonial Sex Worker Empowerment Project.