Arts & Culture | Yale Schwarzman Center
Jennifer Harrison Newman and Rachel Fine. Lotta Studio Photos.
The sound of footfalls echoed throughout the Yale Schwarzman Center's Underground as Jashan Bhangra gave community members a crash course in traditional Indian folk dance. People jumped and spun, eagerly awaiting the next move. Dance captains patiently slowed down, allowing several rows of people to mirror them. The dance ended with high fives, applause, and laughter.
And with that, the Yale Schwarzman Center launched its third season as a rebranded performing arts space, with a slate of new and growing partnerships across both Yale and New Haven. Rachel Fine, who has served as executive director since fall 2022, said that the venue is actively working to deepen and extend its reach across the Elm City.
“We're really trying to forge partnerships on campus and off campus,” Fine said. “It is really about collaboration, breaking down boundaries, and silos.”
The season will begin on September 21 with a performance from Switzerland-based choreographer and Yale alum Trajal Harrell, who graduated from the university in 1990 and has gone on to build an international career in dance. Harrell, who majored in American Studies at Yale, will appear that evening in the YSC’s Commons, performing to Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert.
That Sunday, attendees can also take a morning masterclass with Harrell’s collaborator and rehearsal director, Ondrej Vidlar, or attend an afternoon conversation at the Yale University Art Gallery. Harrell will close out his time in New Haven with a Sept. 24 performance at the Yale School of Art’s 32 Edgewood Ave. gallery space. All events are free and open to the community.
The month of October will feature two classical performances, as New York-based string quartet Brooklyn Rider kicks off its 20th anniversary season on Oct. 8 and 9, and classical pianist Jeremy Denk keeps the music coming on Oct. 26.
Brooklyn Rider, which was founded in 2005, will perform works by Phillip Glass in the Schwarzman Center’s Dome and Denk will take the stage in Yale’s Battell Chapel, playing the Concord Sonata by Charles Ives in honor of the composer’s 150th birthday.
The 2024 season will also see the Schwarzman Center collaborate with the Shubert and Long Wharf Theatres, the latter of which is kicking off its second full season in itinerancy. .
Jashan Bhangra in action.
On Oct. 25, YSC and Long Wharf will co-present the premiere staged reading of this dry spell, a play written by 2024 Yale Drama Series Prize winner Keegon Schuett. The play, which explores the complexities of trans identity, is part of Long Wharf’s now-annual Artistic Congress, exploring the role that theater and the arts play in a functioning Democracy.
“The idea of bringing people from the National Endowment for the Arts, and New Haven makers and creators, to have a conversation of what it means to make art together was so exciting to us,” said YSC Artistic Director Jennifer Harrison Newman.
As the Shubert Theatre celebrates its 110th anniversary this year, it will collaborate with the Schwarzman Center to welcome acclaimed South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and his trio to their stage on November 12. As he embarks on a world tour at the age of 90, Ibrahim blends together cultural influences to tremendous effect.
Anthony McDonald, the executive director of the Shubert, noted that it will be the third time that the two organizations have collaborated.
“We are fortunate to bring the Schubert theater and Schwarzman together again to bring this amazing artist to our stage,” he said.
The season will also feature cultural works in non-traditional spaces, with a Nov. 4 performance of MƆɹNIŊ [Mourning//Morning] in the newly renovated Peabody Museum. A collaboration two years in the making, the play features five vocalists and instrumentalists who explore the earth’s transformations in a world where humans never existed.
Later that month, The Streetcar Project will reimagine Tennessee Williams’s iconic piece, A Streetcar Named Desire, which graced the Yale Rep just over a decade ago. With public performances at Jonathan Edwards College on Nov. 13 and the Well at the Schwarzman Center on Nov. 16, The Streetcar Project will feature only four actors and no props or sets.
“I'm excited that we are really working in different places,” said Harrison Newman. “ We're really moving around. You're gonna see work in different contexts. The fact that art can meet you wherever you are, I love that people will encounter it in all different aspects and different locations.”
The following month, contemporary chamber music ensemble Hub New Music will perform at Schwarzman December 4 and 5. Having celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2023, Hub New Music features composers at the forefront of contemporary chamber music. Those include New Haven's Tyshawn Sorey, as well as musicians including Angélica Negrón, Nico Muhly, and Donnacha Dennehy.
The Fall 2024 season closes on December 14, with multidisciplinary dance group Soles of Duende. The trio, which blends the styles and sounds of tap, flamenco, and Kathak dance, features New Haven’s own Amanda Castro, along with Arielle Rosales and Brinda Guha.
Schwarzman events are almost all free and open to the public. Ongoing series and conversations will be held throughout the season, as well as the series EveryBody Dances and "Schwarzman Sessions" among the recurring community events.
“I'm looking forward to the excitement and energy that all of the different folks can bring into New Haven,” said community member Mike Twitty. “I think that Schwarzman has a great presence in New Haven now, they're doing a lot for the community.”