Pat redmond photo

The Barabbas Theatre Company performs Circus at Yale University Theatre June 13–20.

14th Annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas
Concerts, theater, dance, discussions, family activities, etc. June 13–27 at various locations in New Haven. artidea.org.

"Artists tend to be the first to see trends," Mary Lou Aleskie says.

The executive director of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas is explaining how she knew in her bones that economic and social turmoil was ahead when she began working on this year's festival, even though the planning had to begin two years ago. "If I were to be doing a festival about how life is not worth living anymore, that's the sort of work that was being [developed] everywhere two years ago." She laughs. "We're not doing that festival, by the way. People need joy this summer."

The festival's program director, Cathy Edwards, describes this year's festival vibe as "something really uplifting about working together, the community coming together at a difficult time." She sees the community theme as a chance to explore "the relationship of global to local," and also "an opportunity for families to do things together."

That includes the multi-faceted phantasmagoric show Circus by the Dublin-based Barabbas Theatre Company, which helps kick off the festival with performances at the Yale University Theatre June 13–20.

The intimate and "technically complicated" four-performer challenge in "telling a story through circus techniques," says Barabbas founder Raymond Keane, can resonate differently, though equally strongly, with young and older audiences. As do so many Arts & Ideas finds, Circus hopes to challenge conventions and clichés of its chosen form. For one thing, Keane declares, "Sometimes I hate clowns. Some clowns should not be clowns. But I'm particularly drawn to the red nose mask."

So the search for true humor and lighthearted enlightenment is an undercurrent of Arts & Ideas 2009. "I don't know how many festivals on the face of the planet would book Buckwheat Zydeco on the same night as [the Balkan ensemble] Slavic Soul Party," Aleskie says, laughing.

"It's like, how many ways can you use an accordion?" That free opening-night partying provocation on New Haven Green sets the pace for what Edwards calls "a comprehensive, immersive experience. With this festival, as always, we want people to feel that they can have fun while being part of an artistic community adventure. There are some known quantities, some unknown. We're proud to host the world premiere of Really Real — the community-conscious dance/music show by composer Phil Kline (who brought his boombox street symphony Unsilent Night to College Street for the past two winters) and choreographer Wally Carbona, scheduled for June 19–21 — "but none of us really know what it will be. I just think it will be transformative, this sea of humanity on stage."

Some of Arts & Ideas' vaunted cultural connectivity is serendipitous or zeitgeist-driven. Aleskie and Edwards suggest that even when the invited artists have long standing relationships with the festival, they carefully plan projects around complementary or thought-provokingly juxtaposed other events.

Or they just get lucky. One happy circumstance this year is that Mavis Staples, whose fest-opening concert on the Green last year was a last-minute wash-out (the entire 2008 festival was dogged by drizzles and cloudbursts) was able to give it another shot this year. This means that choreographer Reggie Wilson, whose The Good Dance — dakar/brooklyn had long ago been planned for this year, could play the same festival as one of his idols.

The Good Dance, previewing at A&I June 25–27 prior to its world premiere elsewhere this fall, is an example of how New Haven itself can add its own aura to festival events. The piece is a collaboration between the Brooklyn-based Wilson and Andreya Ouamba, who hails from the Congo and whose Compagnie 1er Temps is based in Dakar, Senegal.

The mix is African-American and African. Edwards suggests that this combination of "two dance companies from across the world, connected as they might be by the African diaspora but still thousands of miles apart" will be immeasurably enhanced through being staged in the city which harbored the revolutionary Amistad slave rebels.

The connections are more than ephemeral. Edwards says that when they tried to arrange Wilson's performance schedule, "He said 'I can't do that time. I'll be at Mavis Staples' talk then, and so will my whole company.'" Staples will be part of a discussion of her role in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s.

Edwards also quotes Wilson as saying "I would like to do this piece in New Haven; my dream is to meet Robert Farris Thompson." Professor Thompson, who's taught at Yale for decades, will give a festival talk June 21 on "Afro-Atlantic Art, Dance and Music." As Edwards puts it, "Here in New Haven we can do this. We can bring together a conversation."

She exults that Wilson's company "will be here for the entire two-week festival, doing residencies and workshops." Most festival artists are contracted to do added public talks, and many also do workshops or school visits. This underscores the essential "Ideas" part of the festival, which this year furthers community discussion on culture, human rights, politics, poetry, agriculture and music through guest speakers such as Hungarian journalist Kati Marton (providing context for the Katona Josef Theater Company's festival production of Chekhov's Ivanov), Frank McCourt and Rose Styron, Jill Abramson of The New York Times, Favorite Poem Project founder Robert Pinsky, Kelly Brownell (alongside other food/health specialists) and New Yorker critic Alex Ross. Jonah Lerner's genre-bending topic June 26 is "Proust Was a Neuroscientist."

Arts & Ideas has always prided itself on its special connections to the community, hoping to avoid the sort of touring show that barely changes no matter where it's presented. There's a special effort to bring in artists that have rarely if ever played this area before.

When the act may be familiar, they're encouraged to try something new or different, and at the very least are put in venues that are different from the concert halls they're accustomed to elsewhere. Culture-fusing jazz saxophonist Miguel Zenon, Latin American vocalist Tania Libertad and the lively, eclectic West Coast world/dance band Rupa & the April Fishes can be found in the Yale Law School courtyard.

By its very existence, Arts & Ideas 2009 will prove the need for a focused, experience-laden, far-reaching multi-cultural and multi-media festival that can not just unite and excite Connecticut residents during tough times, but provide an undeniable economic boost to the city and the state. Some of us can still remember how barren the streets of New Haven were in June before the festivals landed, and how much those ghost-town weeks hurt local businesses. Not only do residents come out in droves and fill downtown now, the weak national economy makes New Haven a viable tourist attraction even when Yale is out of session.

Aleskie says Arts & Ideas has been "definitely" established and that the festival is a "tourism driver for the region," something she thinks the cooler heads in the state legislature will ultimately recognize when doling out arts funding for the future. Meanwhile, the 2009 festival is right in our faces, and Aleskie says she's just plain "excited. Success is sweetest when it's hard fought for. This is a rich, world-class festival regardless of what changes we face from year to year."

For continuous coverage of the 14th Annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas, read Christopher Arnott's "Arnott of the Arts" blog at newhavenadvocate.com.