Music (and massage?): feel the Artbeat

"It's what's happening to entertain, invigorate, challenge and stimulate." Pretty catchy, right? While this might be an insipid advertising jingle, it points to something incredibly exciting, and it's not happening in New York or San Francisco or anywhere else, but in our own backyard. What am I talking about? The arts scene of Greater New Haven! And now you can discover its rich secrets at Artbeat! The Pulse of Greater New Haven at theartbeat.org.

The recently-created Artbeat! serves as an online arts forum for Greater New Haven, and you'll find links to all the entertainment, invigoration, and stimulation the city has to offer: theater, dance, art exhibitions, gallery openings, musical performances, poetry readings, classes, lectures and more. By browsing through general categories (structured around theater and performance, festivals and events, galleries and museums, and schools and organizations), I learned in just a matter of seconds that I could skip my Wednesday morning lectures and take an art class on "Drawing Right Hemisphere" at the Guilford Handcraft Center instead.

Also, after checking out some of the site's links, I might choose to attend one of the frequent architectural tours of New Haven sponsored by the Alliance for Architecture, or I might find something interesting in the extensive classifieds on the Greater New Haven Arts Council community bulletin board: "Beautiful studios for artists and creative professionals in downtown New Haven...great light, tall ceilings," or maybe "Musicians sought for Performance Coffeehouse...looking for Blues, Celtic, Jazz, and more," or even "Therapeutic Massage at the Limbus Center for Movement and Massage...private yoga instruction in a beautiful and comfortable setting." Clearly, things are going on in New Haven!

You'll find in the links on Artbeat! just about everything you might want to know about the vibrant, creative community that exists for New Haven residents—whether Yale students or not. But because the site is in its early stages, it doesn't offer anything as substantive as theater, music, or art reviews. As it claims, the site functions as a sort of official sounding board for artists. Yet the focus lies heavily on area institutions that sponsor cultural programs rather than on individual artists or groups that keep a lower profile and aren't already significant players of some sort on the New Haven arts scene. For all you inquisitive Yalies who attended City-Scape in the early days of your college career, you'll mostly discover what you'd expect: the Long Wharf Theater, the New Haven Ballet, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the Shubert Performing Arts Center, the Elm Shakespeare Company, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, the Eli Whitney Museum, and the New Haven Colony Historical Society. However, I was delighted to find out something about a few lesser-known groups, such as the New England Academy of Theater (NEAT) in Hamden, a performing arts school that provides outreach programs for all ages; the Creative Arts Workshop on Audubon Street, a non-profit center that includes a school, an art gallery, a craft gallery and shop; and Orchestra New England in West Haven, which calls itself the premier chamber orchestra in all of New England.

Artbeat! might be most useful for visitors to New Haven, for newcomers to the area, or for longtime city residents, but the truth is that Yale's own weekly Bulletin & Calendar rivals the offerings of theartbeat.org, and few Yalies can find the time to take advantage of all the Master's Teas and performances here on campus, let alone in the city all towns that encircle New Haven. But the calendar on Artbeat! offers a fascinating peek into a world most Yalies never see—the area's myriad craft fairs and folk dance festivals, along with gallery shows, book festivals, and community theater. Overall, the site looks like a great first effort for the Regional Cultural Plan of Connecticut, the group that has made Artbeat! possible, and honestly it might be best that this sort of stethoscope keeps tapping into The Pulse of New Haven with the hands-off objectivity that it presents at the moment. It's up to you to take the plunge and figure out just "What do you want to do tonight?" as Artbeat! asks. You've got an amazing number of options waiting for you, just a click away, if you just can't spend another night on this side of Phelps Gate.

Design by Lisa Marshall and Carl Bialik.

Photos courtesy International Festival of Arts and Ideas and Long Wharf Theater.

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