Art
An estimated 6,000 cat lovers gathered in Oakland on Saturday for the Internet Cat Video Festival. Yes, you read that right—Internet Cat Video Festival.
Coatlicue drummers and dancers occupied the island between East and West-bound traffic on International Blvd in Oakland, as they celebrated and prayed. With shells at their ankles and feathers on their crowns, over a dozen people congregated and moved to the beat. Smoke from lit herbs such as sage filled the intersection. Police directed traffic around the celebration, as passersby honked and waved.
More than 500 people from around the Bay Area attended a launch party in downtown Oakland Monday to help HUB Oakland try and raise $100,000 so that it can move into a large, permanent space in the Uptown district of Oakland.
After months of preparation, the City of Oakland celebrated the opening of its temporary gallery, “Uptown Art Park,” at last Friday’s Art Murmur.
The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) will be opening a new gallery focusing on California Natural Sciences on May 31. A recent behind the scenes sneak peek of the wing—which is still under construction—showed that it will focus on Oakland’s diverse natural environment and encourage residents to observe the diversity in their own backyards.
This weekend the 11th edition of the Oakland International Film Festival (OIFF) will take place in screening venues in throughout the city. Over 55 films from both local and international filmmakers will be screened through Sunday by the Oakland Film Society, the non-profit that organizes the festival.
On Friday, the Betti Ono art gallery in downtown Oakland hosted a panel discussion about women and Hip-Hop. The “My Art, My Culture: Women, media, and Hip-Hop” three-part discussion was the product of the combined efforts of a number of Bay Area arts organizations including Beats, Rhymes, and Life, which uses Hip-Hop to empower young people, and the Daughters of Dilla Project, which offers media arts programs for girls.
“My last trip in the penitentiary, I had to make a decision on what I wanted to do with my life,” said Reggie Bailey, sitting in the swiveling barber chair in his small shop in the heart of downtown Oakland. “I just decided to go to barber college.”
The Oakland Asian Cultural Center welcomed the Year of the Snake at its annual Lunar New Year event in downtown Oakland on Saturday. The 2013 festival showcased dance and musical performances from groups throughout the Bay Area’s Asian community, including the Rising Dragon Culture Center Lion Dance Troupe, who opened the show with dragons prancing around. Students of Seibi Lee, the center’s artist-in-residence preformed Kathak, a classical dance from India, while Winnie Wong and Diana Rowan played the harp and the piano. Throughout…