Culture
Unabashed joy takes center stage at this year’s Oakland Ballet Dancing Moons Festival, which features what may be a first for an American ballet company — a new, all-Asian American Pacific Islander choreographed program. The main ballet, “Exquisite Corpse,” is a new piece making its premiere at the festival, which the Oakland Ballet has hosted for the past two years in collaboration with the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Co-choreographed by Phil Chan, Seyong Kim, and Elaine Kudo, the ballet merges…
On a cloudy Saturday morning, Carmen Román and her husband, Pierr Padilla, filled the basement of the Golden Gate Library with a symphony of sounds, using their feet, hands and traditional Afro-Peruvian instruments. A small group of children shrieked with glee and bumbled around the room, dancing as their parents nodded to the beat being created by Román and Padilla opening and closing the top to their cajitas, a box-shaped Latin percussion instrument, and hitting it with a thin stick. …
Bands, dancers, clowns, cowboys and cool cars filled downtown Oakland Sunday afternoon for the Black Joy Parade. Wet streets and chilly weather didn’t discourage hundreds of people from enjoying music, food and a host of activities for children and adults. In its sixth year, the parade celebrates the Black experience and culture. It also promotes Oakland’s many Black-owned small businesses. All photos by Najim Rahim
Oakland’s Chinatown was transformed Sunday into a vibrant street market, where the aroma of cooking food mingled with the crackle of conversation and the bright colors of balloons and paper lanterns. Beneath a canopy of floating red lanterns, vendors hawked rib and radish soup, boba tea, and pineapple buns. The joyful event was a collective effort by the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities to support small businesses and create a sense of safety and belonging in the area. Coinciding…
In celebration of Black History Month, the Black Cultural Zone put a spotlight on love and local businesses, bringing them together in the Sooooo Chocolate Festival on Sunday at Uptown Station. “Promoting local artists is the antidote to gentrification and displacement,” said Carylon Johnson, Black Cultural Zone CEO. “Festivals like these remind people that who we are is made up of our local small businesses. And so we’ve got to embrace them and elevate them.” The rich fragrance of chocolate…
An Oakland mural dedicated to women in the Black Panther Party came to life Friday night, as visitors to the Oakland Museum of California were invited to create their own artwork in a live mural. The project was put on by the West Oakland Mural Project, a mural and mini museum honoring women instrumental to the Black Panther movement. Visitors got to work painting, bringing the colorless canvas to life with vibrant reds, blues, yellows, and blacks. The live mural,…
In the spirit of unity, Alameda County has been hosting a Lunar New Year celebration for 15 years. Monday’s program at Lincoln Hall — the first one in person since the pandemic lockdown in 2020 — included five traditional performances reflecting the Bay Area’s diverse Asian communities. The audience of about 400 mostly was made up of children from eight schools, while students from nine other schools participated online. “We come from different languages and cultures, but we all share…
Mayra Matias Pablo cradles a baby doll in her arm while holding a stuffed breast in her other hand. Dressed in traditional Guatemalan clothing and speaking Mam, a Mayan language from Guatemala, she uses the props to demonstrate a proper latch. Matias Pablo works for the Women, Infant and Children program at Oakland’s Native American Health Center and created this social media video to help Mam-speakers learn how to reduce nipple pain during breastfeeding. The WIC program supports pregnant women,…
About three dozen people gathered at the Lake Merritt amphitheater on a chilly Friday night to remember the five people who were killed last weekend in a mass shooting at a queer nightclub in Colorado Springs. During the three-hour vigil, people, mostly wearing black, listened to music — some hugging, others crying, and many laughing together, as they tried to care for one another in the wake of continued brutality against queer people in the United States. “Being queer and…