Culture
There was talk of chickens and pigs at North Oakland’s Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library on Friday night, but it wasn’t a discussion of Animal Farm. Jordan Ruyle named the barnyard critters while calling out square dance steps as part of a monthly event he puts on with his wife’s quartet, the Squirrelly Stringband.
Axis performed its unique style of modern dance last Thursday at Dance Access Day: A Day of Dance, Disability, Performance and Fun at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in Oakland. Audience members included children as well as disabled adults and seniors. Watch the video of the local dance team performing and teaching people of all ages how to dance.
Think your Chardonnay has an oaky aftertaste? Try Oakland’s! Wine connoisseurs may focus on the vines of Napa County when touring California, but this weekend one group of out-of-towners found out the East Bay has a few wineries of its own.
Oakland’s Art Murmur event on Friday night focused on art of all forms. There were storyboards of comic books. There was a fawn with a surveillance camera for a head. But aside from what could be found in the galleries, the event attracted creative individuals who chose to wear their art rather than display it on a wall. Click on the article for a Flash interactive about the back stories about Art Murmur fashion.
Major League Baseball had all but given up on pitchers Justin James and Bobby Cramer, who joined the Oakland Athletics in September at the unusually old (for baseball) ages of 29 and 30. But the A’s, known for their unconventional scouting, saw their potential, not their ages.
While visual art enthusiasts usually stick to the galleries during the Oakland Art Murmur, this Friday the film-heads in the crowd may want to linger in front of the Great Wall of Oakland for “Behind the Pixar Screen,” a nod to the artists who work at the beloved Emeryville animation studio.
On a recent Friday night, four students from Oakland’s Studio Naga began their black belt test in poekoelan, an Indonesian martial art that borrows its graceful movements from wild animals. The test’s many stages included meditation, a 10-mile run, and fending off fellow students over a sleepless 48-hour period.
Art can come in a variety of forms—paint carefully brushed onto a sheet of canvas or pencil marks thoughtfully scrawled onto a piece of sketch paper. Then there are the less conventional art forms. Skateboards, for example. Or a pair of sneakers. Or knuckle tattoos.
They come in droves to jump on the massive trampolines. They do backflips, play dodgeball, and dunk on a basketball hoop they couldn’t otherwise reach without some catapulting aid. Oh, and children can also be found doing these things at the House of Air, San Francisco’s first indoor trampoline park.