Culture
Amidst pounding basslines, Oaklanders gathered downtown last Friday on the streets below Pandora’s Oakland headquarters to celebrate SwayFest. The event was held to commemorate the new partnership between SiriusXM, a satellite radio company, and Pandora, an automated music streaming service, and it was an opportunity for Sway Calloway, a musician, journalist, and radio host, to come back to his hometown. The block party featured performances from Bay Area legends like percussionist and singer Sheila E. to rappers Mistah Fab, Kamaiyah and…
Over 1,100 people from 86 different countries took the oath to become United States citizens at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland on Wednesday. In a warm and thunderous atmosphere, with friends and family whistling and singing, California Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), the keynote speaker, said, “I am so grateful to welcome all of you, my fellow Americans. I am one of you. Look at me, I made it. To those of you who say you can’t, I say you can.” …
Strings of colorful papel picado, decorative paper banners, were strung above the Oakland Museum of California’s outdoor stairways and concrete paths for the 25th annual Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, celebration.
A fast, low-emission bus line is on track to begin service at the end of this year. That could be a boon for bus riders. But some merchants on International Boulevard say it’s caused problems for business.
No Spectators: Art of Burning Man provides the community with an engaging, interactive, and thought provoking look inside the world of Burning Man.
On Monday evening, parents, students and providers of special needs education in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) gathered at the Cole Campus to watch the premiere of Intelligent Lives, a documentary by filmmaker Dan Habib. “This movie is a tool to transform and change the label of intellectual disability from a life sentence of isolation,” he said as he spoke from New York in a recorded message to the viewing audience. Parents and educators watched attentively as the documentary…
It was a record shop. Then it sat empty. Now it’s a community hub for non-profits. And at its housewarming party on Friday night, a crowd of roughly 250 people crammed into the space belonging to Restore Oakland, Inc. to learn about how it would be available for Fruitvale residents to use. Before making their way into the space, guests and curious onlookers watched a powerful and colorful performance from Danza Azteca Cuauhtonal, a group that practices indigenous cultural rites….
On Saturday, Justin Mashouf, director of a new documentary “The Honest Struggle”, and Darrel “Sadiq” Davis, his subject, screened their film at the Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland. The documentary follows Davis, an African-American ex-offender and a Muslim, as he struggles to re-eintegrate into society.
On Saturday afternoon, a group of four older men in white pants and linen shirts sat in front of a stage at the center of a room filled with art, books and mismatched chairs. These men, all from the group Urban Healers, a men’s group that focuses on brotherhood and spiritual betterment, chatted amongst themselves, and to several men wearing yellow shirts and white pants who walked around the room greeting people, snacking on hard boiled eggs and bananas and…