Culture
This Saturday, a group of Oakland based-artists will stage the East Bay’s first literary pub crawl, a beast-themed, multiple-venue festival featuring performances, recitals and readings by at least 166 authors, poets and musical groups across 25 locations in Oakland.
Now that the finalists in Oakland’s first Youth Poet Laureate competition have been announced, the poets have until September to hear the final results after the last panel of judges make their decision. While waiting to find out who will be named the first Youth Poet Laureate, the finalists are preparing for the first group performance at the Art & Soul Festival this summer in Oakland.
On Saturday, 200 Bay Area residents put on their stretchy yoga pants and unrolled their colourful exercise mats to help Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland. For eight hours, barefoot participants moved and stretched their bodies at Richmond’s Craneway Pavilion to inaugurate the first annual Yoga Reaches Out Bay Area Yogathon.
A circus has come to town—a dancer rounds dozens of hula-hoops on her hips, one woman swings from a trapeze, another treads a fine line on the slack rope, and a clown puts up a formidable act for the audience. Meet A circus has come to town—a dancer rounds dozens of hula-hoops on her hips, one woman swings from a trapeze, another treads a fine line on the slack rope and a clown puts up a formidable act for the audience. Meet Circus Bella, a one-ring outdoor circus comprised of 13 troupe members and several live musicians.
The energy was palpable, with people filling the entryway, shaking hands and engaging in excited conversations as they waited for the ceremony celebrating the opening of Girls Inc’s new location in downtown Oakland to begin on Thursday. The organization works with girls to help them with literacy, career goals and to learning to care for themselves, both emotionally and physically.
Over 200 Oakland residents of all ages crowded onto the main floor of the Scottish Rite Center Friday night to kick off the two-day “Voices for Peace” festival with singing, dancing, and messages of nonviolence. The festival, a benefit for Oakland’s Urban Peace Movement, is part of a three-month “Summer of Peace” global celebration that features youth outreach programs, weekly online “telesummits” and multicultural events.
“Dedicated to the One I Love” is a classic love song, originally recorded in the 1950s by The “5” Royales and remade by numerous artists who wanted to put their own spin on it. On Sunday, Actual Café in Oakland decided to take the theme in another direction with a musical event called “Dedicated to the One I Love” during which customers could make a request or a dedication to friends and loved ones. Listeners were invited to bring in their favorite songs or choose from the musical collection of KALX’s DJ Poindexter, who hosted the event.
At the screening in Chinatown Wednesday night of the four documentaries made by 12 young men in the Warriors for Peace pilot project, the excitement of having produced and appearing in publicly distributed content seemed to fascinate the 70 or so young people who gathered for the premiere. Many showed a familiarity with the stories told, and moments of silence punctuated a few intense scenes.
On Wednesday, participants in the new Warriors for Peace program will present their video productions and narratives at a showcase to be held in Oakland, marking the end of 32 weeks of hands-on training in the production of short video narratives and interviewing skills that have enabled young men of color from the Bay Area to tell stories based on their life experiences.