Dare to dream – at the Bayview Opera House!

by Barbara Ockel

Bayview-Opera-House-entrance, Dare to dream - at the Bayview Opera House!, Culture Currents Black History Month was very exciting at the Bayview Opera House, featuring such major local talents as Mastamind filmmaker Kevin Epps with two screenings, musicians Unidentified Flying Objects with Doc Smith and BVOH drum instructor Akinyele with his Troublemakers Union, Mary Booker’s Actors Workshop and the Providence Church Gospel Choir. We also hosted the NASA Reach Out for the Rainbow After School Science Festival, bringing rocket science to the Bayview.

Coming up March 4-6 is the 100% College Prep Talent Showcase, an annual fundraiser for this fabulous organization that helps kids stay in school and plan to go to college. Saturday, March 12, at 7 p.m. will see the return of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra with a free concert – doors open at 6:30 featuring the BVOH café with all proceeds going to our Dare to Dream Youth ARTS programs.

Sunday, March 20, at 3 p.m. will see another local talent, singer Bridgette Bailey, in concert. Doors open at 2:30 with BVOH café.

Dare to Dream

The Dare to Dream Youth ARTS program operates year-round and offers arts classes to toddlers, preschoolers and school age children and youths. Our diverse programming currently includes music, painting, graffiti art, break dance, photography, movie making, healthy cooking, yoga and gardening. Our teachers are all experts in their field and most of them are working artists.

We added yoga, cooking and gardening to our arts curriculum because of the extreme challenges Bayview children have staying healthy. Yoga helps them focus on their bodies, listen inward and relax, take a break from all the stress they experience due to difficult home situations, struggling to keep up in school or just feeling that they are not fully accepted by everyone in their environment.

Gardening and cooking directly increases awareness of how our food is grown and how one can prepare meals from scratch, using ingredients grown in our garden. We have three live chickens and are excited that they have just started to lay eggs. They will celebrate their 6-month birthday on March 1! The fresh eggs are delicious and the kids will get to sample them. Gardening teacher Angie Rivas teaches the kids how to feed the chickens fresh herbs from the garden and cooking instructor La Shea Sanchez introduces them to all kinds of foods they previously thought they hated – like brown noodles and fresh spinach.

The BVOH is very lucky to have so many dedicated arts teachers working for us as well as some arts organizations who offer classes here for free. One class, YouTube video making, which is offered though the San Francisco Art Institute City Studio program, even offers teens a stipend to complete the class. This 14-week program is offered three times per year – the next will start this summer.

The Dare to Dream ARTS program is open to ALL Bayview children. Our summer program will start in early June and run for eight weeks. Please inquire if you’re interested in an all-arts camp for your child this summer.

You can support the BVOH by renting our beautiful historic facility for meetings, performances and family celebrations. Please call the Bayview Opera House at (415) 824-0386 or visit our website, http://www.bvoh.org, for more information.