Wanda’s Picks for July 2017

by Wanda Sabir

Happy birthday, Sister Makinya Sibeko-Kouate. Happy first birthday to my grandson, Legend! Happy birthday to the Cancers and Leos: Karen Oyekanmi, Alison Gates, Marcus Lorenzo Penn, MD. We will miss creative artist, Geri Allen, jazz pianist (June 12, 1957-June 27, 2017). Read the NPR tribute. Ashay.

Geri-Allen-at-Village-Vanguard-2011-by-John-Rogers-WBGO-NPR-JohnRogersNYC.com_-300x169, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents
Geri Allen, here appearing at the Village Vanguard in 2011, joined the ancestors June 27. – Photo: John Rogers, WBGO, NPR, JohnRogersNYC.com

What to the American Slave is Your 4th of July?

Each year, it is important to revisit this historic classic speech by the powerful orator, Frederick Douglass, delivered in 1852, stating, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. … You may rejoice, I must mourn.” Listen to James Earl Jones reading the speech (his and Danny Glover’s and Ossie Davis’s readings are posted below). In the San Francisco Bay Area, Michael Lange and James Brooks with Angela Wellman’s Oakland Public Conservatory would perform the work with jazz artists. Also in the Bay Area, we have a history of the Fourth of You Lie strategy sessions hosted by Nehanda Imara and members of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party.

What is freedom to the descendants of the formerly enslaved? What are the tangible changes less than 200 years later? In James Forman Jr.’s new book, “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America“ (2017), he revisits legislation and statutes which make Black exclusion illegal. He also shows how and why in Washington, D.C., for example, Black jurists and prosecutors are more inclined to come down more harshly on Black offenders.

Forman, the son of civil rights activist and Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee organizer James Forman Sr., is also co-founder of the Maya Angelou Academy in Washington, D.C. He is a visiting scholar at Stanford University now and will be having a few more book events through August. Check out his website.

Frederick-Douglass-c.-1847-from-Hulton-Archive-web-300x150, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents
On Dec. 3, 1847, Frederick Douglass founded The North Star newspaper following his return from Europe, where he fled to avoid being recaptured following the fame he gained as a runaway slave after publishing his autobiography. His supporters in Britain raised the money to purchase his freedom legally and in 1847 he returned to the United States as a legally free man. He delivered his Fourth of July speech in 1852.

‘The East St. Louis Massacre: The Greatest Outrage of the Century’

My friend, Gene Dinizulu Tennie says, “This year gives us added reason to pause to reflect as we remember what the very situation that Douglass described would produce 65 years later in 1917.”

Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s detailed narrative of what unfolded in East St. Louis, Illinois, known as “The East St. Louis Massacre: The Greatest Outrage of the Century,” is published here: http://gildedage.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-gildedage%3A24051. Her report (lightly edited) begins:

“On Tuesday morning, July 3, 1917, the daily papers had big headlines announcing a riot which had been in progress in East St. Louis, Ill., for 24 hours previous. It stated that upwards of a hundred Negroes had been killed and that thousands had been driven from their homes, that more than 60 homes in Black Valley, the Negro district, had been burned and that nearly a half million dollars’ worth of property had been destroyed by fire.

Ida-B.-Wells-Barnett-meme, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents “The Negro Fellowship League [300 miles north in Chicago] immediately got out bills announcing a meeting to be held at the Reading Room, 3005 State St., for that evening. Although the notice was short and the bills had been on the streets only two hours, the place was packed by 8:30 o’clock. At that meeting the following resolution was passed:

“‘RESOLVED, That we, the colored citizens of Chicago, in the shadow of the awful calamity at East St. Louis, hereby express our solemn conviction that the wholesale slaughter of colored men, women and children was the result of the reckless indifference of public officials, who, with the power of the police, sheriff and governor, could have prevented this massacre if they had discharged the duty which the law imposed upon them, and we call upon press, pulpit and moral forces to demand the punishment of the officials who failed to their duty.’”

In her 23-page report, Ida B. Wells-Barnett tells the stories of several women survivors: “Hearing it was safe to do so, they had come back from St. Louis that morning where they had gone the day of the riot to get military escort to go to their homes and get some clothing. A Red Cross man ordered one of Swift’s biggest motor trucks, put a soldier with a loaded gun in front and one on the back of the truck, with 30 rounds of ammunition each, and told the women to get in and go to their homes and get what stuff they could.

“I went with them and in that way went inside a dozen of their three and four room houses and saw the mob’s work of destruction. In every case, the houses had been fired from the rear and as soon as the occupants came out, they were then shot at or beaten.”

Blacks in East St. Louis, whether they’d lived there a decade or less than a year, had spent their wages – considerably higher than they could earn in the South – on furnishing their new homes in “respectable” middle class fashion. Wells-Barnett describes their homes:

“Most of these houses had brass or iron bedsteads, and the mattresses from Memory Foam Talk Reviews were amazing, worth $4.00 or $5.00 a piece. In two of those homes, I saw a piano. In one of them the woman found a few of her records, but her Victrola and most of the records had been taken away. The windows were broken and doors had been split open, evidently with an ax. One woman found her pictures and some of her wearing apparel in a white neighbor’s house, and when she accused the woman of taking them, this woman said that all the others were taking things and she did so too.

East-St.-Louis-race-riot-white-mob-stops-street-car-to-beat-Black-passengers-070217-300x245, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents
On July 2, 1917, the white mob that rioted in East St. Louis stops a streetcar to beat and kill the Black passengers. Very few photos taken during the riot have survived, as the mob smashed every camera they saw that day.

“We crossed the bridge into St. Louis four different times that day, taking women with trunks of their wearing apparel which they were able to find. These women told me the following stories as we rode around the town:

“Mrs. Ballard’s story

“Mrs. Emma Ballard, with her husband George Ballard, had lived in East St. Louis seven years. They had been married 24 years and came there from Jackson, Tenn. He worked in the Kansas City Railroad warehouse as freighter and trucker, loading and unloading cars and boats. He got $2.25 a day. They had a six-room house, nicely furnished. In this home was a piano. They had four children.

“She and the children heard the first of the mob between 12 and 1 o’clock Monday night. Men and boys were in the street hollering, ‘Come out, niggers,’ as they roamed up and down in the Negro district. They shot and beat every Negro found on the streets Monday night. She saw 14 men beaten and two killed. (In the excitement, she and her children took their feather beds and pillows and some of their best wearing clothes across the alley to the barn of a white saloon keeper.) She took her children and got away with what they had on, after trying to hide some of their best things. …

“Mrs. Willie Flake’s story

“Mrs. Flake is a widow with three children, 11, 8 and 6 years old. She is a laundress who came to East St. Louis four years ago from Jackson, Tenn. She took care of her little family by taking in washing … She had about a hundred dollars’ worth of furniture ruined, fifty dollars’ worth of clothing and about fifty dollars more of bedding, mattresses etc. The mob had taken a phonograph for which she had paid $15.00 and 25 records for which she had paid 75 cents and $1.00 each.

“She got away with her children before the mob reached her house and she too came back that morning to get some clothes for herself and children. The mob hadn’t left much, but out of the debris, she was able to pack one trunk with some clothing and quilts for herself and children. … She too had already found a flat in St. Louis and was only too anxious to get away from the town where such awful things were transpiring and where not even widows and children were safe from the fury of the mob bent on killing everything with Black skins.”

Wells-Barnett then turned to the story told by survivors of how and why this slaughter of Blacks by whites occurred: “The invariable story was that the rioting started on the morning of July 2, when the workers were coming off the 11 o’clock shift at the factories and packing plants. The cause was alleged to be the killing of two white police officers who had been shot by colored men when they went into the Negro district on the Denver side to quell a supposed riot. These colored men said that an automobile had gone through the neighborhood firing right and left into the windows of the houses and of the church. A bell was rung and the men rapidly came together at the church to plan for resisting other attacks of similar character. When a second automobile came on the scene very soon after, they thought it were the same parties, and fired into it after a parley, wounding two officers who afterwards died.

“This seems to have been the signal for starting the blaze which had been smoldering ever since May 28. At that time, members of the labor unions began to beat up colored men coming from the Aluminum Ore Packing Co. plant. At that time, one or two companies of militia were sent at the request of the sheriff, and the rioting seemed to have stopped. The colored people understood that the labor unions that had gone on strike because of the employment of colored men, had made up their minds to drive out colored laborers who had come there in such large numbers from the South. Accordingly, these Negro laborers made up their minds to sell their lives as dearly as possible and to hold their ground in the effort to make a living for themselves and their families.

“When the officers were killed in the unfortunate mixup of July 1, it gave excuse for the breaking out of the mob composed largely of union workers and the Negro haters who gathered from small towns surrounding, and even from the South. Horrible stories were given both by eye witnesses as well as by others, the saddest part of them all being, that in every instance, as the mob set upon men coming from their work at 11 o’clock in the day, the soldiers or the police held up the Black men, searched them and even took their pocket knives, then left them at the mercy of the mob. … (A)ccording to General Dickson, the state militia were given orders not to shoot white men and women, and they stood by and saw the most brutal savagery perpetrated without lifting a finger for protection or punishment for those who did murder, committed arson or burned up little children and old people.”

East-St.-Louis-massacre-survivors-police-look-for-bodies-071917, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents
Survivors and police search for bodies in the rubble, but an accurate count never emerged – Black bodies having been buried in mass graves and thrown in a nearby creek. In East St. Louis, “a black skin was a death warrant,” wrote a reporter for the Post-Dispatch. A congressional committee investigating the massacre issued a report a year later, on July 6, 1918, blaming manipulative industrialists, corrupt local officials and the “savagery” of the white mob. Several police officers were indicted. Two men were convicted of murder, and seven other whites and 12 Blacks were sentenced to prison.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett concludes her report with this prescient appeal: “Such is the history in part of one of the most dastardly crimes ever committed in the name of civilization on defenseless Black men, women and children. That the state of Lincoln, Logan and Grant – three names made famous by their fight to give liberty to the Black man – should furnish this Black page for history is the shame of all true American citizens.

“The world is at war because the race prejudice of one nation tries to dominate other nations. The race prejudice of the United States asks Americans of Black skins to keep an inferior place, and when these Negroes ask an equal opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they are lynched, burned alive, disfranchised and massacred! Whenever a Black man turns in this land of the free and home of the brave – in industry, in civic endeavor, in political councils in the ranks of Christians (?) – this hydra headed monster confronts him, dominates, oppresses and murders him!

“This time it was done in the name of labor! The Negro accepted the opportunity made by the scarcity of labor in the North to leave the South, which has fattened on his labor and yet kept him in serfdom for his 50 years of freedom. He was glad of the chance to get better wages, but even more glad to come where he could educate his children and be a man. But the labor unions, which have this country by the throat, which paralyze its industries, dynamite its buildings and murder men at their own sweet will – refuse to let Negroes work with them and murder them if they work anyway, in what they call ‘white men’s jobs.’

“In East St. Louis, these labor forces had the aid of the civil authorities, the police and the state militia in the work of murdering over 200 Negroes and destroying $3 million worth of property. Unless this outrage is punished, no American citizen’s life, liberty or property is safe in any state.

“In the present state of our national development, the only remedy for the lynching and rioting evil of the American nation is to make it a federal crime. Public sentiment, which has encouraged lynchings by silence or by sensational newspaper accounts, must be aroused to see the evil to the whole American nation. It is an awful commentary on our country’s brand of democracy that aside from a few newspaper editorials, no persons in this country have spoken out against this black stain save Theodore Roosevelt and a minister of the gospel in a sermon preached in St. Louis, Mo., the Sunday following the massacre.

“It rests then with the Negroes everywhere to stand their ground and sell their lives as dearly as possible when attacked, to work as a unit, demanding punishment for rioters, protection for workers and liberty for all the citizens in our country. It is for the Negro to say whether they will unite their forces to make this country safe for the residence of any Negro anywhere he desires to live in it. It is for them to show whether we can bring sufficient influence to bear to (hold accountable) the militia of Illinois, for the wanton murder of hundreds of innocent men, women and children of our race whom they failed to protect in that awful orgy of human butchery, which took place in East St. Louis, Illinois, on Monday, July 2, 1917.”

The rabid barbarism of this circumstance joins a long list, of which the following are only a few:

  • 1842 – Lombard Street Riot, Philadelphia
  • 1864 – Fort Pillow Massacre, Tennessee
  • 1866 – Memphis Massacre
  • 1876 – Hamburg Massacre, South Carolina, followed by Charleston, Ellenton, Cainhoy, Edgefield, Mt. Pleasant and Beaufort in the same state in the same year
  • 1917 – East St. Louis, Illinois
  • 1919 – “The Red Summer” Elaine Massacre, Arkansas
  • 1920 – Ocoee Massacre, Florida
  • 1921 – Tulsa Massacre, Oklahoma
  • 1923 – Rosewood Massacre, Florida

To this list can be added the long list of massacres of Native Americans and the numberless lynchings that have taken place in this country, in the name of White Supremacy.

This, we might note, is the idea of “America” that some would like to see made “great again,” when we need to be saying, “Never again.” Much healing, and prevention, is needed in these times.

Sister Makinya’s Community Celebration of Life

For those of us who used to mark July with Sister Makinya’s celebration of her parent’s lives on July 1 each year at Lake Merritt at the Boat House, she is missed. However, the community celebration of her life is July 5 at the North Berkeley Senior Center, July 5, 1-4. Each month, the North Berkeley Senior Center honors elders born that month. Just a year ago Sister Makinya was dancing and playing the piano at the celebration. The party or celebration of life continues this year, July 5, 2-4, as community and family are invited to come and share their memories of a remarkable woman, Queen Mother Makinya Sibeko-Kouate (July 1, 1926-Feb. 4, 2017).

Stern Grove’s Big Picnic

Kool-the-Gang-lead-singer-Shawn-McQuiller-at-Stern-Grove-062517-by-Harrison-web-300x200, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents
Kool & the Gang kicked off the 2017 Stern Grove Festival on June 25. – Photo: Harrison Chastang

The 80th Stern Grove Festival was really special. Billed the Big Picnic, I was amazed at 11 a.m. how full the Grove was, and by 11:30 a.m. the 30-minute warning was given for all those who had friends still undecided and without hands stamped. At 12 noon, the place was packed and all those not inside had to be content to listen beyond the trees.

Quinn DeVeaux opened with bluesy gospel tunes that had the audience swaying and bobbing their heads as his Louisiana soul seeped into the soil, a tasty addition to the garlic fries and burgers served to hungry patrons later on. His commissioned composition went over well – especially after singing about the end of a love affair. The commission was about his friends whom Quinn loved to be around. The married couple inspired even the more tainted among us to keep going, that love really will find a way.

This theme, “love,” that is, found its way into the Kool & the Gang set as well. Midway through the program, which was high energy, every tune a show stopper, one of three lead singers, asked the audience, “Who believes in love?” The response tepid or cooler, one woman near the stage stated she didn’t believe in love at all. Startled, the singer dedicated the set to her and joined her in the audience.

Holding her tight, he sang “Cherish.” As he sang on stage the duet, complete with saxophone soloist, Sherrie melted. The nearly 1,000 voices in the audience were also invited to sing to Sherrie. By the time the song ended, she was in tears. We learned she’d lost her husband of 37 years two years ago.

Stern-Grove-Festival, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents
This is the setting for the weekly Stern Grove Festival. Nearly 900 concerts have been held there.

This was one of many amazing moments Sunday afternoon. The first was that at 11 a.m. we were able to find a spot right near the stage.

The band was funky, jazzy and full of soul, the kind of soul that keeps your head above water when your arms are tired and you’re feeling a bit cold. Kool’s repertoire is one of hope and liberation – if you can just hang in there and believe in justice, or Maat.

Robert-Kool-Bell-Kool-the-Gang-lead-singer-Shawn-McQuiller-at-Stern-Grove-062517-by-Harrison-web-300x249, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents
Kool & the Gang drew a capacity crowd at Stern Grove June 25. This is Robert Kool Bell and lead singer Shawn McQuiller. – Photo: Harrison Chastang

I remember when I was a child and a member of the Nation of Islam, Kool & the Gang performed not far from Stern Grove, just up the street at the Masonic Auditorium on 19th Avenue. They were in concert with Joe Tex. I hadn’t known the two brothers were also Muslim until that moment. I think they were the first famous Muslims I’d ever met up close.

To hear them perform “Celebration” at my birthday party was pretty amazing. I have had some great birthday parties at Stern Grove. One year, Angelique Kidjo was there; many times the Preservation Hall Jazz Band performed. Another year, it was Paragon Ragtime Orchestra’s production of Scott Joplin, whose centennial birth is this year. He died at 49. Treemonisha at Stern Grove Festival in 2003 was another highlight. This year Kool & the Gang were singing for me (smile).

The lineup this 80th anniversary of free music is pretty phenomenal. Visit sterngrovefestival.org. Among the July artists are Fantastic Negrito (7/2), Eric Burdon & The Animals (7/16), Los Angeles Azules (7/23) and the San Francisco Ballet (7/30), to name a few. Visit sterngrove.org.

24th Annual Laborfest July 1-31

The theme this year is “The Future is in Our Hands.” Visit laborfest.net or call 415-642-8066. Recommended: “Paul Robeson: A Portrait in Story & Song,” a musical biography of Paul Robeson, the great African American artist, athlete and activist, presented by The Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Chorus, Saturday, July 29, 7 p.m., ILWU Local 34 Hall, 801 Second St. next to AT&T Ball Park, San Francisco.

San Francisco 37th Jewish Film Festival, July 20-Aug. 6

Visit sfjff.org or call 415-621-0523 in San Francisco (7/20-30); Albany (7/27-8/6); Oakland (8/6); Palo Alto (7/22-27); San Rafael (8/4-6). Recommended: “Body and Soul: An American Bridge” with a live concert afterward featuring The Marcus Shelby Quartet at the Castro Theatre screening, Sunday, July 23, 6:45 p.m.

‘Brownsville Song (B-Side for Tray)’ at Ashby Stage through July 15

brownsville song trailer from Shotgun Players on Vimeo.

Tray is more than a statistic. Even before he made his exit the way so many young Black men do, he told his step-mom that he was more than his circumstances. He stated he was not interested in playing any woe-is-me games. The B-side is his epitaph; however, branded like his ancestors of old, the cipher spins off key on a broken turntable. His grandmother Lena lifts the needle from the record and sets it straight.

Many themes skate across the Brooklyn landscape Tray calls home. Themes of home, abandonment, grief, addiction, poverty, escape – Tray speaks of the loss of his dad and how confused and bereft of support his family felt except in each other, frail and unsteady as this might have seemed at the time.

Grandmother Lena is his rock. She is the sun and the moon. Her love is dependable and steady. Her grandchildren can depend on her. Brownsville, one of Brooklyn’s most notorious neighborhoods, is the story of a youth gunned down; however, the story starts before this. The tragedy is Tray’s melanin container, one which convicts him without a trial.

In Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Son,” another Lena waits for the insurance check. Her husband, Walter Lee Younger, works himself to death in order to provide for his family. Tray’s father is killed and so is he. The similarity between the two deaths reads like a cursed destiny Tray inherits before birth. In a beautiful moment in the play, Lena tells Tray’s childhood buddy, Junior (actor William Hartfield), that he deserves to live, that his life is valuable.

I am not certain that Black people need to see a play which begins with the death of another innocent Black boy at the hands of another Black boy. For an audience that does not see Tray’s humanity, an audience distanced from the events that precipitate such tragedies, then perhaps “Brownsville Song (B-Side for Tray)” by Kimber Lee, directed by Margo Hall, adds perspective to a tired media event. The dirge which has top billing.

There is a lot going on in a story where ghosts join the family at meal time as invited guests. Perhaps what is more important in the production, which includes talk backs at each performance, is the discourse opened up between patrons who might not have considered Tray’s backstory. How many people hear about Black men, especially Black boys killed – a five second commentary on network news, the boys’ characters often maligned – their epitaphs reduced to this last event, rather than the loss to their family and to our communities? Allowing Tray to have a history before he is killed opens a void audiences cannot trespass or cross. It just sits there inviting action.

“Brownsville” is also the story of the children, young men like Tray’s friend, Junior (William Hartfield), whose life reflects an apathy he finds hard to transcend. When Ms. Lena asks Junior to tell her what happened to her grandson and he does and vows revenge, she stops him and tells the remorseful youth that she wants him to get to be an old man. She tells him that to honor Tray, he has to live.

Cathleen Riddley (Lena), who facilitated the conversation afterward when I attended, said the task is for white people to take the conversation to their friends. Black people know what it is to lose family to violence, to lose friends to violence, and to live with the threat of this violence daily. Black people live with the emptiness created by this loss, a loss unrecognized as the victim is often blamed for his own death – the loss framed by the dominant society as earned or deserved.

This is the narrative “Brownsville Song (B-side for Tray)” interrupts.

The actress says since becoming a part of Tray’s world, an action she has adopted is to call network news stations when she hears a report on a young Black victim of violence. She gives them better language, a language that acknowledges the sorrow the family feels and the loss to our community the death of a person so young is bound to have. These streets are battlefields, similar to those overseas, without the honor given to the lives taken unnecessarily and too soon.

The cast is excellent as is Margo Hall’s direction. What is especially compelling is Davied Morales as Tray. The actor’s portrayal of the complexities of a youth navigating a precarious terrain is compassionate and realistic. Tray is also a boxer and a big brother. The boxing gives him an outlet and the little sister gives him responsibility. The relationship with Devine (Mimia Ousilas) is also sweet.

His death is perhaps felt most in his little sister’s life, a sister who refuses to let her brother go. The 11-year-old actress allows her character to sit with this loss and hold onto Tray even when she is urged to move on. Perhaps her tenacious and what is seen as “unreasonable” grief reflects an unarticulated trauma? The child lost her father to violence, her mother Merrell to drugs and now her brother. When Erin Mei-Ling Stuart’s Merrell reappears, Tray begins the work in helping mend his family’s brokenness.

Kimber Lee says in an interview she was inspired by a blog entry she read about a young Black man in Brownsville, New York. She says, “The brief post only contained a few facts about the young man who died. But it lodged in my gut and wouldn’t let go. I kept thinking about this boy’s family and loved ones. I kept thinking about the tremendous loss of life in some of our communities, and how easy it is in this soundbite world for these losses to disappear from our consciousness, and how especially true for a neighborhood like Brownsville, which only makes the news when something bad happens. Then everyone forgets about it until the next incident, and nobody bothers to look more deeply into the fact that Brownsville has been an underserved, ignored section of New York City since its inception. Often there can be this sort of head-shaking resignation – “Oh well. That’s just what happens there” – or an assumption that if you look a certain way and live in a certain zip code, your life is worth less, you matter less, and this sort of wall of silence descend around the loss.

The playwright says she wanted to bear witness in a “meaningful way.” “Brownsville Song (B-Side for Tray)” is her response. For tickets and information, visit shotgunplayers.org. The Ashby Stage is located across the street from the Ashby BART Station, 1901 Ashby St., Berkeley. For information, contact 510.841.6500 or info@shotgunplayers.org.

Black-Women-United-0717-2-300x300, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents Ain’t I a Woman March

Saturday, July 15, Black Women United will host our first event, the “Ain’t I a Woman” March. This is an all-inclusive event and Black women from ALL walks of life are encouraged to attend. Whether you’re straight, LGBTQ, Christian, Muslim, disabled and more, you are welcome.

The concept of “Ain’t I a Woman” (AIAW) is a challenge, but also an affirmation. It is not a question but rather a powerful statement or declaration of our womanhood and demanding all of the respect and acceptance that should come with it. The purpose of this march is to give all Black women a platform to express themselves and fight for their civil rights. Visit www.bwusac.com.

 

On the fly

Bay Area Playwrights Festival runs July 13-23 at Custom Made Theatre in San Francisco. “Walls” at SF Mime Troupe opens July 1-2 at Cedar Rose Park in Berkeley and July 4 at Dolores Park in San Francisco; showtimes are 1:30 for music, 2 p.m. for the show. Listen to an interview with actor Marilet Martinez at http://tobtr.com/10113269.

The 26th Annual California Black Expo features minority businesses, job fair, diverse entertainment, praise and worship service and more on Saturday and Sunday, July 22-23, at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. The Clausen House 50th Anniversary 1967-2017 Celebration is Sunday, July 16, 5:30-9:00 p.m., at Preservation Park, 1233 Preservation Park Way, Oakland. RSVP via Eventbrite or Jerry@clausenhouse.org by July 7.

2017 Ethnic Dance Festival

Ballet-Folkl¦rica-M¬xico-Danza, Wanda’s Picks for July 2017, Culture Currents
Ballet Folklórica México Danza

The San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival will be at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House July 8-9 and July 15-16. Featured are 24 Bay Area-based world dance and music groups. The lineup includes six groups making their festival debuts and the season will feature five world premieres created specifically for the 2017 festival. Each weekend, two different programs are presented. There will be world premiere performances by Ballet Afsaneh, Bitezo Bia Kongo, De Rompe y Raja Cultural Association, John Santos Sextet + Alayo Dance Company, and Te Mana O Te Ra. There will also be pre-show performances, so arrive early to see artists Zena Carlota, West African Kora (new to the festival this year); Leung’s White Crane Lion and Dragon Dance, Chinese Lion Dance; Vinic-Kay (Le Gente y El Canto), Mexican Folkloric; Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Balinese Jegog.

Artists for 2017 Ethnic Dance Festival include:

  • The Academy of Danse Libre – European Social Dances
  • Ballet Afsaneh – Persian-Iranian Contemporary
  • Ballet Folklórico México Danza – Mexican Folkloric
  • Bitezo Bia Kongo* – Congolese Traditional
  • Fogo Na Roupa Performing Company – Brazilian Folkloric (Maracatu)
  • De Rompe y Raja Cultural Association – Afro-Peruvian
  • Gamelan Sekar Jaya± – Balinese Jegog
  • Gurus of Dance, an Aditya Patel Company – Indian Bollywood
  • John Santos Sextet + Alayo Dance Company* – Cuban Contemporary Folkloric
  • Leung’s White Crane Lion & Dragon Dance± – Chinese Lion Dance
  • Likha Pilipino Folk Ensemble – Filipino Folkloric (Mandayan and Tboli)
  • Māhealani Uchiyama – Zimbabwean Mbira
  • Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu – Hawaiian Hula
  • Natya at Berkeley* – Indian Bharatanatyam
  • San Francisco Awakko Ren* – Japanese Traditional (Awa Odori)
  • Te Mana O Te Ra – Tahitian Oteʻa
  • Theatre Flamenco + La Tania – Spanish Flamenco
  • Vinic-Kay (Le Gente y El Canto)± – Mexican Folkloric
  • YaoYong Dance – Chinese Folkloric (Mongolia)
  • Zakir Hussain + Antonia Minnecola* – Indian Kathak
  • Zena Carlota*± – West African Kora

*Artists who are new to the festival

±Artists who are performing pre-show at the Opera House

Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir can be reached at wanda@wandaspicks.com. Visit her website at www.wandaspicks.com throughout the month for updates to Wanda’s Picks, her blog, photos and Wanda’s Picks Radio. Her shows are streamed live Wednesdays at 7 a.m. and Fridays at 8 a.m., can be heard by phone at 347-237-4610 and are archived at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks.