Culture Currents

Welcome! Welcome – canoe, slave ship, raft, riverboat, barge, banana boat, tug – WELCOME: to the boat we’re All in –

Research shows that children who do chores have fewer behavior problems, are more engaged in school, enjoy better mental health in later life and are part of a stronger family due to shared responsibility.

“I lost my brother about a year ago at Highland Hospital. He died unexpectedly after experiencing seizures that sent him into cardiac arrest. When I was first approached about donating his organs I was not interested, but as I sat in the hospital, I reflected on the fact that he was the kindest person I ever met. He would give you his last dollar without knowing where his next one was coming from. I joke that I hope the cruelest, corrupt person received my brother’s heart because there is no way they can continue to be unkind with a piece of Tony in their body.”

“The only way to move from these super-high anxiety states to calmer, more cognitive states, is rhythm,” he concludes. "This needs to happen before children see a therapist, because otherwise they may be too fearful and distraught to participate."

Five artists who identify with the African Diaspora are presenting work at this year’s San Francisco International Arts Festival that takes place at the Fort Mason Center from May 23 to June 2. In interviews with the San Francisco Bay View, they each go into detail about how their respective projects shed light on and teach about the myriad legacies of the Diaspora.

“It was like he was sent by God to give some love to bring us together because that’s what his lyrics were saying, always. He’s not shy to tell the truth even though it might not look good. He wasn’t scared of anything,” said Nipsey’s Eritrean father, Dawit Asghedom. “[God] sent him to send a message, then said, ‘It looks like your time is up because you have completed what I sent you to do. We all have a plan, but God has his own plan. So he had completed what he needed to be doing and he did it early so [God] probably wanted to take him early too.”

“The Case of the Wrong Man” was screened at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, California. It is a Brazilian documentary, and is, according to the synopsis, “the story of a young Black worker, Júlio César de Melo Pinto, who was executed by police in the 1980s in Porto Alegre.” Porto Alegre is a city in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Due to this area’s climate, European immigrant colonists who arrived in the 20th century found it easy to adapt to.

May our Divine Mother-Father Creator of and in All – and Beloved Ancients and Ancestors from yesteryears and yesterdays – find you and (y)our extended Family in sacred Spirit, healing and thriving. WE are hoping to be in the magnificent presence of those of you around the Bay Area soon … possibly, at upcoming events like International Workers’ Day on 1 May (at the Port of Oakland); the 19th Annual MALCOLM X Jazz & Art Fest on 18 May (at San Antonio Park, Oakland); African Liberation Day on 25 May (in Oakland); and other venues. Asé.

“Why would I allow myself to drift when I can direct it? I was born with the instructions. Right and exact, consciousness, inner guidance, knowing, choosing how to act in every situation. I create me. Believe it. Turning thoughts into things. Turning vibrations I feel into thoughts. Impulses I receive …”

August Wilson, playwright, was very much at home in the SF Bay. I will never forget his workshop production of “Jitney” at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, where he encouraged a woman who criticized the absence of substantive women characters in his plays to write her own. Wilson said his journey was personal, yet there was room on the stage for multiple voices and perspectives.

"There is so much power in stillness. We live in a very fast paced world with Internet and everyone on their phones every five seconds and everyone’s attention span is crumbling. I think it is definitely easier to be busy, to be on the run from your life, to be out there in the wilderness fighting for your life than it is to be actually still and really connect to the people who made you. That’s much more challenging. So yeah."

“Jazz,” adapted by Nambi E. Kelley from Toni Morrison’s novel, is a tragic composition. Performed across a series of lyrically connected (woven) tapestries: colors, sounds, fractured memories … missing people, guns (bullets) falling tears, treetops, wild woods, sharecropped promises, fire terror, unclaimed bodies … too many bodies to count … love.

Ruth Beckford, the legendary dancer, choreographer and Oakland community activist, died May 8 of natural causes. She was 93.

Community-based doulas play an important role in helping decrease maternal and infant mortality rates and increase breastfeeding rates. These women are trained to provide peer support to other women in their communities throughout pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and early parenting.

It is easy to become what you know, so easy. What’s difficult is resisting. Unresolved trauma haunts the gene pool. A son, Josh (actor Yohana Ansari-Thomas) witnesses his mother’s murder or its aftermath – Dad’s bloody shirt and subsequent kidnapping of the children until he is captured. This same boy, now man, still has unresolved memories of that day when his mom was shot and the housekeeper “stood there and did nothing.”

The genius in this marvelous production is the way, despite its theology, alternative spiritual systems have their creative way evident in the dance – tango – in culture – Yoruba – and creative soundtrack. Gritty City trains as an ensemble, developing relationships among each other that make it possible for the deep dives and swims along chilly terrain.

Single mother doing all the right things for her boys, Dr. Diane Barnes has a stroke. She does not realize how it has affected her sons. Mom is just back, but she is not the mom her boys know.

Theatre Rhinoceros, the longest running LGBT theatre anywhere, has a winner on its hands with “Sister Act, the Musical,” directed by Aejay Mitchell, who also choreographed the work, musical direction by Tammy Hall. The run is a short three weeks, Wednesday-Saturday, 8 p.m., Saturday, also 3 p.m., through June 1, 2019, at the Gateway Theatre, 215 Jackson St., San Francisco.

The 15-minute political satirical comedy, “The United States of Paranoia,” by writer and director Rashan Castro is one of the crown jewels of the San Francisco Black Film Festival this year. Halfway through and thousands of police shootings and racial attacks into the Trump presidency, this film could not have picked a more relevant time to debut.

I felt that Teddy wasn’t recognized and remembered as well as he should be and that there was an extraordinary tale here not just of a musical talent, but also of tremendous triumph over adversity – his story feels almost Shakespearean.