SUMMER OF LOVE Telegraph Avenue will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love with a free festival on Saturday afternoon. Among the many activities at the festival will be political poster-making stations, poetry readings, a temporary skate park, live music (including a performance by Berkeley’s own Country Joe MacDonald), jugglers and hourly historical walking tours (led by Quirky Berkeley author Tom Dalzell). Plus, there will be scores of vendors lining Telegraph, selling homemade crafts. In addition, there will be a host of non-profit participants, from Hippies with Hope to the ACLU. The organizers promise “a far-out ’60s vibe,” and activities will like the free-speech and free-love era to today’s national events. Here’s your chance to kick off a whole summer of flower power celebrations. Telegraph will be closed from Dwight to Bancroft. Summer of Love Festival, Telegraph Avenue, Saturday, April 29, noon to 5 p.m.
THE TEMPLE OF GLORY It’s not often you can see the premiere of a work from 1745. But this weekend Cal Performances features the first-ever modern day fully staged performances of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera-ballet Temple of Glory, with a libretto by Voltaire. The idea behind the production has apparently been a dream of Nicholas McGegan, music director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale since he learned of the work’s original manuscript score and libretto at UC Berkeley’s Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library. Now, with the New York Baroque Dance Company and Le Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, McGegan and the PBO will be performing the ballet héroïque throughout the weekend. Friday, April 28 and Saturday, April 29, 8 p.m., Sunday, April 30, 3 p.m., Zellerbach Hall.
BAY AREA DANCE WEEK The 19th annual Bay Area Dance Week concludes this weekend, with scores of free events. Among the Berkeley events just on Saturday, for example, are an adult introduction to ballet at Berkeley Ballet Theater at 12:30 p.m., bhangra dance from Dholrhythms Dance Company at 9 a.m., and sacred hula from Mahea Uchiyama Center for International Dance at 7:30 p.m. Multiple venues throughout the weekend.
AVOTCJA PLUS MANNY MARTINEZ A swirling stew of poetry, jazz and infectious Latin and world beats mix it up on Saturday at Ashkenaz. Avotcja (pronounced Ah-vacha) Jiltonilro is a popular Bay Area radio host (her “Bebop, Cubop & the Musical Truth” airs Tuesdays on KPFA). She creates poetry on stage with a band of the Bay Area’s best musicians from around the world in the band Modúpue. Avotcja says it’s “a group where jazz meets Latin jazz and dances with poetry.” Manny Martinez & Rebeldia make their Ashkenaz debut with a dance-oriented style integrating the sounds Martinez developed over the past three decades of performing: funk, salsa, hip-hop, politics, literature and education. “But mostly salsa!” Martinez says. Saturday, April 29, 7:30 p.m., Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave.
EVERYTHING FITZ Even if you’re not too sure about the punning name, if you like fiddling mosey on over to the Freight & Salvage on Sunday to hear the Fitzgeralds, a family group featuring three-time Canadian Grand Master Fiddle Champions and Ontario Open Step Dance Champions Tom, Kerry and Julie Fitzgerald. They are joined by their parents, Pam and Paddy as well as guitarist and lead vocalist Nate Douglas. The band presents a program of music and dance from the rich tradition of Canadian old-time fiddling and Ottawa-Valley step dancing. Sunday, April 30, 7 p.m., Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison St.
Don’t forget these other events covered on Berkeleyside:
Tense ‘Temple’ recalls the Occupy movement at St. Paul’s Cathedral
Big Screen Berkeley: ‘Citizen Jane’
Rowan Jiménez finds his voice in Guarandinga
The prodigal chef returns in ‘Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent’
