CHOCOLATE & CHALK If you’ve always wanted a highly visible sidewalk canvas, your moment has arrived. The family-friendly free annual Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival will be held on Saturday on Shattuck Avenue in the Gourmet Ghetto. If you make chalk art, there are cash prizes (and book certificates from Books Inc.); judging will take place after 4 p.m. And of course there’s chocolate. Over 25 items are promised including chocolate rum gelato, a chocolate rose des sables, dark chocolate truffles, Oreo shakes, chocolate ganache cupcakes, a chocolate-covered pancetta, and on and on (tasting tickets are $1 each, available on the day or in advance through Eventbrite). There’s even a hand massage with chocolate-scented cream. Or, you could enter the Oreo stacking content (separate rounds at noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.). (Note to self: ask organizer Lisa Bullwinkel who first thought of combining chalk and chocolate.) Saturday, Aug. 25, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Shattuck Avenue in the Gourmet Ghetto.
APPLES AND HOPS The university’s Botanical Garden is holding its annual fundraising festival on Saturday with an afternoon beer garden (plus apple cider donuts, Bernie’s Best fresh apple juice and plenty of kids activities). There’s also a spirits tasting room, in the historic Julia Morgan Hall, featuring local distilleries’ apple offerings and related spirits. The afternoon festivities are followed by an evening Redwood Grove concert by Rogue Wave (left). “(Zach) Rogue, his longtime bandmate Pat Spurgeon, and their fellow members have returned reinvigorated, and with a fresh sound founded on the art of patience, the fearlessness of experimenting, and the unbridled joy of creating something meaningful, revealing the most truthful, powerful, and urgent sonic blueprint of the band to date.” Saturday, Aug. 25, festival 2-5 p.m., concert 5:30-7 p.m., UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr.
STREET REQUIEM Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra together with the Berkeley Women’s Community Chorus will perform Street Requiem on Saturday, in a benefit concert for the Berkeley Women’s Daytime Drop-in Center. Street Requiem is a 50-minute cantata composed in 2014 by Andy Payne, Jonathon Welch and San Francisco resident Kathleen McGuire to evoke compassion and empathy for those who live and have died unhoused on the streets. It follows the basic format of a traditional requiem mass, but with contemporary melodies and lyrics. Admission is free, with donations requested for the center, which serves 150 homeless women and children each month. Saturday, Aug. 25, 7:30 p.m., First Church Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way.
WOMAN ON FIRE The West Coast premiere of Woman on Fire opens on Friday night at the Live Oak Theater. Those Women Productions presents “a drama of conflict between the demands of the state and the demands of the spirit… (which) breathes contemporary truth in to ancient Greek myth of Antigone.” Written by Marisela Treviño Orta and directed by Elizabeth Vega, Woman on Fire is the story of Juanita, who has lived on the border all her life. Her husband is on the border patrol and stalks the desert looking for migrants. “Juanita must determine where she stands – is it worth putting her marriage at risk to save a stranger?” Shows are choose your own price. Opens Friday, Aug. 24, 8 p.m. and then runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday through Sept. 9., Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave.
CAMPFIRE SING-A-LONG At a moment when wildfires are very much on all our minds (and compromising our air), the Friends of Berkeley Tuolumne Camp are holding their annual campfire sing-a-long on the fifth anniversary of the Rim Fire, which destroyed Tuolumne Camp. Led by former rec staff, it’s a chance to sing old camp songs, roast marshmallows and commemorate what was lost. You can bring a lawnchair, pillow and picnic. The Friends will bring hot cocoa, marshmallows, drinks and your favorite songs. Saturday, Aug. 25, 6 p.m., Live Oak Park, Walnut Street, north of Rose Street.
Don’t miss this other event covered on Berkeleyside:
Big Screen Berkeley: ‘We the Animals’ and ‘Tristan und Isolde’
