BLACK STRING It’s unquestionably a year when Korean culture (think Parasite‘s Best Picture Oscar) is having an impact. Korean group Black String who perform at the Freight & Salvage on Sunday fuses the country’s traditional music with jazz. How about this quote from Mojo: “Black String make you wonder how rock coped for 65 years without the geomungo.” Yoon Jeong Heo plays geomungo (a Korean zither), Jean Oh electric guitar, Aram Lee the daegeum and yanggeum, and Min Wang Hwang the ajaeng and janggu. Sunday, March 1, 7 p.m., Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison St.
SUSAN B The Bay Area Women’s Theatre Festival kicks off on Monday with a fundraiser reading of Susan B, a new play from Berkeley playwright (and regular Berkeleyside contributor) Daphne White. Susan B. Anthony “was called ‘shrill,’ she was called ‘unreasonable,’ and if she were running for office today she would certainly be called ‘unelectable.'” Sound familiar? The play features “Anthony, an early feminist who loved women; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the movement’s intellectual firebrand; Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist who supported women’s rights up to a point; and Sojourner Truth, a powerful preacher who was caught between her gender and her race.” Monday, March 2, 7 p.m., Peet’s Theatre, Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St.
LOUIS LORTIE French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie (left) is best known for his interpretations of the technically challenging works of Franz Liszt. On Sunday afternoon at Hertz Hall, he scales one of the true mountains of the piano literature, Liszt’s complete Années de pèlerinage. From the Cal Performances notes: “Lortie has said that he returns to this deeply Romantic work again and again because it represents the stunning range of Liszt’s virtuosity and his sweeping musical personality.” Sunday, March 1, 3 p.m., Hertz Hall.
BERKELEY DANCE PROJECT 2020 Friday and Saturday are your last chance to see the annual UC Berkeley Theater, Dance and Performance Studies dance concert. The program features new dance pieces by Bay Area choreographers Lisa Wymore, Latanya Tigner and Erik Lee, as well as pieces by emerging student choreographers and campus dance groups. Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m., Feb. 28-29, Zellerbach Playhouse.
MARY LOU’S APARTMENT Berkeley librarian Pat Mullan is also trombonist Pat Mullan, and together with bassist Mwamba Blakwomyn, she formed the all-women jazz band Mary Lou’s Apartment. The band will be playing a free concert on Saturday at the Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch Library. Where did that name come from? At the height of the New York jazz scene greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and Melba Liston used to jam in the Harlem apartment of pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams. Saturday, Feb. 29, 4 p.m., Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch Library, 1901 Russell St.
Don’t miss these other events covered on Berkeleyside:
At BAMPFA: A dazzling retrospective of celebrated quilt maker Rosie Lee Tompkins
Bay Area Women’s Theatre Festival highlights gender parity, diversity, inclusion
Big Screen Berkeley: The zombies in ‘Zombi Child’ are not the type you might expect
In Berkeley: Multi-instrumentalist Rumen ‘Sali’ Shopov and Ethio-jazz patriarch Mulatu Astatke
