Around Berkeley
🚶 Berkeley Walks co-authors Robert E. Johnson and Janet Byron lead a three-quarter-mile stroll with Rodney Paul of Bay Area Trails Confidential, followed by an in-store discussion celebrating the release of Heyday Books’ new Berkeley Walks: Expanded and Updated Edition. Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event. Thursday, Sept. 7, walk at 6:30 p.m. sharp, talk at 7 p.m. Pegasus on Solano. FREE
🎸 Acoustic guitar fans have two opportunities to catch a summit for the ages when British jazz maestro Martin Taylor joins forces with French virtuoso Biréli Lagrène, who initially gained fame as the second coming of Django Reinhardt but has never stopped evolving as an artist. Thursday-Friday, Sept. 7-8, 8 p.m. Freight & Salvage. $40-$44
📖 A new anthology of the work of the surrealist poet Joyce Mansour — a Syrian Jewish exile from Egypt whose first book was published in Paris in 1953 — will be celebrated at Mrs. Dalloway’s with a reading and discussion featuring three local poets, Sophia Dahlin, Kim Addonizio and Garrett Caples. Mansour’s new collection is called Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems. Thursday, Sept. 7, 7 p.m. FREE (registration required)
🍯 A multimedia performance ritual that focuses on the use of honey as a material and metaphysical healing modality, as well as a way to honor current and former sex workers and pleasure activists, Oñí Ocan is composed of a five-channel experimental film as well as live performances of honey rituals. Friday, Sept. 8, 6-8 p.m. Berkeley Art Center and Live Oak Park. FREE (registration required)
🖼️ The first day of the San Francisco Arts Commission’s two-day Dreaming In Color symposium celebrating Berkeley muralist Juana Alicia Araiza opens with a keynote lecture by the artist followed by a conversation moderated by professor Laura Pérez director of the Latinx Research Center (the symposium’s co-sponsor). Friday, Sept. 8, 6-8 p.m. Latinx Research Center, FREE (sold out, viewable via livestream)
🎥 The city’s free Movies in the Park series continues with the animated 2021 feature Vivo featuring songs (and title character vocals) by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Friday, Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m. Glendale La Loma Park. FREE
🎚️The popular EDM artist Flume will be at the Greek Theatre. Friday, Sept. 8. $182-$322
👢 Kinky Boots, the musical comedy from Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein about a shoe factory heir who partners with a drag queen performer to save his family business, opens at the Berkeley Playhouse Saturday night, with $30 preview performances Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Friday-Sunday (plus two Thursday shows), Sept. 8-Oct. 15. Julia Morgan Theater. $35-$52 (previews $30)
💀 The Berkeley Library is inviting you to attend a Death Café this weekend. “The experience will be a group discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes,” the library says. Saturday, Sept. 9, 1:30-3:30 p.m. West Branch Library. FREE
🎨 A world-building multidisciplinary artist who divides his time between the UK and Iran, Sass Popoli joins Seoul-born, Chicago-based performance, installation, text, and video artist Sungjae Lee for a virtual conversation as part of their Kala fellowships. Saturday, Sept. 9, noon-1 p.m. FREE
🎷 A savvy improviser with a beautiful sound, Berkeley-reared Brooklyn-based tenor saxophonist Kazemde George returns to Jupiter, still flying high from the release of his spiritually charged album I Insist, a major statement by an artist with a lot to say. He’s joined by drummer Mike Quigg and bassist Isaac Coyle (and also plays Sept. 16-17 at the Oaktown Workshop). Saturday, Sept. 9, 7-10 p.m. FREE
🎈The 47th annual Solano Avenue Stroll takes place Sunday and runs from San Pablo Avenue up to The Alameda, with several stages featuring music and dance, food booths and even a sideshow produced by the Menagerie Oddities Market. Berkeleyside will have a booth in front of Wells Fargo Bank at 1800 Solano Ave. Please stop by, say hello and tell us what you wish more people knew about your neighborhood. Sunday, Sept. 10, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Solano Avenue, between San Pablo Avenue and The Alameda. FREE
🌲 In a perfect pairing of art, artist and venue, the UC Botanical Garden teams up with BAMPFA for an al fresco redwood-grove screening of award-winning Georgian film director Salomé Jashi’s acclaimed documentary Taming the Garden about the industrial relocation of an ancient stand of trees in the Georgian countryside. Followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker, the event is part of her weeklong Berkeley residency, during which she’ll introduce a series of screenings at BAMPFA’s Barbro Osher Theater. Sunday, Sept. 10, 7-9 p.m. $24
🎶 Timbre Folk & Baroque hosts Preamp, a completely unplugged song session presented by Hoot! Sunday, Sept. 10, 7 p.m. 801 Bancroft Way. FREE (sign up to sing)
🎹 MusicSources kicks off the new season with a concert of Bach’s single and double harpsichord concertos featuring harpsichordists Janine Johnson and Yuko Tanaka and a string ensemble featuring early music specialists Kati Kyme, Carla Moore, David Bowes, David Morris, and Farley Pearce. Sunday, Sept. 10, 5-7 p.m. St. Mary Magdalen Church, $30
🎶 Imagining a world in which the pandemic never happened, Hoot! celebrates what would have been the song session’s 12th anniversary with a multiverse of music. Tuesday, Sept. 12, 7 p.m. The Hillside Club, FREE (sign up to sing)
🎶 Fronted by the titular English soul singer, the James Hunter Six is an accomplished outfit well-versed in an array of R&B idioms, and their latest Daptone Records release, With Love, finds the combo in a smoldering mood, delivering blue-flame torch songs with requisite intensity. Wednesday, Sept. 13, 8 p.m. Cornerstone. $25
💰The Women Entrepreneurs of Berkeley present a panel discussion moderated by exhibit curator Jan Wurm, “How to Make It in the Commercial Art World: Tips and Tricks From the Inside,” with SHOH Gallery founder and owner Julie McCray, Fern Solomon, owner of Fern’sGarden and Jacob’s Musical Chimes, and Laurel Burch Studios’ owner Aarin Burch. The discussion follows wine and small bites (a no-host food truck) at SHOH Gallery. Tuesday, Sept. 12, 5-7:30 p.m. FREE (registration required)
📚 Grace Lin, author of the new book Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods, will be at the Central Library for an event co-hosted by Eastwind Books. Thursday, Sept. 14, 4:30 p.m. Fourth Floor Children’s Nonfiction Room. FREE (RSVP requested)
👑 The Berkeley Shakespeare Company’s production of King Lear is traveling this month from the Kensington Amphitheater to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley to the Live Oak Theater. Through Sunday, Sept. 24. $15-$20
📷 “Black chicagoland is…” combines photography and house music to “thicken how we understand Black Chicagoness within and beyond the city’s iconic South Side.” The exhibit, located at UC Berkeley’s Worth Ryder Art Gallery, is curated by Leigh Raiford, the co-director of the Black Studies Collaboratory at Cal. On view through Sept. 21.
🏢 Learn about the origin of what is arguably UC Berkeley’s ugliest building (even the Daily Cal agrees). UC Berkeley has installed an exhibit telling the design history of Bauer Wurster Hall in the Environmental Design Library located in the building. On view through Oct. 8.🎨 The Berkeley Art Center’s exhibit, Rabbit Hole, examines the significance of space and the ways we engage with it every day. Artists featured include Fred Marque Dewitt, Mark Harris, danielle nanos-luz, Courtney Desiree Morris, Arleene Correa Valencia, and Connie Zheng. On view through Sept. 23
📷 The Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art’s new exhibit, Cities and Wars, opens on Tuesday, Aug. 29. It features never before seen work by Russian-Jewish photographer Roman Vishniac. On view through Dec. 14. FREE
Beyond Berkeley
🎊 Since 2018, Oaklash, founded by drag queens Beatrix Lahaine and Mama Celeste, has been elevating drag performers from all over the Bay with its yearly drag festival. Oaklash also gives grants to support chronically ill and disabled queer artists and has an incubator program to help up-and-coming queer DJs break into the events scene. This weekend, drag queens from Oaklash will be appearing at various events around Oakland, and the nonprofit is also hosting a block party and fundraiser for its work. The party will include queer vendors, drag performances, food, and live music. Friday, Sept. 8, 5 p.m.-2 a.m. 15th and Franklin Streets, Oakland. $10-$50
🎤 After holding separate events last year, Oakland Pride and Pridefest are joining forces for this year’s festival. Canadian award-winning singer-songwriter Deborah Cox will headline this year’s main stage, while Mexican singer Diana Reyes will headline the Latin stage. The day-long festivities include a parade at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 10, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., 20th Street and Broadway, Oakland. $15
See a list of more Pride celebrations in the East Bay on The Oaklandside.
If there’s an event you’d like us to consider for this roundup, email us at the-scene@berkeleyside.org. If there’s an event that you’d like to promote on our calendar, you can use the self-submission form on our events page.
The Oaklandside’s Arts and Community reporter Azucena Rasilla contributed reporting to this story.
