Banjoists and fiddlers to play old-time music in Berkeley
The Berkeley Old Time Music Convention will take place mostly at Freight & Salvage. It opens Thursday with a triple bill including Jody Stecher, Kate Brislin and Jake Blount.
Arts
Supported by
The UC Theatre
Top Stories
From hysteria to utopia: BAMPFA’s gutsy attempt to show the breadth of feminist art
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s latest exhibition, “New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century,” explores evolving notions of feminism and gender.
Aurora Theatre’s ‘stoop stories’ of sex, drugs and library books are intimate and memorable
Playwright Dael Orlandersmith’s filmed one-person creation, “Stoop Stories,” is now streaming via the Aurora Theatre through Oct. 2.
Theater
Buffoonery, tragedy, live theater: Cal Shakes’ ‘The Winter’s Tale’ is a delight
“The Winter’s Tale” is the California Shakespeare Theater’s first live, in-person performance since October 2019.
In brief
Berkeley Rep delays its reopening due to rise of COVID-19 cases
The Berkeley Rep is pushing back its opening one month until November.
Berkeley playwright dreamed up tale of post-human robot museum curators during walks in the Rose Garden
Miyoko Conley, a grad student at Cal, was selected to have her play performed at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival the weekends of July 16 and 25.
Music
Bernard ‘Pretty’ Purdie, legendary jazz master, will hold court in Berkeley on Saturday
In his first Bay Area appearance in several years, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie will perform Saturday night at the California Jazz Conservatory.
Iranian-American songwriter Adrienne Shamszad is on a ‘spiritual quest’
Returning to Freight & Salvage on Thursday Adrienne Shamszad will play the first public concert in the venerable venue’s delta-delayed reopening.
Trio to perform traditional folk songs at Berkeley’s new museum of Hungarian culture
Zina Bozzay, who has dedicated her life to preserving traditional Hungarian music, will perform with her folk trio Vadalma Sunday afternoon outside the Orly Museum of Hungarian Culture in Berkeley.
Books
Berkeley Law dean’s book reveals how the Supreme Court enabled racist policing
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, casts a cold eye on the post-Warren court in “Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights.”
Book review: Talbot siblings’ new book profiles radical change-makers of 1960s and ’70s
In ‘By the Light of Burning Dreams,’ David and Margaret Talbot write about sweeping cultural transformation through profiles of people like Cesar Chavez, Bobby Seale, Anne Weills and Heather Booth.
Movies
Chattering teeth and a hapless bear at SF Short Film Festival
The San Francisco Short Film Festival will be held from Sept. 17-26, with selected films also screening in person this weekend at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater.
Icelandic grandma chats it up with invisible elves in ‘The Seer and the Unseen’
The film makes clear the parallels between the invisible elves and the invisible hand of the marketplace that sent the Icelandic economy into a disastrous tailspin during the 2008 financial crisis.
Recent stories
Remembering Patricia Bulitt, who danced in creeks and like a bird and held storytelling tea parties for Berkeley women
Patricia Bulitt, a creative force and an impresario, also exhibited her embellished paper dresses in galleries and taught dance to kids in Berkeley and in remote Inuit communities throughout Alaska.
Quirky Berkeley: Avram Gur Arye makes intricate landscapes with toy figurines
Avram Gur Arye makes his assemblages/dioramas/art in his studio apartment on Derby Street.
BAMPFA show exploring half century of feminist art opens Saturday
The exhibition, one of the largest in the museum’s history, will present over 140 works by 76 artists and art collectives.
From underground anonymity to national acclaim: The life and art of Steve ‘Zumbi’ Gaines
A dynamic presence in the Bay Area hip-hop community for over two decades, the prolific Zion-I rapper was remembered during a Sunday celebration.
Documentary follows bizarre journey of ‘lost’ Leonardo da Vinci painting
The painting of dubious origin attracted the attention of a wily Swiss businessman, a Russian oligarch, the CIA, and the FBI before ending up in the possession of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Black women blues greats performing Sunday at Civic Center Park
The Black Women’s Blues Festival, produced by Berkeley singer Faye Carol, will include performances by Lady Bianca, Theresa Harris, Kito Kamili, Avotjca and more.
After musician’s death at a Berkeley hospital, fundraiser honors Zumbi
Steve “Zumbi” Gaines, who lived in Oakland, died at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley early Friday morning following a physical struggle with staff.
Berkeley artist David Huffman’s new show pays tribute to his activist mother
In the Berkeley Art Center’s first solo show in six years, David Huffman honors his mother, Dolores Davis, who picketed against racism in the streets and made psychedelic, otherworldly pastel drawings at home.
Musical bon vivant Barbara Golden celebrates 80th birthday with new album ‘Not Dead Yet’
Barbara Golden left her home in the North Berkeley cooperative Walnut House early in the pandemic. She returns with a new anthology of her recordings, ‘Not Dead Yet.’
