From a brand new “Soul Practice” musical to a gaggle of festivals and festivals and a symphony of animals sounds, there’s numerous nice stuff to see and do within the Bay Space this weekend and past. Right here’s a partial roundup.
Broadway-bound ‘Hippest Journey’ will get hopping.
Because the story goes, radio DJ and music impresario Don Cornelius was irate on the lack of Black music artists on tv within the late Sixties. So he determined to do one thing about it. The end result was “Soul Practice,” a form of “American Grandstand” for the principally Black followers of latest soul and R&B music, which debuted on TV in 1971 and have become one of the crucial profitable reveals in broadcast historical past, whereas altering the American popular culture panorama eternally.
The story behind “Soul Practice,” the affect it made by introducing African American music to mainstream America and the personalities and stars it created is roofed in a world premiere musical, “Hippest Journey — The Soul Practice Musical,” debuting in previews on Aug. 25. It’s offered by American Conservatory Theater. With a ebook by Tony winner Dominique Morisseau (“Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Instances of the Temptations”), musical preparations by Kenny Seymour and choreography by Camille A. Brown, “Hippest Journey” performs at ACT’s Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco, by means of Oct. 1.
The buzzy musical is claimed to be aimed for an eventual Broadway run and backed by some huge names within the biz, together with Era Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of The Roots, Don Cornelius’s son Tony Cornelius; and Emmy-nominated “CSI” creator Anthony E. Zuiker, all of whom are credited as government producers.
Particulars: $25-$140; www.act-sf.org.
— Randy McMullen, Workers
Festivals: Arts, satisfaction and basic automobiles
Late summer time means one other weekend filled with competition decisions. This time it’s homosexual satisfaction, basic automobiles and sizzling rods, arts and wine, antiques and collectibles. Listed below are the highlights:
Palo Alto Pageant of the Arts: Celebrating the fortieth 12 months of this College Avenue occasion with 250 arts cubicles, Italian Avenue Portray Expo alongside Tasso Avenue, dwell music on two phases, kids’s artwork studio, plus meals, wine, beer. Deliver tote luggage for purchases. Particulars: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 26-27; free admission; www.paloaltochamber.com/festival-of-the-arts
Silicon Valley Pleasure: “Dwell Out Proud” competition, 6-11 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 26, adopted by parade at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 27, alongside Market Avenue and competition noon-6 p.m. Aug. 27. Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park, 1 Paseo De San Antonio, San Jose. Dwell leisure, distributors and meals. Pageant admission, $5 per day. Particulars: www.svpride.com
Goodguys West Coast Nationals: Greater than 3,500 American-made sizzling rods, basic automobiles and vehicles and customised automobiles shall be available on the Alameda Fairgrounds in Pleasanton from Friday by means of Sunday for the thirty sixth West Coast Nationals. Occasion additionally options AutoCross competitors, dragster exhibition, swap meet, children zone. Particulars: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday; $25-28, with navy/veteran low cost on the gate; parking further; www.good-guys.com.
Niles Vintage Faire & Flea Market: Scores of retailers will assemble on the streets of this historic Fremont district on Sunday for the 59th annual antiques and collectibles sale. Official hours are from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., however discount hunters usually arrive early with flashlights. Particulars: Free admission; www.niles.org.
— Linda Zavoral, Workers
Critters on key
To name “The Nice Animal Orchestra” at The Exploratorium in San Francisco an immersive audiovisual exhibition solely partly describes experiencing the outstanding work created by Sonoma bioacoustician and musician Bernie Krause.
After engaged on such movies as “Apocalypse Now,” Krause uninterested in Hollywood and launched into a long-term venture: making 5,000 hours of recordings in nature over 40 years. He got here up with an acoustic concord amongst some 15,000 species studied within the soundscapes of the oceans, in Africa, in Amazonia and in U.S. and Canadian nationwide parks.
“Animal Orchestra,” commissioned in 2016, is a sound symphony realized and visualized by means of real-time streaming spectrograms. Projections of sounds velocity across the darkened theater house. On one wall is a show of sonic frequencies in vivid coloration. A shallow ring of water under the projections strikes in ripples and waves.
In seven looping soundscapes which are 12 minutes every, there are the melodic, trumpeting calls of African forest elephants, chattering exchanges by humpback whales, howling wolfpacks in Ontario, Canada punctuated by lots of of fowl calls and bug extravaganzas. Pixilated woodpeckers come throughout like tuned pile drivers. African baboons hold forth searching for mates as they name from inside rock caves to amplify their voices.
Particulars: By way of Oct. 15; the Exploratorium, Pier 15, Embarcadero at Inexperienced Avenue, San Francisco; $30-$45, with reductions accessible; exploratorium.edu.
— Caroline Crawford, Bay Metropolis Information Basis
Cinequest retains on rolling
San Jose’s fashionable and acclaimed Cinequest movie fest — with its critically mind-bending lineup of 250-plus movie screenings — continues by means of Wednesday in downtown San Jose and Mountain View (www.cinequest.org). Listed below are a pair advisable movies.
“Underneath the Influencer ”: Social media influencers are usually straightforward targets for criticism, a undeniable fact that weighs heavy on the thoughts of perky YouTube sensation Tori (Taylor Joree Scorse). She has constructed a following and a profitable enterprise, however her profession and private life collapse attributable to her vapid and conniving competitors Becca (Ava Westcott) and an alarming well being scare. Director-screenwriter Alex Haughey astutely displays up the influencer tradition with out belittling it on this completely satisfying dramedy. Screening: 11 a.m. Aug. 24 at Mountain View ShowPlace ICON Theatre & Kitchen.
“Swarm”: On this grownup twist on “Robinson Crusoe” and “Swiss Household Robinson,” a husband and spouse, their teen son and youthful daughter lead a survivalist life on a distant island someplace in Northern Europe. However 10 years in, tensions are at all-time excessive and are resulting in hostilities between father and son and husband and spouse. When a stunning occasion occurs, the steadiness of energy shifts in Bartek Bala’s “Lord of the Flies”-like parable. Screenings: 7:10 p.m. Aug. 27 and 5:45 Aug. 30 at Mountain View Showplace ICON.
— Randy Myers, Bay Metropolis Information Basis
Kronos performs totally free
The Bay Space’s internationally famend Kronos Quartet is about to launch, amazingly sufficient, its fiftieth live performance season, and the ensemble will kick it off with a free live performance at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 26 on the Bandshell on the Golden Gate Park’s Music Concourse in San Francisco.
Lengthy celebrated for virtually reinventing the string quartet and rendering it wholly related to modern instances, Kronos consists of violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Paul Wiancko. They’ve received a number of main awards, together with three Grammys,and have launched greater than 70 recordings.
Their program for Saturday’s live performance will embrace each new works and signature items from their huge repertoire, together with music by Angélique Kidjo, Bob Dylan, Sigúr Ros and others. This shall be their first look on the Bandshell, and founder and inventive director Harrington feedback: “What a thrill and renewal will probably be to play at this lovely gem within the beating coronary heart and respiration lungs of our metropolis for our pals and neighbors.”
Particulars: Extra info at kronosquartet.org.
— Bay Metropolis Information Basis
In time with Tash Sultana
The factor a couple of Tash Sultana live performance is that you simply by no means know precisely what you’re going to get. Not that this 28-year-old Australian singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist isn’t constantly terrific and passionate on stage or within the studio. It’s simply that Sultana (who describes themself as gender fluid and makes use of the pronouns they/them) can actually do absolutely anything. They’ll play guitar, numerous keyboards, bass, a wide range of percussion devices, beatmaking and sampling machines, trumpet, saxophone, flute, mandolin, oud, harmonica, panpipe and doubtless a number of different issues we’re not conscious of. Sultana places this orchestra of versatility to make use of tackling musical types starting from psychedelic rock to reggae to neo-soul to blues and hip-hop, and ties all of it along with a stunning singing voice that boasts a five-octave vary.
Sultana performs dwell as a one-person band, producing a wealthy and infrequently driving sound with a military of looping and percussion machines. Sultana’s musical path reportedly began once they have been 3 years outdated with a guitar gifted by their grandfather. By their early teenagers, Sultana was taking part in open mic occasions wherever they may, however their uncommon private fashion usually discouraged venue house owners from reserving them; so Sultana took to the streets and advanced right into a legendary busker round Melbourne. Sultana continued to attract consideration till 2016, once they dropped a music video titled “Jungle” on social media websites and it garnered greater than 1 million views in 5 days.
Since then, there have been performances all over the world, two EPs, two full-length albums and present tour that brings them to a live performance at Stanford’s Frost Amphitheatre on Aug. 25.
Particulars: Introduced by Stanford Dwell; 6:30 p.m.; $49.95-$55; dwell.stanford.edu.
— Bay Metropolis Information Basis
The Songs of Sondheim
It’s arduous to consider that November will mark the two-year anniversary of Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim, a person who revolutionized musical theater so completely that many people are nonetheless making an attempt to catch up. With their subtle melodies and rhythms, and lyrics and themes that explored darker elements of affection and life, Sondheim’s songs and musicals created a brand new expertise on the theater. So any likelihood we have now to enjoy his catalog shouldn’t be taken evenly. Now Contra Costa Civic Theatre firm is affording such an opportunity with a manufacturing of “Sondheim on Sondheinm.” Mixing interview footage with dwell track and dance performances by a forged of eight Bay Space theater mainstays, the present presents a wide-ranging take a look at Sondheim’s life and theatrical achievements. Most necessary, after all, “Sondheim on Sondheim” serves up some two dozen musical nuggets from the composer and lyricist, together with “Love Is In The Air,” “Comedy Tonight,” “You Might Drive a Particular person Loopy,” “Ready for the Women Upstairs,” “Happiness,” “Ship within the Clowns,” “Firm – Previous Mates,” and plenty of extra. CCCT government inventive director Marilyn Langbehn helms the manufacturing at Contra Costa Civic Theatre, 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito.
Particulars: Aug. 25-Sept. 10; $40 for adults, $20 for teens aged 13-17 and $10 for youths ages 6-12; ccct.org.
— Bay Metropolis Information Basis
