Freebie(s) of the week: It’s the time of the year when free outdoor gatherings of all types are available, and this weekend is certainly no exception. Head to Marston Campbell Park at 17th and West streets in Oakland for the Black-Eyed Pea Festival. No, it is not named for the hit-happy pop and hip-hop band, but the “pea, the whole pea and nothing but the pea,” say organizers. Specifically, the beloved bean in this case is “a metaphor for what is resilient, creative and collaborative about African American culture,” says Wanda Ravernell, executive director of the Omnira Institute, which runs the festival. The event is also meant to be a reminder of when the 7th Street corridor was considered “the Harlem of the West.” To that end, performances will be served up by members of the Omnira Institute, percussion group Wakan Wiya, vocal group Moon Candy, MJ’s Brass Boppers with Dimensions Dance Theatre, and the acclaimed Cajun accordionist Andre Thierry. There will also be lots of kids activities, arts and crafts and food and drink.
The event runs 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday; more information is at oakbepf.com.
Meanwhile, art lovers can check out the Portola Valley Arts Festival in scenic San Mateo County from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at 3300 Alpine Road, Portola Valley, which also offers lots of food and drink, music, literature readings and more. Visit portolavalleyartsfest/home for more details.
What’s brewin’ at Smuin: One of the staples of fall arts season is a new touring program from Smuin Contemporary Ballet. The program starting this week is extra special in that it represents the first full show from the company under new artistic director Amy Seiwert, who is well-known to dance lovers in the Bay Area and beyond for her impressive career as a dancer, prolific choreographer and director of companies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento. Smuin Ballet, founded in the early 1990s by revered late choreographer Michael Smuin, has been pivoting in recent years toward a more contemporary catalog, and Seiwert has been adept in helping to usher new works to the company.
The troupe’s new program, titled “Dance Series 1,” features a world premiere and a company premiere. The world premiere is acclaimed, in-demand choreographer Jennifer Archibald’s fate-vs.-chance-themed work “ByCHANCE”; the company premiere is Matthew Neenan’s “The Last Glass,” set to music by the world music/indie-folk band Beirut. Also on the program is Seiwert’s own “Renaissance,” set to the gorgeous and ethereal sounds of Bay Area a cappella group Kitka and inspired by the historic 2019 “Women’s Wall” protest in India.
Performances are Friday through Sunday at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts; Sept. 27-28 at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts, and Oct. 11-20 at Fort Mason’s Cowell Theater in San Francisco. Tickets are $25-$92; go to smuinballet.org.
Offred in an opera? It’s hard to imagine a more unnerving tale set to music than “The Handmaid’s Tale,” but Danish composer Poul Ruders and his librettist Paul Bentley have done so with Margaret Atwood’s chilling 1985 novel set in the dystopian, post-revolution world of Gilead, where fertile women are held captive and forced to bear children for men whose wives are unable to conceive.
Now San Francisco Opera, which had intended to mount its production right before the pandemic, is bringing it to the War Memorial Opera House stage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night for a seven-performance run. American mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts leads the cast as the handmaid Offred, starring in the role that Natasha Richardson made memorable in a movie and Elisabeth Moss made famous in the long-running Hulu TV series, which will release its sixth season next year. Bass John Relyea, an alum of both the Adler and Merola training programs here, is The Commander, and soprano Sarah Cambidge is the most fearsome character of all, the intractable Aunt Lydia. Grammy-winner Karen Kamensek conducts the Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Notable for the opening night production, San Francisco City Hall across Van Ness Street will be eerily swathed in red and white, the colors of the obligatory handmaid “uniform.”
Tickets for the live production, $28 to $46, are available at sfopera.com or (415) 864-3330, but the Sept. 20 performance at 7:30 p.m. will be live cast for $27.50 and made available for on-demand viewing for 48 hours beginning at 10 a.m. Sept. 23.
An honored guest: Symphony San Jose detours from its customary venue at the California Theatre Saturday night for a “Symphony Under the Stars” outdoor performance at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga in collaboration with a giant of Latin jazz, Arturo Sandoval and his band. One of the world’s great trumpet players, the 10-time Grammy Award winner, whose previous partnerships have included gigs with as disparate a group of artists as Alicia Keys, Dizzy Gillespie, Josh Groban and Tony Bennett, was named a Kennedy Center Honors recipient in July. He and his fellow Lifetime Achievement Award winners (including Francis Ford Coppola, Bonnie Raitt and the Grateful Dead) will be celebrated with a tribute program at the Kennedy Center on Dec. 8 that will be filmed and broadcast on CBS on Dec. 23. Saturday night’s program in Saratoga begins at 7:30 p.m. and will include standards such as “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “Night in Tunisia.” Tickets, which start at $45, must be ordered at mountainwinery.com.
Show goes on at Cal Shakes: A reminder of how precarious the performing arts world can be, especially since the COVID shutdown, unfolded earlier this year when California Shakespeare Theater, having already endured a couple of truncated seasons, announced it needed to raise $350,000 to mount its only play for 2024 (its 50th anniversary season). Luckily, that goal was met, thanks to an outpouring of support from some 700 donors and a big gift from Cal Shakes alum Zendaya. This weekend, the Orinda troupe launches “As You Like It” at the enchanting Bruns Amphitheater, off Highway 24. Helmed by veteran Bay Area actor and director Elizabeth Carter, the show is It’s hardly a daring programming choice, being one of the Bard’s most popular and most-produced comedies, but it marks a welcome return to action by the company that has been a beloved fixture in the Bay Area’s outdoor theater scene for years. Previews run Thursday and Friday, the opening-night gala is Saturday and the production runs through Sept. 29. Tickets are $25-$85 ($100-$350 for the gala). Go to calshakes.org.
The post Best Bets: Black-Eyed Pea fest, Portola Art fest, Smuin Ballet, ‘Handmaid’s Tale,’ Symphony San Jose with Arturo Sandoval, ‘As You Like It’ appeared first on Local News Matters.