Sights & Sounds is your weekly guide to the Bay Area arts scene. Poet and professor Dean Rader, who will be reading at Tell No One at this year's LitCrawl San Francisco, told KALW’s Jen Chien about three amazing arts events happening around the Bay this week.
- Camille T. Dungy and Javier Zamora reading at The Poetry Center on 9/28
- Shakespeare In The Park at Jerry Garcia Amphitheater from 9/29-10/1
- J KM H at Ratio 3 open until 11/4
Camille T. Dungy is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophic Cascade, a single poem that’s a survival story about a mother, a daughter, and a blue whale. Javier Zamora’s new poetry collection, Unaccompanied, was just released, about his journey crossing the border into the US from El Salvador. The reading is free at 7 p.m. and is at the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University.
“It’s a great chance to see a really established poet and a young and up-and-coming poet talk about issues or race and aesthetic practice.”
San Francisco Shakespeare Festival is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, and to celebrate, they’re presenting Hamlet for the first time at Free Shakespeare in the Park. Resident artist Stephen Muterspaugh directs Shakespeare's famous tragedy, and Nathaniel Andalis is playing Hamlet. There are free shows Friday, 9/29 at 10 a.m., Saturday, 9/30 at 2 p.m., and the play closes on Sunday, 10/1 at 2 p.m.
“I’m excited about this particular production because it’s got a very multicultural cast and they’ve cast a woman in the role of Polonius and a woman in the role of Laertes. So I think there’s this really fun thing going on with race and gender.”
J KM H at Ratio 3 is a two-artist exhibit featuring work from Mathew Hale, from Los Angeles, and San Francisco's own Jordan Kantor. Through art-historical references, Kantor and Hale create an exhibit that’s a framework for their ongoing conversation. Throughout the exhibition, both artists suggest relationships of influence, admiration, and discord between canonized figures ranging from Manet to Malevich. The show is open until 11/4.
“I’m a big fan of Jordan Kantor’s work. I think he’s arguably one of the most interesting San Francisco artists … and he, like me, is very interested in the history of art and its relevance on the present.”
