Sights & Sounds is your weekly guide to the Bay Area arts scene through the eyes and ears of local artists. Our guest is Amir Soltani: producer and director of the movie Dogtown Redemption.
Soltani told KALW’s Jen Chien about three cool arts events happening this week around the Bay.
Art Murmur’s monthly First Fridays Art Walkis on Friday, 4/1. Member galleries are open for viewing from 6-9pm. The Art Walk coincides with a street festival, organized by Oakland First Fridays along Telegraph Ave., between Grand and 27th. Some of the exhibitions on tap are Divine Invasions: Six Male Artists Allying with the Divine Feminine at Krowswork, and Neighborhoods Coming Together: Quilts Around Oakland at Joyce Gordon Gallery.
SOLTANI: It just shows how we can tell stories through so many different media.
City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco hosts a reading and book release for The Scaffold: A Treason Death Penalty Trial by J. Tony Serra on Wednesday 4/6 at 7pm. Serra is a well-known civil rights lawyer, whose new novel is set in the South Pacific during World War II. A court martial central to the story, highlights the ridiculousness of war, treason and the death penalty.
SOLTANI: The whole notion of death being a solution to anything, I find repulsive; it's just a total failure of the human imagination, so I think this [book] will be a very interesting take.
On Sunday 4/3, La Peña Cultural Center’s long running Lounge Rumba event beats on from 3:30-6pm. Held every 1st and 3rd Sunday for the past 12 years in Berkeley, this community participatory jam session features Afro-Cuban folkloric music, dance and drum.
SOLTANI: Music has always transcended divisions, and we all move to the beat of drums. La Peña is a symbol of opening to Latin America and Cuba.
