Category Archives: Arts
For a stunning bird’s eye view, launch a kite (or a balloon)
Michael Layefsky’s passion for aerial photography was born one day in 1997 when he was taking one of his customary walks on the UC Berkeley campus and he came across “this guy flying a humongous kite on the big lawn in front of the library”.
The “guy” turned out to be Cal architecture professor Cris Benton, an early adopter of kite aerial photography, whose stunning work can be viewed on his website and Flickr pool.
“Cris is both very talented and an educator. The internet was in its infancy when he started but he set out to document and provide information on KAP, as its known,” says Layefsky, who quickly became an eager student.
An early attempt by Layefsky to capture images from a camera rigged onto a kite took place in Berkeley’s Cesar Chavez Park. “It was really windy and way too hard to navigate the kite,” he recalls. “My wife nearly had her arm pulled out trying to help me.” … Continue reading »
Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler
By Emily S. Mendel
The de Young Museum’s compelling retrospective exhibition of the sculpture of Berkeley’s Stephen De Staebler opened nine months too late for the artist to see it. The De Young’s American Art curator, Timothy Anglin Burgard, worked actively with De Staebler to mount the exhibition, but unfortunately De Staebler died in May 2011 before the show was completed.
De Staebler, who was born in 1933, became a figurative sculptor at a time when such works were déclassé. One of his teachers at the famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina was Robert Motherwell, a leading voice of the Abstract Expressionist movement, who wanted De Staebler to shift from figurative work to the abstract school. De Staebler decided not to take Motherwell’s advice.
Instead, De Staebler benefitted from working with pioneering ceramist Peter Voulkos, who, in the late 1950s, had founded the ceramics department at the UC Berkeley. Voulkos, who was instrumental in turning ceramics into a vital art form, rather than the second-string craft it had been thought to be, introduced De Staebler to clay and kiln techniques. Since his childhood was spent in Missouri’s countryside, De Staebler had a strong tactile, and deeply symbolic connection with clay. … Continue reading »
Berkeley’s new Magnes building to be unveiled on Sunday
On Sunday, the doors will open to a new cultural institution in Berkeley. The many thousands of books, paintings, prints, textiles, and photographs that make up The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life – which was formerly located in an early 20th-century family home on Russell Street in the Elmwood neighborhood — will now be readily accessible to the public in a beautifully renovated, centrally located 25,000 sq ft space at 2121 Allston Way.
The building, which was designed in the 1920s as a printing plant for UC Berkeley, was most recently used by UC’s Bancroft Library, with whom the Magnes now partners. Before that, the Berkeley Public Library occupied the space. Marks left by book stacks on the stained, maple-colored concrete floors bear the stamp of the building’s history.
The building has been transformed by San Francisco architects Pfau Long in collaboration with local design and fabrication company Picassa Studios. The goal, said the museum’s Director Alla Efimova, was to create a warm, inviting place with an emphasis on transparency.
“We wanted an open space with a good flow where the community could spend time discovering the collection,” she said. … Continue reading »
Berkeley FILM Foundation to air powerful documentary
By Emily S. Mendel
The Berkeley FILM Foundation will hold a benefit screening Thursday of Better This World, a powerful, award-winning documentary produced and directed by filmmakers Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega and funded, in part, by a grant by the foundation. Galloway, of Berkeley, and de la Vega will host a Q and A after the 7 pm screening at the Zaentz Media Center. The screening is part of the FILM Foundation’s monthly documentary series, held the third Thursday of every month
Better This World, which was partially funded and aired by PBS’s Point of View, follows two boyhood friends from Midland, Texas as their world spins out of control. David McKay, 22 and Bradley Crowder, 23, had been opposed to the Iraq War, yet had no idea of what, if any, action to take. Within six months, in a stunning turn of events, they wound up arrested on terrorism charges at the 2008 Republican National Convention.
The film explores their initial naiveté (“We just want to make the world a better place.”) and their bonds with the intense older Brandon Darby, a radical agent provocateur, who mentored and challenged them until their arrests. Much of the film is about the Feds’ relentless prosecution of McKay and Crowder, and the eventual (here, undisclosed) outcome. … Continue reading »
Berkeley Rep’s “Ghost Light” resurrects pain of the past
The San Francisco political establishment came to Berkeley Wednesday night for the opening night of Ghost Light, Berkeley Rep’s play about the life and legacy of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, whose life was cut short when Dan White assassinated him and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, flanked by earpiece-wearing bodyguards, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, and Moscone’s widow, Gina, were all in the audience. Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, who once worked for Moscone, was there, too.
If those politicos came to see a play that recounted Moscone’s life and legacy, they were out of luck. Ghost Light, which was written by the Rep’s Artistic Director Tony Taccone, and directed by Moscone’s youngest son, Jonathan, now the artistic director of the California Shakespeare Theater, is the story of an imagined Jon Moscone and his struggles to come to terms with the loss of his father 34 years after his death. It is a play within a play, for the narrative centers on the fictional Jonathan trying to direct a production of Hamlet. He can’t seem to decide what the ghost in that play should look or act like, in part because his dreams are haunted by the ghosts of the past who just won’t leave him alone. … Continue reading »
Rebecca Fromer, co-founder of Magnes, dies at 84
Rebecca Camhi Fromer, a poet, playwright, historian, and co-founder of the Judah L. Magnes Museum of Berkeley, died in San Francisco on January 1 with her family by her side. She was 84.
Fromer and her husband, Seymour, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 87, started the Magnes Museum in 1960 in response to what they saw as California’s lack of knowledge of its Jewish heritage.
Starting with a few objects and a display case in the Oakland Museum in Seymour Fromer’s office at the Bureau for Jewish Education in Oakland, the Magnes grew to become the country’s third largest Jewish museum with more than 10,000 objects ranging from paintings, photographs, rare books, archival material, and Judaica.
Situated in a historic home on Russell Street for more than 40 years, the Magnes Museum merged with UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library in July 2010. Now renamed the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, it is scheduled to open in a remodeled building at 2121 Allston Way on January 22.
Fromer wrote, or co-wrote, numerous nonfiction books, including The House by the Sea: A Portrait of the Holocaust in Greece, The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando, Rumkowski and the Orphans of Lodz, and Bridge of Sorrow, Bridge of Hope. Her poetry and prose were collected in Out of Silence, Into Being and One Voice, Many Echos. … Continue reading »
Out in Berkeley to enjoy live music on New Year’s
Even on a slow night you can find a generous array of live music in Berkeley, but on New Year’s Eve the People’s Republic offers a particularly enticing selection, especially if you’re looking for the chance to dance. Every venue seems to play to its comfort zone, with La Pena delivering Cuban, Ashkenaz offering Balkan, Freight & Salvage bearing bluegrass, and Jupiter getting groovy. Why brave the Bay Bridge when you can dance the night away close to home?
Orquesta La Moderna Tradición @ La Pena
Even in Cuba, bands focusing on the gracious 19th century style known as danzon are rare, but Orquesta La Moderna Tradición breathes new life into this elegant form, which combines Afro-Cuban percussion with flute and violins. Violinist/arranger Tregar Otton, who’s also a key member of the Mexican music ensemble Los Cenzontles, co-directs the band with conguero Michael Spiro, a percussion master who’s been at the center of the Bay Area Latin music scene for more than 25 years. Cuban-born Felix Samuel and Caracas-raised Eduardo Herrera share lead vocals, while flutist Jesus “Chus” Alonso, violinist Sandy Poindexter, pianist Robert Karty, clarinetist Don Gardner, timbalero Carlos Caro, bassist Steve Senft-Herrera and percussionist Sage Baggott (guiro and bongos) round out the ensemble. With a family friendly vibe, this might be the most welcoming New Year’s event in the region. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: Best movies of 2011
This time last year I was moaning about what an Annus Horribilis it had been at the movies. This December the news is a bit better: whereas in 2010 I had a hard time scraping together a top 10, in 2011 I had a hard time whittling things down to a top 15.
Of course, any ‘best of’ list is subjective, anecdotal, and entirely based on personal opinion and whim. It could be that I missed a ton of great stuff in 2010, or perhaps this year’s sample is badly skewed: I did, after all, manage to avoid Jack and Jill, The Undefeated, The Smurfs, The Three Musketeers 3D, and Human Centipede 2 over the course of the last twelve months.
Or perhaps I totally nailed it, confirming that I am, indeed, the most astute film critic of this or any other age! Alternatively, I could be slipping into early dementia and have lost what few critical faculties I previously possessed. That’s a worrisome thought.
Whatever the case may be, here are the fifteen films I enjoyed most in 2011.
1. City of Life and Death—This powerful war film, set during Japan’s invasion of China during the late 1930s, gets the coveted number 1 spot thanks to its astonishingly realistic action sequences (eat your heart out, Steven Spielberg), skillful storytelling, and superb acting. Oh, and I’m a sucker for black and white cinematography, too.
2. Rubber—The strangest and most surreal film I’ve seen in ages. I’d be surprised if this shows up on too many other top 10 lists — it’s just as likely to get nominated for a Razzie — but I loved it. … Continue reading »
Klezmer and latkes and Christmas
One of the more joyous street gatherings on Christmas Day happens in front of Saul’s, the Jewish deli on Shattuck Avenue near Vine.
For the last three years, Klezmer musicians have gathered to play outside the deli, their lively, upbeat music serenading the long line of people waiting to go inside the restaurant or those just wanting to hear a tune.
People wait to buy latkes on Christmas Day. Photo: Emanuah Hauser
This year, the annual Christmas Day concert coincided with Hanukkah, and Saul’s owners’, Peter Levitt and Karen Adelman, sold their famous latkes from a food truck for the first time. Inside, dozens of people gathered around large tables to eat communally.
Mike Perlmutter, a biologist, and Emunah Hauser, a food publicist and host at Saul’s, came up with the idea of the Christmas Day music jam while talking outside the restaurant a few years ago, said Hauser. Since then, Perlmutter, who books klezmer and Jewish folk acts at the Subterranean Arthouse on Bancroft Way, has organized the musicians. (He plays the sax and clarinet.)
“Saul’s is slammed on Dec 25 with a captive audience enjoying the ubiquitous day off together, and it is always fun as a musician to give people the unexpected,” said Hauser. “The beauty of street performance is exposing people to an experience they didn’t plan on, who didn’t buy a ticket to the show – who don’t know they are going to get this raucous treat as they walked the desolate streets towards Saul’s, but are grateful and happy it is there. This is especially true of heritage and traditional music, I think – we forget to listen and recollect in our busy modern lives these shared histories.”
Ira Serkes made the video.
Musicians outside Saul's Deli. Photo: Emunah Hauser
Author mines the riches of the Bancroft Library
As public services coordinator for the past 20 years, Snyder has spent countless hours scouring the stacks to retrieve material for patrons. She has helped researchers locate obscure letters, tracked down elusive photographs, and occasionally stumbled upon artifacts that had largely been forgotten.
The deep knowledge of the library that has more than 650,000 books, 35,000 linear feet of archival documents and 8 million photographs linear inspired Snyder to do her own history projects. In the past few years, she has written or co-authored a number of books that highlight some of the more whimsical and fun parts of the Bancroft and provide a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people. There was the book Bear in Mind, on all the grizzly bear images and the one about camping, cleverly called Past Tents. (You can see she has a knack for titles, too.) … Continue reading »
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