Podcast appearances and mentions of Cal Performances

In Berkeley Talks episode 221, American historian Heather Cox Richardson joins Dylan Penningroth, a UC Berkeley professor of law and history, in a conversation about the historical evolution of the Republican Party, and the state of U.S. politics and democracy today. Richardson, a professor of history at Boston College, is the author of the popular nightly newsletter Letters from an American, in which she explains current political developments and relates them to historical events. With more than 3 million daily readers, Richardson says Letters has grown a “community around the world of people who are trying to reestablish a reality-based politics.”Topics in the conversation include: The origins of the Republican Party: President Lincoln had a vision of a government serving the common person, including equal access to resources like education and land. After the Civil War, Republicans under Lincoln created a national taxation system, which former Confederates argued was an unfair redistribution of wealth from white people to Black people and from rich people to poor people.The backlash after Lincoln: After Lincoln, there was a rise of robber barons — industrialists whose business practices were considered ruthless and unethical — and a group of people who argued that intervention for ordinary people was a form of socialism. Wealth began to concentrate at the top and led to an inevitable crash. As a consequence, the Republican Party had to repeatedly rethink the way it did business and the way it worked.How Donald Trump changed the Republican Party: Richardson says President Trump took oligarchs' language about government overreach and "stripped away the veneer," appealing directly to racism and sexism. This empowered a new base of supporters and led to a movement encouraging violence and anti-authority sentiment. What gives Richardson hope: Richardson says the current moment in politics reminds her of the 1850s, when it appeared that elite enslavers, who made up 1% of the U.S. population, had completely taken over the country. But over the next decade, the nation went on to elect Lincoln and form a government by the people and for the people. “I believe that all of us coming together in the 21st century can do it again,” she says. The event took place on Feb. 26 in Zellerbach Hall, and was presented by Cal Performances and the Graduate Division at UC Berkeley as part of the Charles M. and Martha Hitchcock Lectures.More about the speakers: Richardson has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Guardian, and is the author, most recently, of the best-selling 2023 book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. Penningroth is the author of the award-winning 2023 book Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights. He serves as associate dean of the Program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy at UC Berkeley Law; his scholarship focuses on African American and legal history.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).Music by Blue Dot Sessions.Screenshot from a UC Berkeley video. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

​Jill Schinberg has worked for music promoters, agents, international festivals, and performing arts centers in various capacities both on the road and in venues large and small. She started her career at Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa and subsequently held positions with San Francisco Bay Area music promoter Another Planet Entertainment, Festival Internacional de Videodanza in Buenos Aires, Rena Shagan Associates in New York, and Cal Performances in Berkeley. Along with producing and directing, she has served as a consultant to emerging arts organizations, venues, professional associations, and dance companies in the United States and South America.An ‘expat' from a 20+ year career in arts management, Jill is currently an Associate Professor of Arts Administration at the University of Kentucky. She researches arts management consulting, programming as an artistic practice, and workplace equity issues and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Leadership and Management, Arts Programming, and Arts Entrepreneurship. She is a founder of Demographic Trends (www.demographic-trends.com), a startup dedicated to collecting and analyzing demographic data for organizations in the arts, culture, and entertainment industries.In this interview Jill talks about a pitch competition that her Arts Administration students will present.  This will be the seventh year for FISH TANK: Emerging Entrepreneurs in the Arts.   Students work in teams and present an arts innovation.  Each presentation is fleshed out with a budget .  There will be a panel of three judges and after a questioning opportunity they will determine the best new idea. For more and to connect with us, visit https://www.artsconnectlex.org/art-throb-podcast.html

In Berkeley Talks episode 212, a panel of UC Berkeley experts from former presidential administrations take a critical look at the issues that have led the U.S. to this year's historic election and reflect on the future of American democracy. The Oct. 29 campus event was sponsored by the Goldman School of Public Policy and Cal Performances, and was part of the Goldman School's Interrogating Democracy series.Panelists include: Janet Napolitano, professor of public policy and director of the new Center for Security in Politics; former secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration; former president of the University of California. Robert Reich, emeritus professor of public policy; senior fellow at the Blum Center for Economic Development; former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration.Maria Echaveste, policy and program development director of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy; former assistant to the president and deputy White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration; president and CEO of the Opportunity Institute.Angela Glover Blackwell (moderator), chief vision officer for the Goldman School of Public Policy's new Democracy Policy Initiative; founder-in-residence of PolicyLink.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-talks).Music by Blue Dot SessionsPhoto by Dyana Wing So via Unsplash. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As voters prepare to head to the polls on Election Day, join the Goldman School of Public Policy and Cal Performances for a critical look at the moment we're in, the issues that have shaped and led us to this year's tumultuous election, and the future of American democracy. UC Berkeley experts from former presidential administrations—Janet Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security under the Obama administration (2009-2013); Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under the Clinton administration (1993-1997); and Maria Echaveste, former Assistant to the President and Deputy White House Chief of Staff under the Clinton Administration (1998-2001)—as well as PolicyLink founder-in-residence and Chief Vision Officer for the Goldman School of Public Policy's new Democracy Policy Initiative, Angela Glover Blackwell. Series: "The Goldman School - Berkeley Public Policy" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 40302]

As voters prepare to head to the polls on Election Day, join the Goldman School of Public Policy and Cal Performances for a critical look at the moment we're in, the issues that have shaped and led us to this year's tumultuous election, and the future of American democracy. UC Berkeley experts from former presidential administrations—Janet Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security under the Obama administration (2009-2013); Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under the Clinton administration (1993-1997); and Maria Echaveste, former Assistant to the President and Deputy White House Chief of Staff under the Clinton Administration (1998-2001)—as well as PolicyLink founder-in-residence and Chief Vision Officer for the Goldman School of Public Policy's new Democracy Policy Initiative, Angela Glover Blackwell. Series: "The Goldman School - Berkeley Public Policy" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 40302]

As voters prepare to head to the polls on Election Day, join the Goldman School of Public Policy and Cal Performances for a critical look at the moment we're in, the issues that have shaped and led us to this year's tumultuous election, and the future of American democracy. UC Berkeley experts from former presidential administrations—Janet Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security under the Obama administration (2009-2013); Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under the Clinton administration (1993-1997); and Maria Echaveste, former Assistant to the President and Deputy White House Chief of Staff under the Clinton Administration (1998-2001)—as well as PolicyLink founder-in-residence and Chief Vision Officer for the Goldman School of Public Policy's new Democracy Policy Initiative, Angela Glover Blackwell. Series: "The Goldman School - Berkeley Public Policy" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 40302]

In Berkeley Talks episode 205, sports journalist Jemele Hill discusses her career at the intersection of sports, race and culture in the U.S. at a UC Berkeley event in January 2020."Sports journalism," began KALW radio journalist Hana Baba, with whom Hill joined in conversation as part of a Cal Performances speaker series. "So you're growing up, you're watching TV, you're reading the papers ... When did you realize that this is a male journalist's space?"I knew that, but I didn't know it," replied Hill, author of the 2022 memoir Uphill and host of the podcast Jemele Hill Is Unbothered. "And this is why — whenever I talk about mentorship, I preach this to both mentees and mentors: The first thing you can give a mentee and the first responsibility as a mentor, you need to give them a sense of belonging."She went on to describe how, when she was in an apprenticeship program for the Detroit Free Press, two women journalists — feature writer Johnette Howard and sports writer Rachel Jones — were assigned to be her mentors."So I never knew that it was something I wasn't supposed to be doing because the very first person I knew that did it was a woman. ... And so because I got that early confidence at the beginning of my career, I just never went through a period of self-doubt, which is totally normal for any woman in a male-dominated space, especially a Black woman. So I was very lucky that I got that sense of belonging early." Later on, Hill discussed when NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem throughout the San Francisco 49ers' season in 2016 to protest racial injustice, effectively ending his football career. “I mean, the NFL owners are spineless,” said Hill, who worked for ESPN for more than a decade and was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2018. “I knew Colin Kaepernick would never play in the NFL the moment Donald Trump said his name … One of the few things that a lot of people unfortunately agree with the [former] president about is that Colin Kaepernick should not be taking a knee. So, he [Trump] knows every time he says his [Kaepernick's] name, that it is giving him a level of universal support … that he doesn't experience usually.“And so what does that say about people in this country? … We just celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, commemorated him. And the same people I saw talking about how great Dr. King was for his nonviolent protest are also the same people who think Colin Kaepernick doesn't deserve to play in the NFL? … But the NFL, I think, as we have seen in the case with Muhammad Ali, as we have seen is the case with a lot of history, 20 years from now they'll be telling a different story. They'll act like all of this never happened.”Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-talks).Music by Blue Dot Sessions.Photo by Daniel Stark/ESPN. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The U.S. transcontinental railroad is considered one of the biggest accomplishments in American history. Completed in 1869, it was the first railroad to connect the East to the West. It cut months off trips across the country and opened up Western trade of goods and ideas throughout the U.S.But building the railroad was treacherous, brutal work. And the companies leading the railroad project had a hard time retaining American workers. So they began to recruit newly arrived immigrants for the job, mainly Chinese and Irish. And these immigrants, who risked their lives to construct the railroad, have largely been left out of the story.In recent years, though, there has been a new emphasis on reframing the narrative to include the perspectives, contributions and struggles of railroad workers, not only in scholarship, but in the arts.On Nov. 17, Cal Performances is presenting American Railroad by Silk Road Ensemble, as part of its 2023-24 season of Illuminations: Individual and Community. It's one of several notable works in recent years that explores the lives of the immigrants who built the U.S. transcontinental railroad.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu).Music by Silkroad Ensemble and Blue Dot Sessions.Photo courtesy of San Francisco Public Library. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Berkeley Talks episode 181, renowned artist and human rights activist Ai WeiWei discusses art, exile and politics in a conversation with noted theater director and UCLA professor Peter Sellars and Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society and former dean of Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.Ai, who grew up in northwest China under harsh conditions because of his poet father's exile, is openly critical of the Chinese government's stance on democracy and human rights. He is well-known for his provocative works, including his 2014-15 installation on San Francisco Bay's Alcatraz Island, @Large, that the LA Times called, "an always-poignant, often-powerful meditation on soul-deadening repressions of human thought and feeling.""Normally, people call me an artist or activist, and I am often forced into one condition," he says. "It's not that I intentionally try to create something or to crystallize something, but rather I've been put in extreme conditions, and I have to focus on dealing with those situations. Normally, I don't accept the easy answer. "So I think I have to find a language to illustrate my expression, and it comes out in certain ideas or materials. We can call it art. I don't think my art really looks like art, but still, it's hard to categorize it. I'm a bit ashamed about it because everything in real life, it has a purpose. It has clear problems and solutions. But the art is not really about that. It rather creates problems after problems. So yeah, that's what I do."This Sept. 24 event was co-presented by Cal Performances, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) and the Townsend Center for the Humanities.Read about 10 of Ai WeiWei's adventurous works on Cal Performances' blog Beyond the Stage.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu)Music by Blue Dot Sessions.Photo courtesy of Ai WeiWei. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

World-renowned South African artist William Kentridge discusses the process of making the 2019 chamber opera Waiting for the Sibyl. He also touches on why artists should stay open to new ideas, the complex relationship between humans and algorithms — "one has to make space for that which does not compute," he says — and the "unavoidable optimism" in the activity of making.During the 2022-23 academic year, Cal Performances, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) and the Townsend Center for the Humanities at UC Berkeley are participating in a campuswide residency with Kentridge.Cal Performances will present the U.S. premiere of SIBYL on March 17-19. SIBYL is comprised of two parts: The first part of the program, The Moment Has Gone, is a film by Kentridge with live music featuring a piano score by Kyle Shepherd and an all-male vocal chorus led by Nhlanhla Mahlangu; the second part is the chamber opera Waiting for the Sibyl. Learn more about the residency and upcoming events.Read a transcript and listen to the episode on Berkeley News.Music by Blue Dot Sessions.Photo by Marc Shoul. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The savviest arts administrators know that putting a concert season together is more than programming popular repertoire or bringing big-name soloists to town. For Jeremy Geffen, executive and artistic director of Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, bringing to life all of the organization's artistic and educational activities — about 80 events per season — centers around ideas of building and serving communities across the Bay Area. Since arriving on the Berkeley campus in 2019 — and during his 12-year tenure as senior director and artistic adviser of Carnegie Hall — Geffen has worked tirelessly to transform the people he serves through the power of the performing arts. That means, first and foremost, making introductions to emerging artists whose new ideas can spark meaningful conversations. "Who you choose to present is what defines you as a presenter," Geffen says in the latest episode of the Classical Post podcast. "The bigger risk [for presenters], and where one demonstrates the level of connection to one's community, is determining which artists to introduce — artists who are at the beginnings of their careers or may not have had exposure in the Bay Area." As Geffen points out, even the biggest artists with the longest relationships with Cal Performances — including Yo-Yo Ma, Jordi Savall, and the Mark Morris Dance Group — weren't always stars. When they were just starting out, it was Cal Performances that helped to give them a toehold. And Geffen sees fostering growth in the artistic powerhouses of tomorrow as one of the most gratifying aspects of his role. "If you demonstrate confidence in someone, more often than not that confidence will be reciprocated and expectations will be exceeded. It gives me great gratification to watch artists I saw something in early on grow into their full potential." In this conversation, we discuss Cal Performances' upcoming season and how its marquee Illuminations series will explore technology's many roles in creative expression and human communication. Plus, he opens up about why he sees classical music as "a type of regenerative spiritual health," how therapy has helped him tap into the creativity of the subconscious mind, and why he heads to Manhattan's East Village when it's time to celebrate with sake in New York City. — Classical Post uncovers the creativity behind exceptional music. Dive into meaningful conversations with leading artists in the world today. Based in New York City, Classical Post is a touchpoint for tastemakers. Visit our website for exclusive editorial and subscribe to our monthly newsletter to be notified of new content. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok. Classical Post is an ambassador for NED, a wellness company. Get 15% off their products like CBD oil and many other health-based products by using our code CLASSICALPOST at checkout.

Episode Notes Contact us | darlenedhillon Amrita Kathak Global Documentary - YouTube A passionate performer and teacher of Kathak, Darlene Dhillon is a senior student of the legendary Pt. Chitresh Das. She began her training with him at San Francisco State University in 1999 and quickly became involved as a teacher and apprentice company member at his school. Ms. Dhillon has performed at venues like the prestigious Green Music Center in Sonoma, the California State Fair, Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts, and Cal Performances at UC Berkeley. In 2018 she relocated to West Bengal, India for two years to become involved in the rich cultural landscape of the region. While in India she taught workshops at Santiniketan Society of Visual Art and Design and Jogesh Mime Academy in Kolkata. Darlene performed solos at Akar Prakar Gallery in Kolkata, and University of Calcutta. She met the esteemed Kathak guru, Pt. Ashimbandhu Bhattacharya during her travels and began ongoing mentorship with him. Darlene currently runs her school, Amrita Kathak Global in San Francisco. She teaches dance as a way for students to develop their physical and mental strength while learning about the depth of Indian classical music and dance. Her dance company will premiere new choreography at Non-Fiction Design Studios in San Francisco in September, 2022. (0:02:10) Highlight of the day (0:03:22) Nature vs Nuture in the context of dance (0:05:30) Transitioning to full time teaching (0:10:11) Bringing colleagues to Kathak performances (0:11:43) Parallels between architecture and kathak - (0:15:06) A dance drama based on Darlene's life (0:19:55) How do you teach differently than how you were taught (0:22:56) Life skills learned in Kathak (0:25:41) How being in tune with yourself help with compositions (0:26:26) Tips for being more grounded in Kathak (0:28:50) Teaching to kids with multiple interests and classes (0:32:20) Increasing student retention after Kathak graduation (0:34:22) Living in Shantinikentan (0:38:11) Amrita Kathak Global (0:43:38) Fundraising thorugh Kickstarter (0:46:18) Ambitious goals for the future

In Berkeley Talks episode 143, a panel of UC Berkeley experts discuss climate displacement — what it means to abandon places, the power dynamics between the Global South and the Global North, challenges for both the sending and receiving regions, and what needs to happen to address this fast-growing problem.Panelists include faculty members from Berkeley's new cluster in climate equity and environmental justice:Maya Carrasquillo, civil and environmental engineeringDaniel Aldana Cohen, sociologyZoe Hamstead, city and regional planningDanielle Rivera, landscape architecture and environmental planning Moderated by Karen Chapple, director of Berkeley's Urban Displacement Project and the University of Toronto's School of CitiesThis April 25 event is part of Cal Performances' Illuminations: Place and Displacement series.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Follow Berkeley Talks and review us on Apple Podcasts.Photo by Pablo Paredes.Music by Blue Dot Sessions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Between 1910 and 1970, about 6 million Black Americans moved from the rural South to cities in the North, the West and other parts of the United States. It's known as the Great Migration. Musicians who moved to these cities became ambassadors, says UC Berkeley history professor Waldo Martin, “not only for the music of the South, but for the culture from which the music emerged. And the music was made and remade, and continues to be today. On Feb. 17, mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran and jazz pianist Jason Moran — and an all-star roster of jazz collaborators — will perform their remaking of the music in Two Wings: The music of Black America in Migration for UC Berkeley's Cal Performances.Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News. If you haven't already, follow Berkeley Voices and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!(UC Berkeley illustration by Neil Freese) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Episode Notes Show Highlights (0:11:38) The concept of generations in Kathak (0:13:05) How Rachna Di Teaches Differently (0:21:50) How Gurus used to teach (0:27:02) Starting Teaching (0:32:23) Balancing being an active performer and teaching (0:34:15) The responsibility of education (0:40:07) Dance Critics (0:46:04) Pride and South asian culture (0:52:56) Compensation in the arts (1:06:47) The concept of Endowments in the Arts (1:25:41) The story of Rachna di and the Harmonium Bio RACHNA NIVAS (@rachnanivas) is an artist, choreographer, educator, and activist in Indian classical dance, bringing a relevant voice to kathak. Deemed “charismatic” and “revelatory” by the San Francisco Chronicle and featured in 2021 by Dance Magazine, she is one of the most sought-after kathak artists and educators of her generation. A distinguished torchbearer of legendary master Pandit Chitresh Das' treasured lineage .Rachna is a fierce and passionate performer, a technical powerhouse with masterful creativity and infectious charm. She is a founding artist and artistic director of Leela Dance Collective, a nationally-based women-led and artist-led collective, producing powerful works by forward-thinking trailblazers in kathak dance. Rachna's original works include her collaboration SPEAK, which brings together leading women in kathak and tap, bridging Indian and African-American art and heritage along with co-creators Rina Mehta, Michelle Dorrance, and Dormeshia. Some notable SPEAK _tour stops have been Broad Stage in Los Angeles, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Mumbai Royal Opera House in India, Maui Arts and Cultural Center and University of Hawaii. Rachna is also co-creator of the large scale dance ballad, _Son of the Wind, featuring 20 dancers and a live orchestra. Tour highlights include Ford Theater in Los Angeles, Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and Bhramara Festival in Mumba, India. Her original solo work, Meera, was featured at the ODC Walking Distance Festival in San Francisco and at Salvatore Capezio Theater in New York City. Her original work Stir, choreographed for Leela Youth Dance Company, was featured at the WorldWideWomen's Girls Festival. Her works have been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, California Arts Council, and Zellerbach Family Foundation. Prior to work with Leela Dance Collective, Rachna was principal dancer with the Chitresh Das Dance Company for 15 years and received two nominations for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award while performing worldwide in productions such as Shiva, Sita Haran, Pancha Jati, Darbar, Shabd and many more. Some notable venues she performed at with CDDC, include Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, Roy and Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theater in Los Angeles, Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin, Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts in Arizona, National Center for Performing Arts in Mumbai, Birla Sabhagar in Kolkata, National Institute of Kathak Dance in New Delhi, and Shaniwarwada Festival in Pune, India. Rachna was also instrumental in building the Chhandam School of Kathak in San Francisco (founded by Pandit Chitresh Das in 1980). Pandit Das himself appointed Rachna to be Co-Director of the Chhandam School in 2009 (along with Seibi Lee). Rachna worked tirelessly under Pandit Das to institutionalize curriculum, build infrastructure, train teachers, direct school-wide dance dramas, and flourish the school into one of the world's leading and most influential academies of North Indian classical dance. Her passion and commitment to her own journey of the art and to building pride of Indian classical art amongst the South Asian community led her to emerge as a powerful role model amongst the Indian diaspora. In particular, Rachna has exceptional talent in teaching and training youth, making the art relevant, inspiring, and empowering to girls. Rachna was the successor to Pandit Das as Co-Artistic Director of the Chhandam School and Artistic Director of the Chhandam Youth Dance Company (now the Leela Youth Dance Company), shepherding excellence, leadership, and creative discovery amongst teens. Rachna has also taught numerous kathak workshops, after-school programs, and outreach events/residencies to communities of all backgrounds, including at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Treme Center of New Orleans, Conservatory of Arts in Miami, Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, LA Tap Fest at Debbie Allen Dance Academy, National Center for Kathak Dance in New Delhi, and many more. Currently, Rachna is leading and directing Leela New York, the newest chapter of Leela Institute of Kathak, bringing the teachings of her lineage for the first time to the greater New York Metro area. Title Track Audio Credit: Doug Maxwell | Bansure Raga

OnMic Ep22: Fighting the Disinformation Machine Fighting the Disinformation Machine was presented by Cal Performances in partnership with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Dean Geeta Anand and Tristan Harris host a conversation  on the subject of “fact versus fiction,” in particular the growing movement to fight back against the perils  posed to journalism by our current  tech regime.  Recorded on February 10, 2021.

In this episode, Stefano Flavoni sits down with prolific Peruvian composer Jimmy López Bellido to discuss his compositional process, major successes, including his opera Bel Canto (premiered by Lyric Opera of Chicago) and oratorio Dreamers (commissioned by Cal Performances and premiered by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra), as well as the elevation of diverse voices in the arts, and whether or not we are alone in the universe.

In this special Halloween-inspired episode of Berkeley Talks, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ joins Manual Cinema's co-artistic director Drew Dir to discuss the collective's presentation of Frankenstein, a Cal Performances co-commission, in a talk moderated by Cal Performances' executive and artistic director Jeremy Geffen.Listen to the talk and read a transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

1. Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, joins us to talk about the Creative Justice Initiative, available through Aug. 31, 2020 2. Naru Kwina & Leroy Frankilin talk about their new film, The Joe Capers Legacy, airing Aug. 29, 2020, 7-9 PM PT 3. We speak to Dr. Shemell Bell, Shalom Cook, Fountainetta Coleman, about the 28-Day Global Meditation for Black Liberation Aug. 1-28, 2020 and other events such as Movement for Black Lives National Convention 8/29 and the NAACP Virtual & Actual March on Washington, 8/27-28.  4. We close with an interview with Rennie Harris, choreographer, "Lazarus," set on Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre 2018 for its 60th Anniversary. We spoke when the work came to Cal Performances last year.                                                               

1. Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, joins us to talk about the Creative Justice Initiative, available through Aug. 31, 2020 2. Naru Kwina & Leroy Frankilin talk about their new film, The Joe Capers Legacy, airing Aug. 29, 2020, 7-9 PM PT 3. We speak to Dr. Shemell Bell, Shalom Cook, Fountainetta Coleman, about the 28-Day Global Meditation for Black Liberation Aug. 1-28, 2020 and other events such as Movement for Black Lives National Convention 8/29 and the NAACP Virtual & Actual March on Washington, 8/27-28.  4. We close with an interview with Rennie Harris, choreographer, "Lazarus," set on Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre 2018 for its 60th Anniversary. We spoke when the work came to Cal Performances last year.                                                           

Dan Pfeiffer, co-host of Pod Save America, former Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama and author of the book, "Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter and Trump", shares how he got into politics and what it's going to take to get America out of the political plight we find ourselves in today. This conversation was recorded on stage, presented by Cal Performances at UC Berkeley. Support our production with a tax deductible one time or monthly contribution. Thank you!

The unrivaled political insight of reporter Maggie Haberman makes her one of today’s most influential voices in national affairs journalism. In this talk, the New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist offers a riveting look into the Trump White House, the current political waters and the changing perceptions of journalism across the country."What Trump does with that language, which comes with a real degree of danger, in part for the obvious, but in part because his fans don’t realize that some of this is a game for him, and how much he truly has fed off of and enjoys the mainstream media attention," says Haberman. "He still brags to his friends that he’s on the front page of the Times more now than he ever was before he was elected. They have told me they detect a note of pride in his voice. Not everything that Trump is doing is new or something unseen before in U.S. presidential politics, including his attempts to influence how the press does its job. Reporters cannot lose sight of that. He is extreme, but aspects of what he does are not unique."Haberman spoke at Zellerbach Hall on Sunday, Oct. 6, as part of Cal Performances’ 2019–20 Speaker Series, a season-long series of public presentations by some of the leading creative and intellectual voices of our time including David Sedaris, Dan Pfeiffer, David Pogue, Jemele Hill, Laverne Cox and Jad Abumrad — thinkers, activists, strategists, satirists, journalists and pioneers at the leading edge of culture and politics.Maggie Haberman covered New York City Hall for the New York Daily News, the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign and other political races for the New York Post, and wrote about national affairs as a senior reporter for Politico. She and her team at the New York Times received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their coverage of the Trump administration and alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign, as well as the Aldo Beckman Award from the White House Correspondents’ Association. Her stories about covering a contentious administration offer a revealing insider’s look at what is sure to be known as our country’s most explosive era of modern journalism.Ed Wasserman, dean of Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, moderated questions from the audience following Haberman’s presentation.Learn more about Cal Performances' speaker series.Listen and read a transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On Thursday, April 18, 2019, Cal Performances’ board of trustees co-chairs Helen Meyer and Susan Graham, and executive and artistic director Jeremy Geffen, announced the organization’s 2019-20 season, programmed by associate director Rob Bailis. Hear Bailis in conversation about the season with Cy Musiker, a KQED radio news reporter, anchor and recently retired host of KQED's weekly arts showThe Do List. Musiker is an alumnus of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.Cal Performances' 2019-20 season showcases an exhilarating and expansive breadth of dance productions, from grand to intimate in scale, featuring a broad range of international performance traditions and starring renowned companies from the US and abroad in Zellerbach Hall, widely considered the finest concert dance venue on the west coast; virtuoso soloists and conductors making their Cal Performances debuts; and immersion in key bodies of work by Beethoven, Bartók and Liszt.An interdisciplinary set of projects explores the artistic accomplishments of UC Berkeley faculty and alumni and Berkeley natives — with composers, scholars, writers, filmmakers and performers bringing new and recent work to campus. Dance and contemporary music ensembles perform Cal Performances co-commissioned work and the season concludes with a Hewlett 50 Arts Commission project staged in collaboration with lead commissioner Stanford Live. Artists and ensembles with meaningful, decades-long relationships with Cal Performances and Bay Area audiences return, and master performers from across the globe travel to Zellerbach Hall for presentations that revive and refresh traditional and contemporary music and dance practices.Read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News.(Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater photo by Andrew Eccles) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

1. Rev. Harry Louis Williams II joins us to talk about "When the Struggle Is Real" (2019). Visit www.IAmOGRev.com 2. Arisika Razak RN, MPH is Professor Emerita, and former Chair of the Women’s Spirituality Program, at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). She has served as CIIS Director of Diversity, and currently is a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland. For over twenty years she was an inner city midwife in the SF Bay Area, attending the births of women from over 70 countries. A regular contributor to books and journals, Arisika is also a dancer who has performed nationally and internationally for over thirty years; she has led healing and empowerment workshops for women for over 30 years and spiritual and movement workshops for beings of all genders for over two decades. Her film credits include Fire Eyes, the first full length feature film by an African woman on female genital cutting; and Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth where she is interviewed on Alice Walker's womanism. She joins us to talk about Destiny Art Center's Jewels at odell Johnson Theatre through Friday-Sunday, 4/12-4/14. 3. Rennie Harris, choreographer, joins us to talk about his work, Lazarus, (Program A at Cal Performances 4/9 & 4/13) commissioned by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Cal-Performances for AAADT's 60th Anniversary (1958-2018). https://calperformances.org/performances/2018-19/dance/alvin-ailey-american-dance-theater.php

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay!  1. Rennie Harris, choreographer, joins us to talk about his work, Lazarus, commissioned by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Cal-Performances for AAADT's 60th Anniversary (1958-2018). Program A, performed Tuesday, April 9 at 8pm and Saturday, April 13 at 8pm at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, features the Bay Area premiere of hip hop dance pioneer Rennie Harris’ Lazarus (2018), inspired by the life and legacy of Alvin Ailey. The work is the company’s first two-act ballet and was a 2018 recipient of the New England Foundation For the Arts prestigious National Dance Project grant. With Lazarus, which has a score by Darrin Ross, Harris addresses the racial inequities America faced when Ailey founded this company in 1958 and still faces today. True to tradition, the program closes with Revelations, Ailey’s 1960 masterpiece celebrating the African-American experience. 2. Rebroadcast of Wed., April 3, 2019: Erik Lee & Latanya Tigner, Mazin Jamal, Dr. David Campt, Shelley Davis Roberts

Composer Jimmy López, who earned his Ph.D. in music from UC Berkeley in 2012, speaks about Dreamers, an oratorio he was commissioned by Cal Performances to write that is informed by interviews held with undocumented students at UC Berkeley. The piece was written in collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, who created the libretto. Esa-Pekka Salonen, the music director designate of the San Francisco Symphony, conducted the world premiere performance of Dreamers in Zellerbach Hall on Sunday, March 17 at 3 p.m. with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, soprano Ana María Martínez, and a chorus of nearly 80 voices, including those from the UC Berkeley Chamber Choir.López's talk was held in an open session of the academic course Thinking Through Art and Design @ Berkeley: Creativity, Migration, Transformation taught by Peter Glazer and Stan Lai held in Osher Auditorium, UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) on Thursday, March 14 at 12 p.m. It was free and open to the public.Read a Q&A with Jimmy López, "Alumnus's 'Dreamers' oratorio inspired by Berkeley undocumented students" on Berkeley News.See events related to upcoming shows by Cal Performances on calperformances.org.Watch the world premiere of Dreamers and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Amy Nostbakken and Nora Sadava started writing Mouthpiece six years ago, they revealed their deepest secrets to each other with the prompt: “Tell me something that you would never want anyone ever to know.” From that, they created a raw, one-hour confessional that reflects what it feels like in one woman’s head after she finds out her mother has died and that she has to deliver the eulogy the next day. Mouthpiece premiered in 2015, and four years later, Amy and Nora, who make up the Toronto-based company Quote Unquote Collective, are performing the play for the last time on March 22-24 in the Zellerbach Playhouse. It’s the last performance of Cal Performances’ 2018-19 Berkeley RADICAL Initiative’s strand “Women’s Work,” which takes a specific look at the extraordinary artistry of women who are expanding the definition of what it is to be an artist in the 21st century.“This continuum of women’s voices and their work — the work that drives them — is important to put a spotlight on,” says Sabrina Klein, director of artistic literacy at Cal Performances. “Every single one is unique. Every single one is different. But it’s not incidental that they’re connected as women across this continuum of making work — live work, new work, fresh work, continually meaningful work.” Read the story and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

About the Performance: This production contains extreme sexually explicit images from the Robert Mapplethorpe collection that may be inappropriate for attendees under 18. Discretion is advised. Thirty years after the death of Robert Mapplethorpe, we still cannot turn away from what his photos reveal. Composer Bryce Dessner, Librettist Korde Arrington Tuttle, and director Kaneza Schaal in collaboration with Roomful of Teeth and a musical ensemble of 12 players explore the ways Mapplethorpe's works compel an audience's complicity and characterizes them in the act of attention. As a young man growing up in Cincinnati, Dessner's own exposure to the protests surrounding this galvanizing artist rooted a lifelong kinship to his pivotal body of work. Mapplethorpe's pictures both unite and divide viewers, provoking a consideration of perceived opposites–their literal as well emotional and cultural meanings – Black/White, Male/Female, Gay/Straight, Art/Porn, Classical/Contemporary. His pictures seduce, shock, offend, excite, intrigue and scare us all at once.  Single images take our breath away through the classic capture of everyday acts of nature and the beauty of their composition. On the other hand, a single image has the power to reveal our fears and our desires and the razor-thin line between the two. We confront this work privately, flipping through coffee table books or seeing the work in a museum gallery. But in Triptych (Eyes of One on Another), Dessner, Tuttle & Schaal ask an audience to experience these reactions collectively. Through music, projection of Mapplethorpe's images, and the poetry of Tuttle, Essex Hemphill and Patti Smith, the work puts the audience inside the artist's view finder, inside his beautiful, bold, voracious view of how nature and humans look, touch, feel, hurt and love one another. Co-produced by Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel Music and Artistic Director. Produced in Residency with and Commissioned by University Musical Society, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. TRIPTYCH was co-commissioned by BAM; Luminato Festival, Toronto, Canada; Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Athens, Greece; Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati, OH; Cal Performances, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA; Stanford Live, Stanford University, Stanford, CA; Adelaide Festival, Australia; John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for performance as part of DirectCurrent 2019; ArtsEmerson: World on Stage, Emerson College, Boston, MA; Texas Performing Arts, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX; Holland Festival, Amsterdam; Barbican Centre, London; Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; and Celebrity Series, Boston, MA. Residency development through MassMOCA, North Adams, MA. Photo credits: Alistair Butler, 1980 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission. Bryce Dressner photo by Shervin Lainez Korde Arrington Tuttle photo courtesy of the artist Roomful of Teeth photo by Bonica Ayala Produced in cooperation with The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation Program: Bryce DESSNER : Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) Artists: LA Phil New Music Group Sara Jobin conductor Bryce Dessner composer Korde Arrington Tuttle featuring words by Essex Hemphill & Patti Smith librettist Roomful of Teeth Kaneza Schaal director Simon Harding video Yuki Nakase lighting design Carlos Soto costume design Talvin Wilks dramaturgy ArKtype / Thomas O. Kriegsmann co-producers TUE / MAR 5, 2019 - 8:00PM Upcoming concerts: www.laphil.c

Dancer/choreographer Akram Khan appeared in the West Coast premiere of XENOS, a Cal Performances co-commission, in Zellerbach Hall on March 2-3, 2019. Khan, who is of British and Bangladeshi descent, is celebrated for physically demanding, visually arresting solo productions that combine Indian kathak with contemporary dance to tell stories through movement. Khan’s full length solo performances of XENOS conjure the despair and alienation suffered by an Indian soldier recruited to fight for the British Crown in the trenches of World War I.As an instinctive and natural collaborator, Khan has been a magnet for world-class artists from other cultures and disciplines. His previous collaborators include the National Ballet of China, actress Juliette Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, singer Kylie Minogue, writer Hanif Kureishi and composer Steve Reich.In this talk, Akram Khan speaks with Cal Performances’ interim artistic director Rob Bailis in the weekly open session of the Arts + Design course Creativity, Migration, Transformation held at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on Feb. 28, 2019. The event was free and open to the public.More information about the class can be found on Berkeley Arts and Design's website.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For over 50 years, Cal Performances at UC Berkeley has fostered a strong partnership with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Since the company's debut performance at Wheeler Hall in March of 1968, it has played a central role in Cal Performances’ dance programming for half a century. To commemorate the milestone 50th anniversary, then-executive and artistic director of Cal Performances Matías Tarnopolsky sat down with Battle in March 2018 for a conversation about his experience as an African American choreographer, artistic influences and vision for the Ailey company.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As a kid, Makayla Bozeman could not stop dancing. She'd go to bed late because she was dancing. She'd wake up in the middle of the night to dance. When she was 13, she applied to AileyCamp — a six-week summer program run by Cal Performances at UC Berkeley where 11- to 14-year-olds from the East Bay learn dance from professional choreographers. She soon realized that AileyCamp was so much more than a dance camp — it was a chance to discover who she was and learn how to navigate her complex social world.Read the story and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"I was amazed at how he walked on, and he just got the attention of everyone right there,” says Kyle Ko, a fourth-year music major. “You could see everyone’s intense focus. You could feel it on the stage.” Ko, along with student Hallie Jo Gist, attended a master class taught by world-class conductor Riccardo Muti. Master classes, put on by Cal Performances and the Department of Music, give members of the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra a chance to learn from top musicians.Read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week: We kick off with the most depressing intro ever (yet still hilarious) and then get to the good stuff. We talk to Shannon Jackson at the Open Engagement conference, preceded by a (unfortunately) truncated conversation with Jen Delos Reyes. Shannon Jackson is Professor of Rhetoric and of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies. She is also currently the Director of the Arts Research Center. Her most recent book is Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics, and she is also working on a book about The Builders Association. Other awards and grants include: Lilla Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Performance Studies (NCA); Junior Faculty Fellowship, Radcliffe College; the Kahan Scholar’s Prize in Theatre History (ASTR); the Spencer Foundation Dissertation fellowship; the Black Theater Network; the National Endowment for the Humanities, and several project grants from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, UCIRA, the San Francisco Foundation, and the LEF Foundation. Selected adaptation, performance, and directing credits: White Noises, The Smell of Death and Flowers, Hull-House Women, Catastrophe, The Successful Life of 3. Jackson serves on the boards of Cal Performances, the Berkeley Art Museum, and the Berkeley Center for New Media.  She serves on the editorial boards of several journals, has been a keynote speaker at a variety of international symposia, and has co-organized conferences and residencies with the Arts Research Center, The Builders Association, Touchable Stories, American Society of Theatre Research, the American Studies Association, the Women and Theatre Project, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Multi-campus Research Group on International Performance, and UCB’s Center for Community Innovation.  Jackson was an Erasmus Mundus visiting professor in Paris at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Nord and at the Université Libre de Bruxelles for the 2008-09 academic year. Before moving to Berkeley, Jackson was an assistant professor of English and Literature at Harvard University from 1995 to 1998. Jen Delos Reyes is an artist originally from Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Her research interests include the history of socially engaged art, group work, and artists' social roles. She has exhibited works across North America and Europe, and has contributed writing to various catalogues and institutional publications. In 2008 she contributed writing to Decentre: Concerning Artist-Run Culture published by YYZBOOKS. In 2006 she completed an intensive workshop, Come Together: Art and Social Engagement, at The Kitchen in New York. She has received numerous grants and awards including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant. She is the founder and organizer of Open Engagement, a conference on socially engaged art practices. She is currently an Assistant Professor and teaches in the Art and Social Practice MFA concentration at Portland State University.

Marin Alsop, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, talks with Cal Performances Director Matias Tarnopolsky about the programs she will be conducting when the Orchestra comes to Berkeley March 30 & 31, 2012.

UC Berkeley

Available at www.calperformances.org On October 24, 2008, performance artist Laurie Anderson (in Berkeley, California) joined musician/poet Lou Reed (in Barcelona, Spain) via the internet to perform the works of Catalan poets Brossa, Espriu, Carner and Vinyoli. The 45 minute live performance, in English, as experienced last year at the Made in Catalunya event in New York City, was presented by KOSMOPOLIS International Literature Fest; video performance, produced by Cal Performances, University of California at Berkeley.  

Available at http://www.calperformances.org. On October 24, 2008, performance artist Laurie Anderson (in Berkeley, California) joined musician/poet Lou Reed (in Barcelona, Spain) via the internet to perform the works of Catalan poets Brossa, Espriu, Carner and Vinyoli. The 45 minute live performance, in English, as experienced last year at the Made in Catalunya event in New York City, was presented by KOSMOPOLIS International Literature Fest; video performance, produced by Cal Performances, University of California at Berkeley.