Starting tomorrow, West Oakland-based artist and community advocate Marcel Diallo with several collaborators will transform the Room for Big Ideas at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts into an outpost of “The Black New World Social Aid & Pleasure Club,” using assemblage altars, multimedia and other items.

The “Black New World Annex” uses art, history and performances to reflect issues related to the African Diaspora and Bay Area community issues.

There is no charge for the show’s opening night party that begins at 6:30 Thursday. The show will run until Nov. 16 and includes an Oct. 18 reading by Diallo from his upcoming book, “Black New World Manifesto,” held from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Yerba Buena Center’s screening room. He will be accompanied by drummer Kele Nitoto and saxophonist Ric Alexander.

For more information about the “Black New World Annex,” visit the Web site www.blacknewworld.com.

The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is located at 701 Mission St., San Francisco. The telephone number is 415-978-ARTS (2787) and the Web site is www.ybca.org.

They’re having a community meeting today 3 p.m. over at the Black New World, 836 Pine St., to talk about the recent arrest of Nadra Foster at the KPFA studios, where she was a programmer.
And for the rest of the month, stay tuned to the EastSide Arts Alliance calendar, which is ripe with time-worthy righteous events.
EastSide Cultural Center
2277 International Boulevard
Oakland, California 94606
(510) 533-6629
www.eastsideartsalliance.org
eastsideculturalcenter@gmail.com

Here is more about the weekend of Aug. 1, which I wrote about in the following blog entry because I was covering a Night Owl event that was intensely political and thought provoking. Art and resistance together. The entry turned out way too long for one post so I am breaking it into sections.
Aug. 2: “Port Huron Project 5 – The Liberation of our People” was about taking texts out of history, reanimating them to engage people and inserting them into contemporary politics, the creator Mark Tribe said.
He also wants to turn “depoliticized space” like DeFremery Park into a place for participatory democracy.
But not everyone saw it that way. A young woman stood up to ask what Tribe was doing to be more than just a cultural carpetbagger who rides into town to capitalize on its history then rides right back out without leaving so much as a tip. She wanted to know what he was going to do to keep the momentum going after the speech to make it more than a “creative intellectual exercise.”
West Oakland Lower Bottoms impresario Marcel Diallo said it’s up to the community to ride the energy Tribe creates by creating events around the event. “I’m not trippin’,” Diallo said. “Anyone who come in I’m going to find a way to ride it.” He showed up Saturday at the park with T-shirts, paintings and other items for sale. 
Just like when Davis made the speech, the park Saturday was full of people from all walks of life, colors and ages, Black Panther Minister of Culture Emory Douglas recalled. Read the rest of this entry »

The Lower Bottoms’ impresario Marcel Diallo has been masterful about bringing Oakland’s past and present together. Little surprise then that he is behind the show “Black Panther: The Cultural Ministry of Emory Douglas” that opens Aug. 22 and runs until Sept. 26 at the Cannery, 1200 Pine St. “We have to have some white walls, sometimes,” Diallo said after Douglas, who served as the Panthers’ minister of culture from 1967 to the 1980s, spoke at the Oakland Museum a couple weeks ago. No pun intended (I commented the show was fancy) I assume, from Diallo, founder of the Black New World and Cornelia Bell’s Black Bottom Gallery, whose walls are not as boomer-style as the Cannery lofts.  So just to let you know in advance, an opening night reception will be held at the lofts, 1200 Pine St: A conversation with Emory Douglas, a performance by Diallo & Co. Pluse a special cultural presentation. Prints and books will be available. FMI: 510-451-4661.