Belly dance is a hit for women of all ages and sizes, for exercise and art purposes. Rakkasah West just happens to be the largest belly dancing festival in the world and it just happens to be in the Bay Area. And it happens to be this weekend.
I went to Rakkasah West with a friend of mine last year and it was a hoot. I had NO idea how many people were into belly dance and how many people were going to be at this massive event.
My friend spent most of her time shopping for belly dancing clothes at the event. She found bra tops and skirts and jingly coin belts.
I have tried belly dancing but I like being watched doing it a little less than I like walking barefoot across dirty syringes. I do, however, like to see belly dance performance and there were a few vendors at the event that had wares for my liking. I got a lapel pin of a skull and crossbones with rubies and other accoutremonts. I promptly lost the $80 piece, but oh well.
Rakkasah West is a not-to-be missed event for all you ladies and gentlemen interested in dance and gyration as well. Some really talented performers take the stage constantly throughout the weekend. They are the best dancers from all over the West and my friend from Modesto is dragging me to it again. I am secretly looking forward to it.
Rakkasah West is being held Friday Saturday and Sunday at the Solano County Fair Grounds, 900 Fairground Drive in Vallejo. Tickets are $12 to $15 but I suggest bringing a wheelbarrow full of extra cash for all the shopping available.
I am not sure if I quite understand what artist Brent Bishop of San Francisco dreams are, but his performances are something so interesting and fun that they should not be missed.
I was first introduced to Bishop’s work through his work with the Elationists. As you may recall from my post about the Elationists’ event, I truly enjoyed the work he and his artist friends were doing. Really, they were melding music and art with history and fantasy and creating this sort of other-world where you were not just gathered in some warehouse in San Francisco’s SOMA district, but you were in another time period enjoying life as it was never really lived before. Or something like that ;).
Bishop is a filmmaker, a musician and a performance artist. Don’t let his performance artist title scare you though. His goal is to make people feel good, to enjoy themselves, and to have fun within a performance that he and his friends appear to live for.
With Tango La Melodia, Bishop and a bevy of musicians bring an experience to the stage again. There will be singing, there will be dancing, there multimedia and there will be fun.
Check out this video of the group, if you are not yet convinced.
Friday night I went to Chabot Space and Science Center’s Lunar Lounge, an at-one-time monthly event that has now changed to be a quarterly event.
I took my friend Ralf with me, who is a self-professed space nerd, and we enjoyed walking through the exhibits, listening to the Eyewitness News Band rock out in the center’s cafeteria and checking out the center’s updated SonicVision presentation. Let’s not forget there were $3 beers from Buffalo Bill’s Brewery in Hayward and yummy food from Askew Grill, one of my favorite local food-on-the-go places (yet not quite “fast food”).
Lunar Lounge is supposed to be a way to enjoy the center as hip adults and teenagers would — with music, food, and funky planetarium shows. I was thrilled to see what could only be called a gaggle of teenage girls enjoying Chabot on a Friday night when they could have been doing other nefarious things their parents don’t want to think about.
But aside from Lunar Lounge revelers, there were other people at the center enjoying themselves. Every Friday night a group of families gather in one of the center’s workshops and polish glass at the Telescope Maker’s Workshop. Ralf and I poked our nosey noses into the workshop and the people there were thrilled to just talk about their weekly hobby, which eventually leads to telescope viewing from their own, hand-made, hard-won telescope.
I started talking to Ralf about the center’s fun Challenger Learning Center experience, which I got to do as part of a press promotional thing. At that very moment, Chabot’s marketing director Sharon Fletcher sat by me and told me about the center’s “Love Mission to Mars,” a Valentine’s Day event where couples can take a simulated space mission to the Red Planet. She says it’s super fun and always sold out, with pairs of lovebirds waiting in the wings hoping another couple drops out. The $80 per-couple price tag includes fizzy beverages, chocolates and a souvenir of the day.
Just when I think I’ve had enough (ENOUGH!) of Chabot, my roommate e-mails me with an event even she couldn’t pass up, a Total Lunar Eclipse Hike at Chabot Feb. 20. I can’t skip that either, so I guess I will be heading to Chabot next month for another stellar event.
Rosin Coven, the band who created the Annual Edwardian Ball
The 8th Annual Edwardian Ball, a celebration of Edward Gorey and all things dark and delightful, is sold out Saturday night. But you can still enjoy the event both Friday and Sunday with other fun offerings during the Edwardian Ball Weekend.
While at last weekend’s fashion show at The Crucible, I ran into artist and arts promoter Will B. Chase, who is curating Friday night’s Edwardian World’s Faire. I was telling him how bummed I was that I didn’t get tickets to the ball and, sigh, I don’t have a costume anyway. He told me that I should not miss Friday’s event and, he said, he thinks there are still tickets left.
Curious, I looked into a bit more. I am no expert at this stuff but it seems to me all the wonderful, circus-y acts in the San Francisco Bay Area that couldn’t fit on the bill during Saturday’s ball are performing or at least showing their work sometime Friday or Sunday. On Friday, that includes the fun City Circus and the San Francisco quartet Rube Waddell. Paxton Gate, a beautifully odd store on San Francisco’s Valencia Street, will also be there as will the city’s prime corset-maker Dark Garden.
I saw one of Sunday’s featured acts, Eric McFadden, at the “Dark Cabaret” a couple of years ago. I think that’s the moment I realized I really enjoy McFadden’s style of creepy, brooding carnival music.
Anyway, if you missed getting tickets to the main ball, I am sure you will not be disappointed by Friday or Sunday’s not-yet-sold-out shows at the Great American Music Hall. Tickets are $20 Friday night and $18 Sunday. Buy ‘em here.
If ever there was an excuse to have an artful good time, this weekend’s Blue and Green Ball is that excuse. Todd Blair
The Dec. 1 ball is a fundraising event for East Bay artist Todd Blair, a teacher at Oakland’s California College of the Arts who was injured in a loading accident during Amsterdam’s Robodock 2007 event.
He has been in the hospital in Amsterdam for months now. Luckily he has his longtime partner and friends by his side.
Anyway, this ain’t your mother’s disco party and the organizers aren’t follin’ around. (Yes, I know that was lame)
The event features DJ Vordo, who worked with Oakland’s The Crucible on a number of their well-received events and Joan Jeanrenaud.
The Extra Action Marching Band , not your mama’s marching band, will play too.
There will be belly dancing by Gibson Pearl, Kristen, and Kyrsten.
Plus other fun!
Admission is only $10 but I suggest bringing a bunch more money to spend on the planned art and services auction. At the last fund-raising event for Todd, I spent a gazillion dollars but walked away with a T-shirt I love and a bunch of other gifts for me.
Blue and Green Ball is at SOMArts Gallery, 934 Brannan St. in San Francisco. The event is from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.
