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CAPTION #1: Longombas, the Kings of East African Afro Pop

PHOTO #2: Mia Paschal by Mark Andrew Wilson.jpg

CAPTION #2: Mia Paschal

PHOTO #3: TaSin Sabir '100 Families'.jpg

CAPTION #3: Portraying the essence of father-child love and nurturing is this photo by TaSin Sabir in the “100 Families” exhibit.

We’re still looking for African Diaspora poets to feature at the 16th Annual African American Celebration through Poetry, at the West Oakland Branch Library, 1801 Adeline St., Oakland, Saturday, Feb. 3, 1-4 p.m. For information, call (510) 238-7352. The theme this year is Black Love: the Best Antidote for Violence. There is a rehearsal Saturday, Jan. 27, 10-12 noon. Bring your poetry you’d like considered in the program. Children and youth are welcome. The event is free and open to the entire community.

‘Confluence of the Arts’

Artists Embassy International presents the “Confluence of the Arts Poetry Reading, Art Show and Dance Performance,” Saturday, Jan. 20, 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with notable poets and laureates such as Al Young, California laureate, and Mary Rudge, Alameda laureate, Dancing Poetry Festival grand prize winners, poetic dance and visual art and refreshments at the Alameda Historical and Art Museum, 2324 Alameda Ave., Alameda. Call (510) 235-0361.

Dawoud Bey on ‘The Jewish Identity Project’

In conjunction with the exhibition “The Jewish Identity Project: New American Photography,” the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) and the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) will present a lecture by Chicago-based artist Dawoud Bey. One of the country’s leading portrait artists, Bey will discuss his ongoing exploration of adolescent identity through portraiture Thursday, Jan. 18, at MoAD, 685 Mission St., 7-8:30 p.m. The lecture is free for members. General admission is $10.

Bey’s collaborative photographic and audio project in “The Jewish Identity Project” features adolescents with Jewish backgrounds who share their personal thoughts and feelings about their racial and religious identity. One of them is Jacob, the son of a single Jewish mother; his father was from Belize. Sahai and Zenebesh were adopted from Ethiopia and converted to Judaism. Cousins Claire and Samantha share an Ojibwe (Chippewa) grandmother and Russian Jewish grandfather. The voices of these teens provide a window into their personalities and reveal their keen awareness of how they are perceived by society. Bey’s works underscore the truism that one should not make easy assumptions about another individual’s identity or heritage.

Born in Queens, New York, Dawoud Bey currently lives and works in Chicago. Bey’s large-scale photographic portraits, frequently accompanied by an audio project created with Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister, allow his subjects – teenagers – to speak for themselves about issues of race, religion and ethnicity.

Oakland East Bay Symphony presents ‘Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.’

Friday evening at the Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway in Oakland, Nolan Gasser’s “Black Suit Blues,” based on a poem by Robert Trent Jones Jr., is a reflection on the events of the 1960s based on the poet’s memories as a child during that period up to and following Martin Luther King’s assassination. Gasser, who is adjunct professor at Stanford, said in an interview on Doug Edwards’ show on KPFA that he wanted his treatment of the story to reflect the impact King had on a child’s life. Robert Sims, baritone, is the singer, Michael Morgan the conductor. He is joined by the Oakland Symphony Chorus. It should be a wonderful evening, new work complimented by the Prelude and Liebstod from Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde,” which opens the evening, the Gasset work followed by Shubert’s Symphony No. 9, “The Great.” Visit www.oebs.org or call (510) 625-8497 for tickets. There is a pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m. for ticket holders.

‘365 Days/365 Plays’

The A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Class of 2007, in collaboration with Z-Space Studio and theater companies across America, is participating in the Suzan-Lori Parks’s “365 Days/365 Plays” project. Every week since the project’s launch in November 2006, selected theaters in communities nationwide have performed “one week” from Suzan-Lori Parks’ cycle of a year’s worth of short plays. Please join the class of 2007 in celebrating collaboration, community and one of the nation’s most honored artists with an evening of new work.

“365 Days/365 Plays” will be performed at Zeum Theatre following performances of “Brainpeople” by José Rivera on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 19 and 20, 10 p.m. Admission is free, with donations greatly appreciated. For more information, call (415) 439-2416.

Next week, the plays are at Berkeley Rep’s School of Theatre, 2071 Addison St., Berkeley, Sunday, Jan. 28, 3 p.m. Call (510) 647-2972 or visit berkeleyrep.org. You can visit www.zspace.org for the latest on the “365 Days” project.

Jeff Stetson’s ‘Fathers and Other Strangers’ through Sunday

The party continued without me Friday evening when, after consulting our watches, my friend Karen and I decided to head over to the Malonga Theatre for the premiere of Jeff Stetson’s play, “Fathers and Other Strangers,” directed by Winston Young. It was a special evening for a number of reasons: One was Michael Lange’s recovery from a heart attack last year; the other was the playwright’s presence on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 78th birthday, this fact significant only if you know who Stetson is.

He’s the author of the award-winning one act, “The Meeting,” the fictional meeting between two leaders, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. The playwright said that he’d written the play for a college class he was teaching in the California State University system on the Civil Rights Movement, using Malcolm and Martin as two individuals who helped shape that movement, he said in a phone interview, not realizing the impact it would have on audiences.

I’d been at the African American Health Summit all day. The last workshops, hosted by the Leadership Academy were quite instructive, from learning healthy ways to process anger to a demonstration of how adults hurt children with their words. I was tired, so a visit to art galleries was called for, beginning with the Prescott Joseph Center Gallery in West Oakland, where I ran into Malik Seneferu, Casper, TheArthur, Karen and Tomye. At the Joyce Gordon Gallery downtown, “JoeSam: New Paintings & Mixed Media” was up through Jan. 30. Our final stop was Swarm, next door to ProArts, where Youth Speaks was having a jam.

With just 10 minutes to get back to the theater for “Fathers and Other Strangers,” we just made it into our seats before the lights went down. The play takes place in a doctor’s office, the protagonist a psychiatrist with unresolved father issues, as most of the men have in this heady play. Lange is great as the brooding protagonist, his white patients also operating from a place of denial. What makes the play so worth the investment is Stetson’s careful knitting together a work that shows how important vital parental relationships are, how the child who seeks approval will be the adult who seeks approval if the issues between, in this case, father and son remain unresolved.

The director, Winston Young, who grew up in Harlem, he and his brother raised by their grandparents, said he was guided by caring adults who saw his potential and pushed him to succeed, but he too was scarred by his dad’s absence.

Shows are Friday-Saturday, Jan. 19-20, 8 p.m., and Sunday, Jan. 21, 3 p.m., at the Bay Area Repertory Theater in the Malonga Center, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Visit www.bayarearep.org or call (510) 464-3086.

East African Hip Hop Tour

The African Vuta Pumz USA Tour features the undisputed Kings of East African Afro-Pop Music Longombas with special guests Bamboo and Ida Onyango this Saturday, Jan. 20, at the Karibbean City Restaurant, 1408 Webster St., at 14th Street, in Oakland. The show is 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Advance tickets are $20, $25 at the door, available at www.blackmedley.com.

Michael Wang, director of the award-winning film, “Hip Hop Colony,” www.hiphopcolony.com/, featuring, among others, Bamboo, one of the guests Saturday night, said that the African Vuta Pumz USA Tour (October 2006 to January 2007) is a nostalgic celebration of African music in addition to a drive to raise awareness and collect gifts and donations for unfortunate kids back in Africa. The event is organized by True Blaq Entertainment Group and Zawadi Foundation, www.zawadiforkids.org. Organizers are asking patrons to bring new unwrapped gifts for children in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The African Vuta Pumz USA Tour will be documented in a film entitled, “Gifts Bring Smiles to Unfortunate Kids in Africa,” which will air on most TV stations around the world in 2007.

This tour is a first for a top East African group; it is also a first to be accorded the merit of an “international group” by the U.S. Musicians Union through the P-1 non-immigrant visa. Longombas fans will be treated to some of the group’s smashing hits from their latest album, “Chukua,” that include “Usinihande,” “Piga Makofi,” “Vuta Pumz,” “Dondosa,” “Shikamore,” to mention a few. For info regarding the Oakland show, call (707) 631-5255.

Mia Paschal’s ‘This Lily Was (Fontana)’

“This Lily Was (Fontana)” is being performed on Wednesday, Jan. 24, at 8 p.m. at The Marsh in San Francisco, as part of the Marsh Rising series. In this latest work, Mia Paschal examines the life of a character flirting with suicide attempts, mutilation and other psychiatric disorders. When she told me there was even humor in the work, I wondered how anything so painful could be funny, but for this talented playwright and actress, nothing is impossible if the reviews and a “Best of San Francisco Fringe Festival 2006 – Best Dramatic Female Solo” award are any indicator.

In Mia Paschal’s work, she examines the life of a cutter on the run from Arkansas to Paris to Amsterdam, from Harvard to a Hungarian terrorist cell in Queens to a Milanese psych ward, who discovers a deeper truth that will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered “Why?”

San Francisco Fringe audience members said: “It sings with a transcendent beauty,” “wonderful comedic moments,” “a truly excellent and courageous piece of theatre,” “pure poetry in motion,” “exceptional talent and stage presence,” “Mia transcends her pain and reigns triumphant.”

The Marsh is located at 1062 Valencia St., near 22nd Street, in San Francisco. Tickets are $8-$12, sliding scale, and can be purchased at the door or online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/9568. For more information about the performance, call (415) 826-5750 or visit www.themarsh.org. For more information about “This Lily Was (Fontana),” visit www.miapaschal.com.

Poverty, Technology & Environmental Health: Challenges & Lessons from Nigeria

Mohammed Ibrahim, a Ph.D. candidate at the Western Institute for Social Research who comes from Nigeria, will be visiting and leading two seminars at WISR, 3220 Sacramento, Berkeley, (510) 655-2830, Thursday and Friday, Jan. 18 and 19, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. They will be co-facilitated with WISR faculty members John Bilorusky and Cynthia Lawrence. The seminars will be based on two papers he has worked on in the past year: “Two Stroke Engine Technology: A Factor in Poverty Alleviation or a Menace to Health, Safety and Environment, A Case Study of An African Country: Nigeria” and “The Use of Natural Gas in Diesel Fuel Powered Electric Generating Plants In Nigeria.”

Mohammed is a former special assistant to the president on petroleum resources in Nigeria and is a member of the country’s think tank that fashioned and is implementing the current economic reforms program for Nigeria, “The National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS).” Mohammed has written and delivered papers in the fields of engineering, law and medicine. Consult the special, one-page flyer about Mohammed and his seminar topics on WISR’s web site, www.wisr.edu.

‘100 Families’ Exhibit opens Jan. 20

I remember Mildred Howard’s powerful installation during Dia de Los Muertos at the Oakland Museum in 2003. She used tiny red handgun pushpins alongside the faces of those killed on a large map of Oakland reminiscent of police crime maps. It was powerful, so powerful philanthropist Noel Perry was inspired to create the “100 Families” project in collaboration with the California College of the Arts’ Center for Art and Public Life – the idea to use art to create social change. For about two years, the project, which began at the East Oakland Youth Development Center, moved from neighborhood to neighborhood with adults and children involved in art-making projects ranging from textile art to painting and sculpting on a large and small scale with Bay Area artists.

Saturday, Jan. 20, there is a reception from 1 to 3 p.m. for all the artists involved in the neighborhood project, from Fruitvale, Chinatown and East Oakland to West Oakland, at the Oakland Museum.

Family Exploration programs in conjunction with the “100 Families Oakland” exhibit, curated by Mildred Howard, begin with Musical Masterpieces, Sunday, Jan. 28, 1-5 p.m. Participants will both listen to jazz musicians improvising to paintings by African American artists and create their own masterpiece inspired by the live music. All supplies are provided. There will also be community painting led by Jimi Evins. “100 Families Oakland” artists will be present, along with special guest drummer Alassane Kane and dancer-choreographer Linda Johnson. The event is included with museum admission. The exhibit continues through April 22.

The Oakland Museum of California is at 1000 Oak St. at 10th, one block from the Lake Merritt BART, across the street from Laney College. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, free for kids 5 and under, Oakland city employees and OMCA members. For information, call (510) 238-2200. Hearing impaired: TTY (510) 238-3322. Visit www.museumca.org for more information about the other programs scheduled in conjunction with “100 Families Oakland”: Lunar New Year Celebration on Sunday, Feb. 18, 1-5 p.m., and Family Explorations! Celebrate “100 Families Oakland” on Sunday, March 18, 1-4:30 p.m.

Films

“Children of Men” is worth a gander. Set in the UK, the people are sterile, that is, until a sister pops up pregnant and the anarchists see the child as a symbol of hope and unity. Watch out for the usual stereotypical blunders Hollywood loves, such as a “hoochie mama Black woman,” casting the only Black man with lines as a villian and letting the savior be a white man who, get this, gives his life for her.

“Déjà vu” with Denzel Washington as a detective is another great film. Set in New Orleans post Katrina, the detective is able to change the future when scientists invent a program that can bend space and time.

“The Last King of Scotland” is back in theatres as of Friday, Jan. 19, now that Forest Whitaker has gotten the Golden Globe; I’m not looking forward to another film about Black people killing Black people, but I want to see Whitaker. The fabulous Jennifer Holiday and Eddie Murphy also got Golden Globe Awards for their roles in “Dreamgirls.”

Cal Performances

There are too many great shows coming up this month and next, among them the Peking Acrobats this weekend, Jan. 20-21, Bobby McFerrin and Voicestra Jan. 24, Spanish Harlem Jazz Orchestra Feb. 10, Alvin Ailey Company Feb. 28-March 4, Paco de Lucia Jan. 31-Feb. 1, Kodo, Gilberto Gil and others. Visit www.calpers.berkeley.edu.

Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Visit her website, www.wandaspicks.com, for an expanded version of Wanda’s Picks and for exciting “web exclusives.”

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