Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Wednesday February 25, 2009 - 08:05:00 PM

THURSDAY, FEB. 26 -more-

Central Works Stages ‘The Window Age’

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet

Wednesday February 25, 2009 - 08:02:00 PM

“I respect your privacy—but I would really like to get inside that head of yours.” The triangulation of the endless ways of seeing another—or ourselves through the eyes of another, who is seen by yet another still—are visited and revisited by the interlocked trio of characters in Christopher Chen’s The Window Age, staged by Central Works at the Berkeley City Club, a triumph of their particular style of collaboration between author, actors, director and designers developing a show. -more-

Contemporary Women and Islam

By Helen Rippier Wheeler Special to the Planet

Wednesday February 25, 2009 - 08:02:00 PM

Set against the backdrop of Chaharshanbe Suri, the ancient Iranian tradition that in recent years has taken the form of public protest, Fireworks Wednesday focuses on a young woman from a poor Tehran neighborhood who has been assigned to clean an apartment in another part of the city. It was released as a motion picture in 2006; the DVD is in Farsi with English subtitles. -more-

Two East Bay Youth Art Events

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet

Wednesday February 25, 2009 - 08:01:00 PM

Two very different events this weekend feature—and celebrate—the musical talents of East Bay young people. -more-

Berkeley’s Modoc Past: ‘A Homesick Indian Girl’

By Richard Schwartz Special to the Planet

Wednesday February 25, 2009 - 08:05:00 PM

This 1908 image of an undeveloped area in Berkley’s Thousand Oaks neighborhood reveals a rock with Indian mortars. There were many scores of Indian sites all over Berkeley, more than anyone, including archeologists, anticipated, most having been recorded only in the past decade or so. There is evidence of Indian occupation from at least 5900 years ago in Berkeley. When the Spanish arrived with the mission system in 1769, the Indians of the East Bay were essentially driven from their homes by the forces of the church and Spanish military. When the Americans arrived, he treatment of Indians in California reached a new low. There were many incidents of slavery, including child slavery in the area around Berkeley. Raids were made to the North and Indians, many women and children, were brought to the area against their will to work on local ranches. By the late 1800s the practice had been modified to the use of Indian children as domestics in houses in the area, including Berkeley.

This article from the Berkeley Daily Gazette of Feb. 17, 1905, gives but a momentary glimpse into the life of a Modoc Indian girl on the threshold of womanhood: -more-

Berkeley Playhouse Presents ‘Once Upon This Island’

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet

Wednesday February 25, 2009 - 08:04:00 PM

On an unnamed island in the French Antilles, a little girl, found sheltered in the branches of a tree after a storm by a peasant couple, grows up to rescue someone herself, the son of a creole “grand homme” who lives in a great “hotel” on the other side of the mountain, and falls in love with the young man she’s healed—a love everyone says she cannot have. -more-

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival This Weekend

Monday March 02, 2009 - 05:26:00 PM

Just an hour up the road in Sonoma County, the Sebastopol Center for the Arts presents the second annual Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival this weekend, March 6-8. -more-