Sights & Sounds is your weekly guide to the Bay Area arts scene through the eyes and ears of local artists. This week, our guest is RupaMarya, composer, guitarist and lead singer for her band, Rupa and the April Fishes. Marya dropped by the KALW studios to chat with Jen Chien and give her picks for cool arts happenings around the Bay this weekend.
On Friday night, 9/4, artist Guillermo Gómez Peña performs a spoken word monologue, Imaginary Activism: The role of the artist beyond the art world at 7pm at Durham Studio Theater at UC Berkeley.
MARYA: Peña is an incredibly inspiring deep thinker. He says his performance is "embodied poetry," and that is a great way to describe what he does.
The San Francisco Mime Troupe performs Freedomland, a musical about racial targeting and the militarization of police, in their final shows of the season on Sunday, 9/6, and Monday, 9/7, at 2pm in San Francisco's Dolores Park. These shows feature a post-performance discussion with Jeff Adachi, elected Public Defender of San Francisco, along with Hector Velez and David Ramos, both of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network.
MARYA: This year's show looking at the relationship between the police and a Black community is extremely timely, biting, satirical, and hilarious.
On Monday, 9/7, Hiero Day takes place from 11am-7pm at 3rd and Chestnut in Oakland. It's the fourth year for this annual, one day, outdoor music festival presented by Oakland’s long-standing hip-hop collective Hieroglyphics. This year's lineup features Hieroglyphics, Zion I, and The Coup.
MARYA: I just love The Coup's song "I Love Boosters" because the lyrics are great. To me this song really illuminates what we have to do to get by in a system that is not fair.
