Welcome to “The Sights + Sounds Show with Jeneé Darden,” where every week we tap into the Bay Area arts scene and bring you rich conversations with artists. On today’s show, a dramatic play about a girls high school basketball team in the Deep South. Then, an artist who creates beautiful work by cutting paper. Finally, a literary festival is roaring back into Downtown Oakland.
Today’s theme is seeing the extraordinary, in the ordinary.
Margo Hall
The play “Flex” puts the basketball court on center stage. It's about a high-school girls basketball team in rural Arkansas. The young ladies are playing hard to make high school history and win a state championship. The play takes place around 1997-1998, not long after the launch of the WNBA. So some of the girls are dreaming of playing pro, but at what stakes? Rivalries, sisterhood, dreams and sexuality are a few of the themes in the show. Bay Area theater legend Margo Hall is the director of this all female cast.
"Flex" is currently running at the San Francisco Playhouse until May 2.
Bianca Levan
San Francisco-based artist Bianca Levan creates art not necessarily by putting something on paper, but taking something away from it. Her artistry is papercutting. She takes black paper and makes cuts that create beautiful, dreamy landscapes, scenes and designs. You can see her work, and meet her, this weekend at the annual Spring Open Studios at 1890 Bryant Street in the San Francisco Mission.
Paul Corman-Roberts and Keith Gaboury
April is National Poetry Month. We in the Bay Area are fortunate to live in a place with so many poetry readings. One you don’t want to miss is Beast Crawl. The festival began in 2012, and is the longest running literary festival in Oakland. This year you’ll have two weekends to indulge in poetry by some of the best poets in the Bay Area and beyond. Beast Crawl is free, but donations are welcome.
Paul Corman-Roberts is a co-founder of Beast Crawl and poet Keith Gaboury, is one of the festival's organizers. They tell us what to expect this year.
Beast Crawl is April 10-12 and 18-19 in Downtown Oakland.
