From the sizzing La Onda competition lineup to “La Boheme” and the Bay Space Guide Pageant, there’s a lot to see and do within the Bay Space this weekend.
Right here’s a partial roundup.
La Onda: One other spectacular lineup
Organizers have pulled collectively a extremely massive lineup for the second annual Pageant La Onda By BottleRock.
Marco Antonio Solis, Carin León, Banda MS, Pepe Aguilar and Grupo Firme are among the many well-known names on the invoice for this two-day Latin music showcase.
Different options acts embody Xavi, Tito Double P, Chino Pacas, La Receta, Camila Fernández, Los Aptos, Sonora Tropicana, MAR, Edgar Alejandro, Christian Nava, Eden Muñoz, Codiciado, Oscar Maydon, Ángela Aguilar, Clave Especial, Alicia Villarreal, Michelle Maciel, Reyna Tropical, Miguel Cornejo, Erre, Los De La 4, Adriana Ríos and Ysrael Barajas.
There’s a lot expertise in that La Onda lineup, however followers will actually be excited to see Solis, the singer-songwriter-guitarist who co-founded Los Bukis in 1975 and went to a vastly profitable solo profession. His record of No. 1 hits contains “Una Mujer Como Tu,” “Que Pena Me Das,” “Así Como Te Conocí” and “O Me Voy o Te Vas.”
León is one other large draw, with a catalog that features such in style albums as “Colmillo de Leche” and “Boca Chueca, Vol. 1.”
Particulars: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Could 31 and JUne 1; Napa Valley Expo, Napa; tickets begin at $218; LaOndaFest.com.
— Jim Harrington, Workers
This fest is an actual page-turner
If ever there was an area Woodstock for e book followers, it’s the Bay Space Guide Pageant, which in its eleventh 12 months will take over downtown Berkeley for 2 full days of literary reverie.
Although there’s enjoyable available on the 2025 fest the official theme — “Changing the Narrative” — isn’t so joyful, given (waves hand at all the things). Garrett Felber will speak about political prisoners via the lens of his biography of American prison-rights activist, Martin Sostre. Journalists Zack Beauchamp and Ari Berman will talk about the rise of authoritarianism and what it means for a free press, and financial consultants like Bernadette Atuahene will opine on systemic wealth inequality and corruption within the banking business.
Saturday is the competition’s Household Day on the Berkeley Public Library, in partnership with the Social Justice Kids’s Guide Honest, and each nights characteristic literary occasions at leisure venues like The Marsh and Freight & Salvage. There’s a Poetry Stage and a Small Press Alley. Plus, there’s an opportunity you’ll stumble upon your favourite writer milling within the crowd: Amongst this 12 months’s headliners are Pulitzer Prize-winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, “Bad Feminist” Roxane Homosexual and Native American authors Greg Sarris and Jon Hickey.
Particulars: Pageant runs Could 31 and June 1 at varied places in downtown Berkeley; free and ticketed occasions; tickets, schedule and extra info at www.baybookfest.org.
— John Metcalfe, Workers
SF Opera kicks off Summer time Season
San Francisco Opera’s 2025 Summer time Season kicks off its Summer time Season — ful;l of the form of thrills opera lovers stay for — with “La Bohème” on the Struggle Memorial Opera Home. Conductor Ramon Tebar leads the orchestra and two alternating casts in Puccini’s unforgettably touching story of younger artists falling in love throughout a chilly winter within the Paris demimonde. The ultimate gown rehearsal is 6 p.m. Could 31; full performances are June 3-21; tickets $28 and up; livestreams additionally accessible.
Particulars: Tickets/extra info at SFOpera.com.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
DocFest again with compelling movies
Is reality extra attention-grabbing than fiction? The San Francisco Documentary Movie Pageant (SF DocFest) delivers a convincing argument that that is the case. This 12 months’s program is stocked with 28 options and 58 shorts; practically all movies can be accessible to stream on-line whereas many filmmakers and others can be in attendance at in-person screenings.
In “Rebel With a Clause,” director Brandt Johnson travels together with grammar champion Ellen Jovin as she takes her in style “grammar table” out on the highway via 50 states. It shares opening night time honors (6:15 p.m. Could 29 on the Roxie) with “Peaches Goes Bananas” (8:30 p.m., Could 29, Roxie), which friends into the life and trailblazing profession of feminist queer artist Merrill Nisker aka Peaches. “Peaches Goes Bananas” can be accessible on-line.
And do you have to get soul-soothing nourishment from watching cat movies, you’ll positively wish to try “25 Cats From Qatar” (1 p.m. Saturday on the Roxie), director Mye Hoang’s (“Cat Daddies”) inspiring documentary about Milwaukee cafe proprietor Katy McHugh’s and different animal rescue volunteers efforts to relocate feral cats which are overrunning Doha, capital, the USA.
Particulars: Could 29-June 8, Roxie and Vogue theaters, San Francisco; sfdocfest2025
— Randy Myers, Correspondent
Friday on Entrance is your Freebie of the week
San Francisco’s newest ploy to try to perk up its downtown nightlife unfurls Could 30 with the cleverly titled Fridays on Entrance Avenue, which takes place Friday on, um, Entrance Avenue, from 4 to 9 p.m. between Sacramento and California Avenue. The free occasion options all of the staples of a cool road get together – booze, meals, stay music, video games and extra. The stay music lineup – curated by the Noise Pop competition – contains the versatile Bay Space pop/rock/R&B/funk band Curtis Household C-Notes (this can be a true household band; you could have caught them on “America’s Got Talent” or the JC Penney advertisements they’ve starred in) in addition to The Fell Swoop, Candy Lew and MC Broke-Ass Stuart.
There may even be a ping-pong desk and different video games that grow to be infinitely extra entertaining whenever you’ve had a drink or two, meals vehicles and extra enjoyable stuff. The three in style consuming institutions on the block – Royal Change, Harrington’s Bar & Grill and Schroeder’s – will all offer drink specials and their very own leisure. And a giant display screen within the neighborhood will broadcast the San Francisco Giants recreation. Extra Fridays on Entrance Avenue occasions are slated for July 18, Aug. 22 and Oct. 10.
Particulars: Extra info is at downtownsf.org.
Opera Paralléle’s season nearer
It’s a matter — and a larger-than-life persona — completely fitted to operatic therapy. The adventurous San Francisco firm Opera Paralléle is winding up its present season with a tightened model of composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Michael Korie’s “Harvey Milk Reimagined,” the West Coast debut of a reworked manufacturing that initially premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 1995 after which graced the San Francisco Opera stage in 1996. Shortened to 2 acts with a single intermission and extra compact casting and sung in English, it traces the youth and political evolution of the enduring activist who grew to become the primary overtly homosexual man to be elected to public workplace as a San Francisco supervisor in 1978, solely to be reduce down in a brutal double slaying that additionally took the lifetime of Mayor George Moscone lower than a 12 months later. Baritone Michael Kelly takes on the title position for his firm debut, and the opposite essential roles are stuffed by tenor Christopher Oglesby as Dan White, tenor Henry Benson as Scott Smith, bass Matt Boehler as George Moscone and soprano Marnie Breckenridge as Dianne Feinstein. Mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook dinner sings as Milk’s mom, and vocalist Curtis Resnick performs him as a younger boy. Opera Paralléle’s creative and common director Nicole Paiement conducts a 30-member orchestra.
Particulars: 7:30 p.m. Could 31; 3 p.m. June 1, 7:30 p.m. June 6, 5 p.m. June 7; Yerba Buena Middle for the Arts; San Francisco; $50-$180; operaparallele.org.
Celebratory swan music at Berk Symph
Conductor Joseph Younger of the Berkeley Symphony is leaving his place after six years on the podium, however not earlier than a last live performance titled “Triumph,” which takes place June 1 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Corridor. Younger, who was honored on the orchestra’s annual spring gala in early Could, will lead a program that’s anchored by Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor, famously argued as both an appeasing kowtow to the disapproving dictator Joseph Stalin or, in its last motion, a satirical jab at that clueless tyrant. Regardless, it stays the most well-liked of Shostakovich’s 10 symphonies at the moment. Additionally on this system are, in its Bay Space premiere, Gity Razaz’s “Methuselah (In Chains of Time”), with its evocation of the rugged bristlecone pines of California’s Inyo County; and Astor Piazzolla’s “Aconcagua,” with accordion virtuoso Hanzhi Wang featured as soloist.
Particulars: 4 p.m.; $30-$85; berkeleysymphony.org.
Dorian Reid’s “Black Cat Power Flag” is on show on the Bedford Gallery. (Bedford Gallery)
‘Limitless’ artwork in Walnut Creek
You continue to have a bit greater than three weeks to catch an exhibit in Contra Costa County which will open your eyes and serve up some superior artworks on the similar time. “Limitless,” an exhibit on show on the Bedford Gallery within the Lesher Middle for the Arts places the concentrate on artists with disabilities. The gathering options scores of works – work, prints, sculptures and extra — from 65 artists who’re members of the nonprofits Inventive Development, Creativity Explored and NIAD (Nurturing Independence via Inventive Improvement), which have been shaped by Florence Ludins-Katz and Elias Katz some 50 years to champion the rights and accomplishments of artists with mental and bodily disabilities.
The artists embody Berkeley multidisciplinary artist Dorian Reid, whose works usually middle on themes of social justice, civil rights and animal welfare (she is especially enamored with cats, whom she says convey her consolation). And Bay Space Filipino American artist John Patrick McKenzie, whose works, described as “visual poetry,” mix often-colorful calligraphy with references to in style tradition, geography, celebrities and different themes.
Particulars: Exhibit runs via June 22; Bedford Gallery is open midday to five p.m. Wednesdays via Sundays; admission is $5; www.bedfordgallery.org.
2 prime comedians hit Bay Space
In the meantime, iconic comic and actor Tommy Davidson, who broke out as a star on TV’s game-changing present “In Living Color,” holds forth at San Jose Improv. He has an nearly incomprehensibly lengthy record of TV and large display screen appearances, from guest-starring spots and supporting and voice roles to comedy specials and extra. However his profession, which took off after he received a comedy competitors at New York’s famed Apollo Theater after which headed for L.A., has its basis in stand-up, which is what he can be delivering in performances at 8 p.m. Thursday, 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. Friday, and seven and 9:15 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $31.14-$83.15; go to improv.com/sanjose.
