Berkeley Community Events

Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival Fills the Sidewalks of Berkeley!

When: Saturday, August 25, 10am-5pm

Where: Gourmet Ghetto, Shattuck Ave. in North Berkeley

What: A Chalk Art Contest + 20th Anniversary Celebration – FREE family event

  • Festival booths fill the blocks between Rose and Vine Streets.
  • Artists – grab some chalk -areas of sidewalk are assigned for you to create your own fanciful chalk drawings
  • Judging will begin after 4pm for the best drawing
  • Cash prizes: $150, $100, $50 and runners-up get a $25 gift certificate from Books Inc.  
  • EAT CHOCOLATE! Purchase tasting tickets ($1/ea. or 20/$20) at 1451, 1495, 1607 Shattuck Ave. on the day of the event or in advance
  • Oreo-stacking contest
  • Singha beer or wine near the CVS Performing Area at 1451 Shattuck
  • Live Music: Rusty String Express (Bluegrass) and Rolling Thunder (Dylan Tribute Band); at the Books Inc. Performing Area: Michelle Lambert (Indie Singer-Songwriter), Coventry & Kaluza (Circus Arts) and young rocker, Lorenzo Wood

    3rd Place Winner The Mad Hatter by Natasha Robinson

About the Chocolate

The to-go menu features over 25 items including chocolate rum gelato, English toffee, a chocolate rose des sables, dark chocolate truffles, Oreo shakes, bittersweet chocolate pudding, chocolate ganache cupcakes, or savory menu items such as chocolate-covered pancetta or a chocolate molé taco. For those over 21, there is coffee Campfire stout and for vegans there are cookies, brownies and gelato, too. You might even relax with a hand massage with chocolate-scented cream.Chocolate Menu items are available during the hours listed and only while supplies last. Items may be substituted. All items (except the beer) are sold ‘to-go’ only.

Sponsors

Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival is sponsored by the North Shattuck Association, North Berkeley Investment Partners, Vignette Wine Country Soda, Singha Beer, Safeway, Spokes Bicycles, 7×7, 510Families, Berkeley Community Media, Berkeleyside, East Bay Loop, and East Bay Express. For a good time, take BART to Downtown Berkeley and stroll north six blocks.

By |2018-08-24T10:48:32-07:00August 24th, 2018|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Baby Goats at Fourth Street’s County Fair!

Photo/Abrams/Millikan

WHEN: 

  • Sunday, August 5, 2018
  • 10am – 5pm

WHERE:

  • Activities on Delaware at Fourth Street in Berkeley (both west & east sides of the street)

WHAT:

  • Time to celebrate summer Fourth Street style with a good old-fashioned county fair and benefit event for Best Buddies!*
  • CARNIVAL GAMES (10-5PM)
    Location: east side of Fourth Street at Delaware
    Hi-Striker, Ring a Bottle, Rooster Roast, Basketball Shootout, Cat Rack, Plinko, Roller Bowler & prizes !
    Each game will cost $1 to play
    All ticket funds will benefit Best Buddies
  • MUSIC (11-5PM)
    Location: west side of Fourth Street at Delaware
    11am -12:45pm The Klipptones
    1-2:45pm Andrew Carriere & The Allstars
    3-4:45pm Fog Holler
    Free!
  • PIE EATING CONTEST (1PM)
    Location: east side of Fourth Street at Delaware

    Photo/Abrams/Millikan

    Thank you Bette’s To Go for the vanilla cream pies!
    ADULTS will race to eat a 9″ vanilla creme pie with whipped cream on top. Prize given for 1 winner!
    KIDS will each have a 6″ vanilla creme pie. Participant gifts given and 1 winner prize available.
    Free to play!

  • EAST BAY VIVARIUM (11-5PM)
    Location: west side of Fourth Street at Delaware
    Come visit the creatures from the East Bay Vivarium and if you want to see more, walk over to their shop at 1827 Fifth Street!
    Free!
  • FOOD (10-5PM)
    Location: parked on 5th Street at Delaware
    The Boneyard food truck will be parked on 5th Street and Delaware, at the east end of the event, offering awesome BBQ menus, sides plus a veggie option!
    Restaurants on Fourth Street include: Cafe M, Cafe Reveille, Zut, Iyasare, Bette’s Diner & To Go, Market Hall Foods & Tacubaya.
  • Free popcorn and cotton candy! Three Twins Ice Cream table!
  • PETTING ZOO (10-5PM)
    Location: east side of Fourth Street at Delaware
    Goats, sheep, pig, mini cow, pony, chickens, ducks, bunnies…
    Free.
  • ART BOOTH (10-5PM)
    Location: east side of Fourth Street at Delaware
    Our creative friends are dreaming up an artsy activity for kids ages 3 and up!
    Free.
  • CRITTER CALL CONTEST (3PM)
    Location: east side of Fourth Street at Delaware
    Give us your best animal sound on the mic! Prize for most creative, best sounding critter.
    Free to participate.
  • BUBBLE SHOW (3-5PM)
    Location: west side of Fourth Street at Delaware
    We have invited Sterling the Bubblesmith to join us for 2 hours. He creates various types of bubbles, be they huge singles or millions of mini bubbles will fill the air. This is a great show no matter your age, but kids love to scream and chase them!!
    Free.
  • PUPPET SHOW (11 & 11:45AM)
    Location: east side of Fourth Street at Delaware
    Caterpillar Puppets and famed puppeteer Joe Leon will be offering two shows. Come laugh with us! All ages welcome!
    Free.
  • FACE PAINTING (1-4PM)
    Location: west side of Fourth Street at Delaware
    Our favorite face painter Dinnie will be here from 1-4PM! Come early, the line can get long!
    Free.
  • DINING & SHOPPING ACTIVITIES ON THE STREET

    Photo/Fourth Street website

    RABAT (1825 Fourth Street) Summetime Shoe Sale now happening with up to 75% off selected styles plus all handbags 25% off
    EARTHSAKE (1772 Fourth Street) Offering 20% off pure and local wool products, for this day on

* Best Buddies
Best Buddies International is a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with intellectual disabilities by providing opportunities for one-to-one friendships and integrated employment. UC Berkeley Best Buddies program matches people with intellectual disabilities with college students in one-to-one friendships, mutually benefiting both.

 

 

 

 

By |2018-08-03T13:58:26-07:00August 3rd, 2018|0 Comments

Kite Festival Paints the Skies at Berkeley Marina

Don’t miss the Berkeley Kite Festival – a FREE family event that will paint the skies over Berkeley this weekend.

WHEN: Sat/Sun, July 28/29 from 10am-6pm.

WHERE: Cesar E. Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina. Parking at the Marina or at

Golden Gate Fields (for $20), but the shuttle is FREE. (Use Buchanan St. access to beat the traffic)

WHAT: 32nd Annual Berkeley Kite Festival & West Coast Kite Championships

  • Fun Activities both days:
    Free Kite Flying Lessons
    Free Kite Making,
    Free Candy Drop, (According to this year’s sponsor, Hills Physicians Medical Group, healthy treats will be mixed with the candy!)
    Free Rokkaku Battle
  • Worlds Largest Octopus Kite
  • Humongous Kites: Bigger than a house and longer than a train!
  • Sodo-Cho Kite Team from Hamamatsu, Japan. Amazingly, their kites are made from fine paper and bamboo.
  • Bay Area Sport Kite League
  • Great Food & Music!
  • Bounce House, Petting Zoo, Face-painting, Pony Rides and more!
  • Sunday evening dinner cruise!

KITE FLYING: Kites are for everyone – for artists, adventurists, animation fans, dreamers and those with a love of modern kite flying.

“ I love kites,” says Tom McAlister, owner of Highline Kites in Berkeley and founder of the Berkeley Kite Fest.”The physical act of looking up while flying kites makes you healthy. Become part of our Berkeley Kite Festival where the earth, wind, and sky combine to create an unequaled festival experience.

If you think about it, when you are flying a kite and looking up, your thoughts soar up into the beauty and freedom of colors and shapes flapping in the wind, touching the clouds and the blue sky. You almost experience the art of flying.

NOTE: The Kite Festival is FREE, but parking at the marina or at a shuttle stop (Golden Gate Fields) costs $20.  Shuttles from GGF are free.Valet parking for bikes is also available for free.

Highline Kites is located at 11 Spinnaker Way in the Berkeley Marina.

Kite Wranglers, John Khan with 50 foot Cat

 

 

It’s Opening Night! “On Beauty” Dancers Celebrate Conservationist Doug Tompkins

WHAT: On Beauty, co-presented by Nancy Karp + Dancers and the David Brower Center, is inspired by their current exhibition, Douglas R Tompkins. On Beauty is a site specific performance created by Nancy Karp, which celebrates the life and work of the late conservationist Doug Tompkins.

“If anything could save the world, I’d put my money on beauty.”-Douglas R. Tompkins

“On Beauty will reference imagery from the natural world in the choreography, exploring concepts of stasis and movement, darkness and light, a solid foundation and liquid motion over it, and how the boundaries between these opposites aren’t as rigid as they appear.”Nancy Karp

  • Choreographer: Nancy Karp
  • Composer: Charles Amirkhanian
  • Dancers: Sonsherée Giles, Sebastian Grubb, Amy Lewis, Megan Lowe, and Charles Slender-White

In Rehearsal at the David Brower Center Dancers: Megan Lowe, Sebastian Grubb, Amy Lewis, Charles Slender-White Photo/Bhumi B. Patel

WHEN: Performances  -February 9 – 11, 2018

WHERE: The David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way in Berkeley
(5-minute walk from Downtown Berkeley BART Station)

TICKETS: Online purchase

$35/$20 General Admission
Tickets on sale now!

“Truth and beauty can still win battles. We need more art, more passion, more wit in defense of the Earth.”David Brower  

About Douglas R. Tompkins and the Exhibit

The late conservationist Doug Tompkins was inspired by many notable environmentalists, including David Brower; in fact, Doug often quoted Brower in saying that his conservation work was “to pay my rent for living on the planet.” In 2008, the American Alpine Club awarded Doug the David R. Brower Award for his work preserving mountain regions. Additionally, Brower’s pioneering use of large-format photo books in the 1960s – to bolster the Sierra Club’s environmental campaigns – was carried on by Doug through his publishing efforts as part of his Foundation for Deep Ecology.

In March, the Chilean government announced the creation of 11 million acres of new national parks. That historic agreement was the culmination of Doug’s visionary land conservation work begun in the early 1990s. Creating national parks of that magnitude would have been enough accomplishment for anyone but, in Doug’s case, it followed the founding of The North Face and Esprit companies, legendary first descents of many wild rivers, first ascents of mountains on multiple continents, against-all-odds activist successes, and a life of relentless action.

The David Brower Center is honoring Doug’s life and work with Douglas R. Tompkins – On Beauty, a photography exhibition and accompanying book. The project will consider how the pursuit of beauty became a central, animating force in Doug’s intellectual development and informed his entire worldview. The exhibition and book also will explore several key themes: how the diversity of life emerges from beauty; how beauty and ecological health are intrinsically linked; and how Doug’s personal narrative intersects with conservation history, especially at this particular moment in humanity as we face a collapsing biosphere. View the book On Beauty. More about the David Brower Center. The exhibit continues until Feb. 21. Weekdays 9am-5pm and Saturdays 10am-2pm. They will be closed Saturday, Feb. 17 through Mon., Feb. 19 for the Presidents’ Day holiday. 

About the Music

A lush acoustical environment composed by Charles Amirkhanian from samples of bird calls and weather events will emanate from multiple loudspeakers as the musical accompaniment to On Beauty. Amirkhanian has a history of collaboration with Nancy Karp + Dancers having received one of his first music commissions from the dance company in 1984 for the interdisciplinary work Dot Bunch, with visual artist Carol Law.

The present 30-minute composition (Im Frühling) was commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne and the National Endowment for the Arts for a premiere at the Whitney Art Museum in New York in 1990. Its title was an often-used one in late 19th Century salon piano music and translates to “In Springtime.” In the 19th Century, composers such as Smetana, Dvorak and Liszt wrote “tone poems” that conjured the sound of nature and the narrative drama of the novella in the form of music played for symphonic instrumental forces. Im Frühling reverses this model so that, by means of digital technology, the sounds of nature are sampled and rearranged to imitate modern orchestral music. Sounds of birds and thunder were altered in the Synclavier studio of composer Henry Kaiser in Oakland, played back via keyboard, and mixed in the 24-track studios of Sprocket Systems (LucasFilm Co.) in San Rafael.

About Nancy Karp

Since forming Nancy Karp + Dancers in 1980, director Nancy Karp has choreographed more than 70 outstanding works for her company. She and company members have performed together in many distinguished venues, at home and abroad. These include The Washington Project for the Arts in Washington D.C., The Kitchen in New York, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle, the Fur Augen und Ohren and Sprachen der Kunste Festivals at the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin, Kyoto College of Art in Japan, and the Zagreb Experimental Theater Festival. Interdisciplinary collaboration is one of the company’s key focuses, and since its inception Ms. Karp has commissioned numerous composers, visual artists, and designers to work with her in the creation of new dances each season. Among these accomplished associates are Charles Amirkhanian, Alvin Curran, Paul Dresher, Ingram Marshall, Jay Cloidt, Sandra Woodall, Carol Law, Bill Fontana, Lutz Bacher, and Wolfram Erber.  More info.

 
By |2018-02-09T14:36:40-08:00February 6th, 2018|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Cocktails for a Cause: Save Berkeley Humane’s Dogs & Cats Sat. Night!

WHEN: Sat., Aug. 5th, 6pm – CLOSE

WHERE: SPATS, 1974 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94704

WHAT: A Night of Drinking for Good Paws! Guest bartenders at SPATS help you raise money for homeless cats and dogs at Berkeley Humane.

  • TIP your bartender since all tips will go to Berkeley Humane!

    Elliott & Carla up for a new home

  • DRINK. 10% of all drink sales will go to Berkeley Humane!
  • PURCHASE raffle tickets to win over $10,000 in prize packages!  100% of all proceeds will go to Berkeley Humane Animals.
  • On Special: Dr. Mac’s Mojito. Dr. Mac has hone this recipe over the past two decades. With every ingredient containing alcohol except for lime and lots of mint, he calls it a marvel of modern medicine!

WHO: Guest bartenders:

  • Jacqueline Bishop
  • Rauly Butler
  • Martina Chavez
  • Danetha Doe
  • Kirsten MacDonald
  • Grant Shoaf

About Berkeley Humane

Berkeley Humane serves the people and animals of our community by providing life-saving programs for cats and dogs, cultivating compassion, and strengthening the human-animal bond. Because the well-being of animals reflects the well-being of our community, they engage minds, hearts and hands to provide care for dogs and cats in the East Bay. Over 125 years of trusted service adn dedication to Berkeley and the East Bay.

About Spats

After a seven-year closure, Spats is back in business and ready to serve up cold beer, tasty cocktails, as well as new American pub food. Join them for a quick after work drink, dinner with friends or the game and a few beers. 1974 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94704 (510) 841-7225

By |2017-08-04T14:28:22-07:00August 4th, 2017|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

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