Welcome to the EastSide Arts Alliance & Cultural Center!
We are an organization of Third World artists, cultural workers, and community organizers of color committed to working in the San Antonio and other Oakland neighborhoods to support a creative environment that improves the quality of life for our communities and advocates for progressive, systemic social change.
Self Respect, Self Defense, Self Determination
The ongoing onslaught of police & vigilante killings of African Americans around the country is symptomatic of the broadening repression in U.S. society’s rapid swing to the right, also characterized by the buildup of a fascistic prison industrial complex and an emboldened xenophobic commander-in-cheif.
The just call for Black Power identifies the struggle between Black people and oppressive political systems in the US and globally that are based on White Supremacy.
Black Power is a critical challenge to the hypocrisy of so-called American democracy and points to the disempowerment and disfranchisement of Black and all oppressed communities of color.
So we say: BLACK POWER MATTERS and support calls to DEFUND THE POLICE and DEFEND BLACK LIVES. This is a call to organize. We must continue to support organizations, alliances, united fronts and coalitions within and between our communities.
A global uprising demanding systemic changes in how we govern our own communities is underway. EastSide’s work is devoted to raising the cultural consciousness of our respective communities to fight for political empowerment. In the continuum of the artists and activists who came before us, are committed to:
-
SELF RESPECT - To raise political and cultural awareness and values based on a progressive and de-colonized national consciousness
-
SELF DEFENSE - To recognize police repression as a key component of institutional racism and White Supremacy and as an inherent feature of U.S. Capitalism.
-
SELF DETERMINATION - Community control of our institutions and political empowerment for Black and all Third World and oppressed peoples.
All in person events at the Cultural Center
have been postponed.
Look for posts on virtual events.
Live Arts in RESISTANCE (LAIR) VIRTUAL is a livestream program talking with local artists about their artistic work, dreams and community work.
NAKA Dance Theater, San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and East Side Arts Alliance presents..
LAIR Virtual: Featuring Alleluia Panis
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2020
6:30-7:30 PM PDT
Facebook Live
LiveArts in Resistance (LAIR) Virtual**Ancestral Knowledge, Art and Resistance** Featuring Alleluia Panis
In this time of COVID and amidst powerful calls for racial justice, EastSide Arts Alliance and NAKA Dance Theater have launched a series of 5 presentations in collaboration with World Arts West.
On October 20, 2020, join us for a conversation between Anne Huang, Executive Director of World Arts West and Alleluia Panis. Alleluia Panis is an American Pilipino director, choreographer, and non-profit arts leader. She has created over twenty full-length dance theater works that have been presented on stages in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She has received numerous awards, including the inaugural Artistic Legacy Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission in 2017 and the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Commission for Choreographers for her 2019-2021 dance and film project, ‘In the Belly of the Eagle’. Alleluia is a recipient of the 2021-23 Hewlett 50 Art Commission for Choreography.
Panis is the Artistic and Executive Director of Kularts, the nation’s premiere presenter of contemporary and tribal Pilipino arts. Her dance film, ‘She, Who Can See’ was officially selected and screened at the 2018 CAAMFest formerly known as the SF Asian American International Film Festival. She served as a member of National Performance Network’s Artists Committee, and as a board member of Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, Brava! For Women in the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and Dance Bay Area. She’s an active member of San Francisco’s SOMA Pilipinas, Filipino Cultural Heritage District.
This event will be streamed live on Facebook.
Sign Language interpretation by Christine Nakahara and MJ Jones.
***
East Side Arts Alliance, NAKA and the Okinawa Association of America's Afro-Okinawan Dialogues Series presents...
Ariko Ikehara: Community Mapping at Okinawa's Koza Crossroads
Thursday, October 29, 2020
7-8:30 PM PDT
This is an online event
Join us for a conversation with Ariko Ikehara with William Roper and Shō Tanaka.
ASL interpreted by Christine Nakahara and Eboni Gaytan.
Ariko will speak about MiXtopia, a community research center that lies at the heart of Teruya, formerly known as the Black District in central Okinawa. Representing Koza’s Crossroads or the coming together of many communities, the center is currently conducting a community mapping project that works to document the everyday life of Okinawans who not only survive but thrived in the district, which includes the market, the business, and the bar and entertainment, as one intersecting border that brought together Okinawans, Black Soldiers, and multi-ethnic and national communities in the aftermath of the Pacific War. Join us for a conversation with the founder and director of MiXtopia Ariko Ikehara as she speaks with Los Angeles based musician William Roper about what MiXtopia means to her and how she intends to use art as a decolonial and performance art/life method to represent MiXtory (history, story, mystery) of the way we think about research. This talk is co-sponsored as part of the EastSide Arts Alliance / NAKA Dance Theater’s Live Arts Resistance series (Oakland) and the Afro-Okinawan Dialogue Series created by the Okinawa Association of America (Los Angeles).
***
Ariko S. Ikehara is a Director at Koza X MiXtopia Research Center in Okinawa. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 2016. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Osaka University (2017_19), and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Gender and Women Studies at UC Berkeley (2016). Her peer-reviewed published works are “Champurū Text: Postwar Okinawan Writing,” Beyond American Occupation: Race and Agency in Okinawa, 1945-2015. Lexington Press. 2017., and “Third Space as Decolonial Con/Text: Okinawa’s American Champurū.” Transnational Asia: An Online Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 1-1. Fall, 2016. Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University. She is currently working on a book manuscript working-title ‘‘Okinawa’s MiXtopia: Teruya Soul MiXtory”, which is a choreographic study of a place known as the black district that existed during the American occupation on Okinawa. Her forthcoming essay “Sketches of Teruya: MiXtory of Place” will be published in The Avery Review, a project of the Office of Publications at the Columbia University Graduate Schools of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
William Roper is a multi-disciplinary artist residing in Los Angeles. His primary foci are music composition, music performance and improvisation, and the visual arts. He performs on instruments in the low brass family, several ethnic aerophones and instruments of his own design. He creates works that merge music, theatre, extemporaneous spoken word and the visual arts. His works explore histories of place, ethnic and cultural groups, and self-history. William studied at CSU Northridge, Cleveland Institute of Music, Case Western Reserve University and Carnegie-Mellon Reserve University. As a musician, his experience ranges from symphonic music to free improvisation. He has performed or recorded with artists such as Gustavo Dudamel, Elton John, Wadada Leo Smith and Yusef Lateef. He has toured Japan, Europe, and the two Americas, as soloist and ensemble musician. He is represented on motion picture soundtracks and 60+ recordings, twelve as leader. He has fulfilled commissions from music and dance ensembles. He has been resident artist at institutions domestically, in Germany and Japan. His visual art has been exhibited in the U.S. and Europe. He has received awards from the NEA, California Arts Council, L.A. Dept of Cultural Affairs and others.
Shō Tanaka is a Yonsei writer and wanderer. His grandmother’s family（⼭城）immigrated to the Los Angeles area from Taminato, a village in the Yanbaru rainforest in northern Okinawa. His grandfather’s family（⽥中）emigrated from Buzen Shoe, Fukuoka to Tlingit territory settling in Juneau, Alaska. He believes that through sharing food and story we can work to heal legacies of violence that have accumulated within our collective body, mind, and spirit. Currently Shō resides on Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ Territory (Victoria, British Columbia) but his ancestral homeland lies somewhere in the depths of amerikkka.
𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐎-𝐎𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐍 𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒:
Hosted by the Okinawa Association of America, this interactive discussion series will provide a platform to yuntaku (talk story) in a space that centers Black/African descended peoples and their experiences within the Okinawan community. Acknowledging that Japan, Okinawa and the United States each have their own unique forms of anti-Black racism, we hope that these dialogues will provide a space to challenge stereotypes and diversify our understanding of Blackness in Okinawa and the Okinawan diaspora. Each dialogue will be discussion based and feature a Q&A with artists, activists, academics and community members whose work exists at the intersections of Black and Okinawan community issues. Potential topics discussed may include understanding mixed race politics, dismantling anti-Black racism and celebrating Black/Okinawan art forms.
NAKA Dance Theater, San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and East Side Arts Alliance presents..
LAIR Virtual: Featuring Kiazi Malonga
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2020
7:30-8:30 PM PDT
Facebook Live
LiveArts in Resistance (LAIR) Virtual **Ancestral Knowledge, Art and Resistance** Featuring Kiazi Malonga
In this time of COVID and amidst powerful calls for racial justice, EastSide Arts Alliance and NAKA Dance Theater are launching a series of 5 presentations in collaboration with World Arts West.
On November 3, 2020, join us for a conversation between Anne Huang, Executive Director of World Arts West and Kiazi Malonga. Kiazi Malonga is a second-generation Congolese American born into a family of artists. He was first introduced to the ngoma at the age of two by his father, Malonga Casquelourd, who was a world-renowned traditional artist from Congo Brazzaville. Casquelourd traveled to the US in 1972 and shortly after, began to build his empire in traditional arts in the US. It was in this setting that Kiazi was trained and learned about his Congolese cultural heritage.
Kiazi became the lead drummer of Fua Dia Congo at 16 and began teaching at that age as well. He has taught and performed in the US, Canada, Costa Rica, Europe and Africa. Kiazi currently teaches Congolese traditional music and dance in Oakland.
This event will be streamed live on Facebook!
Sign Language interpretation by Christine Nakahara and Eboni Gaytan.
***
NAKA Dance Theater, San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and East Side Arts Alliance presents..
LAIR Virtual: Featuring Victor Torres
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2020
6:30-7:30 PM PDT
Facebook Live
LiveArts in Resistance (LAIR) Virtual **Ancestral Knowledge, Art and Resistance** Featuring Victor Torres
In this time of COVID and amidst powerful calls for racial justice, EastSide Arts Alliance and NAKA Dance Theater are launching a series of 5 presentations in collaboration with World Arts West.
On November 17th 2020, join us for a conversation between Anne Huang, Executive Director of World Arts West and Victor Torres. Dr. Victor Torres, Ph.D., is a full Professor in the Department of Chicano and Latin American Studies at California State University, Fresno. He is currently director of Fresno State’s Los Danzantes de Aztlán Mexican dance program, one of the Central Valley’s most established and accomplished programs. Under his direction, the program has earned top awards in Binational (US-Mexico) and national competitions. The group has made three recent appearances in the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.
Dr. Torres is also on the Board of Directors of the Asociación Nacional de Grupos Folklóricos (ANGF), serving as Vice-President and Parliamentarian. He is the founder of the annual Festival de Los Danzantes folklórico conference, the annual Cal State Folklórico show (which features various California State University groups), and the High School Folklórico Summit. Dr. Torres is also a member of the Danzantes del Valle Advisory Committee for Arte Americas–Fresno’s major Latino cultural center.
This event will be streamed live on Facebook!
Sign Language interpretation by Christine Nakahara and Juan Ramirez.
***
EastSide Arts Alliance and dNaga Dance Company presents:
GIRL Project Virtual Hangouts:: Balance
Cyber Space via Zoom
Wednesdays 3:30-4:30pm
Girl Project is maintaining weekly hour long hangouts via zoom where we kick it, take some time to catch up, create art, and get to see each others faces. All GP family is invited, alumni and current!
Girl Project wants to remains here for our girls the best way we now how, by creating space and spending time together. Email to receive the zoom link and we will see you there!!
And don't forget
HOLLA BACK VIRTUAL HOLLABACK ON IG
@Eastsidecultural
EBALDC/Asian Resource Center Gallery and EastSide Arts Alliance present…
A Virtual Reception with Artist
Claudio Talavera-Ballon
Somos tierra que anda – We are Earth that Walks
Recorded interview with the Artist click link below
Available in Spanish with English Simultaneous translation
Somos tierra que anda – We are Earth that Walks tells the story of the Central American migrants in the recent caravans, who are traveling north in search of a better life. The artwork explores the suffering, strife and hopes of those traveling from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries. The exhibit seeks to change the biased narrative portrayed by the media and offer a glimpse of hope. It is also an invitation for needed conversations to help us move beyond this highly charged conflict and towards a solution.
Also featured are women who make the often tragic journey less strenuous for migrants thanks to their compassion, courage, and determination to help. It portrays the women of La Patrona, who feed migrants traveling atop the freight train La Bestia, which carries hundreds of people without access to food or water through treacherous deserts and jungles. The paintings also depict DACA recipients (Dreamers) and community leaders who, through their resistance and dedication, are advocating for those who have completed the journey and are trying to make a new life in the US.
Talavera-Ballón is a Peruvian-born oil painter and muralist based in San Francisco, CA. His work highlights the lives and struggles of farm workers, indigenous people and immigrants throughout Latin America and the US. He has exhibited his works in museums, universities and embassies internationally and in the US, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cusco, the Peruvian Embassy in Washington DC, and Galería de la Raza, San Francisco.
