Wanda's Picks Radio Show May 14, 2010

We open the show with Dave Room and Jonathan Gramling speaking about Take Back the Mic kickoff at Ashkenaz Music and Dance Center, 1317 San Pablo Avenue(@ Gilman, in Berkeley, Thursday, May 20, 7:30 PM. Take Back the Mic is building the groundwork for the Bay Area eco-justice community to connect with mainstream media in a meaningful way. Take Back the Mic Campaign is a way to help communities tell their own stories and define themselves. Visit www.takebackthemic.com/


Art Exhibit
“Past Forward: African Spirituality in Contemporary Black Art,” through August 19, 2010 at the Sargent Johnson Gallery at the AAACC at 762 Fulton Street, in San Francisco. There is an artist talk, May 29, 2-4 PM at the AAACC. Both the talk and art exhibit are free. There are seven artists in the show curated by Demetrie Broxton, Duane Deterville is one of them.

Duane Deterville is a visual artist, writer and scholar of visual culture. His area of expertise is African and Afridiasporic visual culture. He is co-author of the book “Black Artists in Oakland,” published by Arcadia press in 2007 and the creative director of three symposiums on Jazz. Deterville is currently a columnist for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s on line publication “Open Space” and holds a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts along with a Masters Degree in Visual and Critical Studies.

Parables, Fables, Musings of Plato Negro by Marvin X

No where can one find a writer who produces work as quickly as El Muhajir (Marvin X), his latest work, Parables, Fables, Musings of Plato Negro, will have a reading performance Saturday, May 15, 2 PM at the African American Museum and Library, at Oakland, 14th Street @ MLK Jr. Way. It is also a benefit for Black Bird Press.

The event is free; however, copies of Parable/Fable will be available for a $100 donation. Visit www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.com Marvin X is one of the most important poets and playwrights who set the tone for the socially committed Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. He has always been on the forefront of Pan African writing, Amiri Baraka write’s of him. Baraka goes on to say that “[Marvin] is one of the founders and innovators of the revolutionary school of African writing.”


Pamela Z
Pamela Z is a composer/performer who makes solo works combining a wide range of vocal techniques with electronic processing, samples, and gesture activated MIDI controllers. She has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. Her new work, Baggage Allowance opens at Artaud Theater, now managed by Z-Space Studios, 450 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110 zspace@zspace.org , (415)626-0453. Also visit www.pamelaz.com

“Baggage Allowance”
In this sonically and visually layered work, Pamela Z explores baggage in all its literal and metaphorical permutations. Through performance with voice and electronics, found text, recorded interviews, multi-channel sound, interactive video, and sculptural objects, Baggage Allowance scans and inventories the belongings (and memories) we all cart around – examining baggage as both impediment and treasure.