The UCSD contemporary music/theater group Kallisti is presenting “The Threepenny Opera” in May. Susan Narucki, a music professor at UCSD and Grammy-winning singer, leads the kallisti group and is co-starring in the production directed by (and co-starring) Ruff Yeager. Narucki and her Kallisti Ensemble, which does one experimental opera/musical theater show each year, were in rehearsal on this recent Friday.
The annual Project Concern International (PCI) Walk for Water 5K highlights the crisis in many countries where people lack water, having to walk miles to get that precious commodity. At this event, participants walked for 5 kilometers while holding a bucket of water or putting one on their heads – to simulate what people in some countries do. The Musa family sisters, who are originally from Kenya and now live in City Heights, demonstrated how they used to walk with buckets full of water on their heads back in their homeland. (Some of the containers used for demonstrations were filled with sand in place of water.) The sisters were also there to talk about their first-hand experiences of dealing with water shortages.
Local children, ages 6 to 17 gather for rehearsal for the Steampunk version of Alice in Wonderland, “Queen of Hearts”. The production is being staged by a small theatre group, Theatre Arts School of San Diego.
Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui has an amazing vision. He crafts metal sculpture from old liquor bottle caps, weaving them into a tapestry-like metal fabric. Anatsui, who resides in Nigeria, poses with some of his color fabric installations at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, Downtown. The fabrics are created from liquor caps painstaking sewn together with metal pieces. El Anatsui creates other sculpture from wood and old newspaper press printing plates.
I was recently out and about at Belmont Park in the Mission Beach area of San Diego where I noticed there have been a lot of changes and upgrades. These photos were the centerpiece for a business story highlighting the new developments at the park, the most notable of which are the debut of the upper level restaurant, Cannonball and a glass elevator that took months and months to complete.
This Mission Hills garden is featured in the SD Horticultural Society/San Diego Floral Society combined garden tour, which is linked to the Balboa Park Centennial. The garden is a mature garden and generally is in full bloom by May. The garden was designed by Sinjen, well-known late landscape designer, who is known for having trees beautifully laced out. The family also converted a former playhouse into a chicken coup, now home to 5 chickens.
San Diego seems be a leader when it comes to craft breweries and beer pubs, which seem to spring forth on most every corner these days. And the East Village is no exception with
The Half Door Brewing Company, a new Irish Pub, opening in a remodeled 1906 House at 903 Island Ave, downtown San Diego. Coleman’s stout is brewed on premises, and specialties include fish and chips, Brewer’s pie and sausage mac n’ cheese.
“Mr. Doctor”, co-written by the Tony Award-winning actor BD Wong, is a very powerful production, set during WWII in Poland. Wong is developing and acting in the production (alongside SDSU students) as part of his La Jolla Playhouse residency.This reading was staged at the SDSU’s Experimental Theatre.
Creating images in dimly lit areas or where the availible light is always changing is always a challenge for photographers. Recently, I photographed the San Diego Musical Theatre rehearsing for its staging “West Side Story” at the Spreckels Theatre, downtown. The night I arrived, was actually the first night the lighting crew and actors took to the stage. The lighting design had not yet developed significantly, which left me waiting for actors to fall into the little lighting there was available during the time allotted for me to photograph. I enjoyed this lighting challenge!
December 4, 2014. San Diego, CA.
Two hundred local school children gathered at the Ray and Joan Kroc Center in San Diego to received new bicycles, purchased and built by inmates at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. As participants gathered and registered inmates made last minute adjustments to the bikes just prior to the start of the holiday event.
The children also received helmets, bike locks and other goodies. Padres players and the Friar mascot were also on hand. A bike rodeo, organized by city of La Mesa and la Mesa Police Department to follow the event in a parking lot behind the Joan B. Kroc Theatre.
