BUSD’s Fix-it Fest returns on Saturday, Feb. 28, where you can bring in broken items and get them fixed with the help of BUSD students and repair coaches. Courtesy: The Culture of Repair Project
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📚 The Fountain Theatre of Los Angeles, Adrienne Torf, and the Arts Research Center host a discussion and celebrate the legacy of June Jordan’s original Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley, featuring former student-teacher poets who worked directly with Jordan and instructors who continue her legacy. Thursday, Feb. 26, 3:30 p.m. Hearst Field Annex, D3. FREE
📘 Transit Books, an indie Berkeley-based book publisher, will have its inaugural book club featuring behind-the-scenes discussions on Transit-published books. This meeting will feature “A Very Cold Winter” by Fausta Cialente, where the book’s Italian-to-English translator and editor will discuss how they wrote the book and Cialente’s history as an early feminist and anti-fascist writer in Italy. (Read our stories about the book and about the publisher.) Thursday, Feb. 26, 6:30 p.m. 1250 Addison St., Suite 103. $10 for non-members
✡️ ✊🏿 Fresh off serving as a major voice in the new four-part PBS series “Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History,” San Francisco State Professor Marc Dollinger joins Ilana Kaufman, head of the Jews of Color Initiative, for an evening of dialogue centering on his recent book “Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s.” Thursday, Feb. 26, 6:30 p.m. The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. FREE (with registration)
♟️ UC Berkeley’s theater department presents the play “Adaptation” by Elaine May — produced, directed and performed by UC Berkeley undergraduate students. Adaptation is a satirical play featuring a reluctant game contestant, Phil, as he tries to progress through life as if moving through a game board, while the Game Master sets absurdist rules that reflect the futility of the American Dream. Thursday, Feb. 26 and Friday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m. Zellerbach Hall. FREE
🎭 Berkeley Rep is showing “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller, featuring Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner Jimmy Smits and acclaimed actress — and Smits’ real-life partner — Wanda De Jesús. The play begs the question of, “Who benefits and pays for the American Dream?”, while reimagining the play through the lens of a Puerto Rican family from the 1940s. Show runs through Sunday, March 29. $25-278
🎸 The Vernaculars, an all-star Bay Area improvisational ensemble featuring Karl Evangelista (guitar), Francis Wong (tenor saxophone), Chris Trinidad (bass), Jimmy Biala (drums), and David James (guitar), play the music of guitarist Sonny Sharrock’s 1991 album “Ask the Ages.” There will be shredding. Friday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m. The Back Room. $20-$25
🚴♀️ Just bought an e-bike and/or want to know how to ride one safely? (Read our story about e-bike culture in Berkeley.) An e-bike safety workshop hosted by Bike East Bay will cover safe riding techniques and battery maintenance, e-bike classifications and more. Friday, Feb. 28, 11 a.m.-noon. South Branch Library. FREE (RSVP required)
🎨 Now is your last chance to catch a local artist co-op’s latest exhibition featuring works from nine emerging artists. The works vary widely in medium, including 3D prints, collages, sculptures and tattoo art. Artist talks will take place on Saturday, Feb. 28, and Sunday, March 1, from 2-4 p.m. The gallery is open on Fridays from 6-8 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 1-5 p.m. 2727 California St. FREE
💃🏽 Conceived by Palestinian American choreographer Samar Haddad King, Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre presents the West Coast premiere of Gathering, a multilayered work that explores love, loss, trauma, and dislocation through movement, text, song, and puppetry. Friday-Sunday, Feb. 27-March 1. Zellerbach Playhouse. $64-$69
🌀 Central Works presents a world premiere of “After Happy,” a comedic play about what happens after a hurricane named Happy devastates Lake Charles, Louisiana. The owner of an oil company scrambles to find a Pirate Queen for the company-sponsored Pirate Festival, but when her niece Kat shows up to town unexpectedly, will Kat be the saving grace or downfall of the festival? Show runs from Feb. 28 to March 29. $35-45, with sliding scale $20-40 tickets available at noon day-of-show
🐎 The 20th Fourth Street Lunar New Year celebration launches the year of the Fire Horse at a gallop with an array of activities, including the Kei Lun lion dance. Gung hay fat choy! Saturday, Feb. 28, noon-4 p.m. Delaware at Fourth Street. FREE
🔨 If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but if it’s busted, the Berkeley school district has got your back. Bring your broken things to the district’s Fix-it Fest to get help from repair coaches and students on how to fix them. (Read our story on how the Fix-it Fest initiative began in 2024.) Registration is now open to get an item(s) fixed and/or participate as a volunteer. Bring small appliances, electronics, one-person wheeled transportation devices, clothing/textiles, toys, jewelry, small furniture and more, but items should be transportable by a single person. Owners’ manuals, spare or broken parts will increase the odds of a repair. Saturday, Feb. 28, 1-3:30 p.m. Longfellow Middle School. FREE
👧 Join an in-person screening of “Palestine 101 History for Kids,” a video-based curriculum designed to help children learn the history, culture and resistance of Palestine. Three modules will be shown, followed by a Q&A panel with the instructors of each module. Saturday, Feb. 28, 2-5 p.m. David Brower Center. FREE
🎶 Curious about why humans respond so strongly to music we love? Violinist, vocalist and teacher Lila Sklar expands your musical horizons with “Anatomy of a Song,” a workshop using mindfulness, close listening, discussion, and analysis of selected pieces of music to broaden understanding and appreciation of the rich world of sound. Feel free to bring an instrument if you play one. Saturday, Feb. 28, 4 p.m. Central Library. FREE
✊🏽 As part of the ongoing exhibit on Berkeley’s Latino community (read our story), which closes March 21, the Berkeley Historical Society & Museum explores the roots of Latino art and how that legacy has inspired the creativity of artists today with a presentation and artist discussion “Latino Visual Arts: Pride, Resilience, and Resistance.” Sunday, March 1, 1 p.m. Berkeley Historical Society & Museum. FREE (donations appreciated)
🎭 A one-woman show chronicling Amy Oppenheimer’s wending path from hippie, lesbian feminist to attorney and judge ensconced in the criminal justice system, “Looking For Justice” is an earnest, self-questioning and often humorous piece that starts with her arriving in Berkeley in the early 1970s. Sundays, March 1-29, 5 p.m. The Marsh. $25-$100
🥁Oakland percussion maestro John Santos presents “The African Roots of Latino Jazz,” a program featuring his illustrious Latin jazz sextet and an array of special guests, including Congolese-American percussionist Kiazi Malonga, Guinean percussionist Bongo Sidibé, master drummer Baba Mosheh Milon and vocalist Lakeba Pittman. Sunday, March 1, 7 p.m. The Freight. $39-$44
🖼️ BAMPFA’s upcoming exhibition, “Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection,” will feature many works that will be given as a bequest by Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser, a Berkeley-based couple and supporters of the arts. The artwork will come from Cooper and Rosenwasser’s private collection, consisting mostly of work by women artists from the 1960s to the present. The exhibition will be available for view from Wednesday, March 4 through Sunday, June 28.
📺 If you’ve watched or heard of the Netflix TV show “Orange is the New Black,” now is your chance to meet the real Piper Kerman. Kerman will discuss her real-life experience as an inmate in a federal prison after being convicted of drug trafficking, how it relates to increasing state violence and how she adapted her experiences to the Netflix series. Wednesday, March 4, 7 p.m. Berkeley City Club. $5-$10
🗓️ See more things to do in Oakland and Richmond. And check out our big list of affordable things to do anytime in Berkeley. Sign up for our weekly arts and culture newsletter, The Scene.
If there’s an event you’d like us to consider for this roundup, email us at the-scene@berkeleyside.org. The deadline to submit events for Around Berkeley is end-of-day Monday. If there’s an event that you’d like to promote on our calendar, you can use the self-submission form on our events page.
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