By Lina Broydo
San Francisco Ballet’s Online
Digital Nutcracker Inaugurates the Holiday Season
November 27–December 31
The holiday Nutcracker will not desert us and will return this season as an interactive, virtual experience for friends and family from the comfort of your home. The Nutcracker Online will be released in an immersive digital world designed by local event design and production specialists Blueprint Studios to reflect the innovation of the Bay Area community.
Featuring the high definition stream of the 2008 San Francisco Ballet and KQED Public Television in association with Thirteen/WNET New York’s co-production of Helgi Tomasson’s critically acclaimed Nutcracker, the stream was captured at the War Memorial Opera House in December 2007 and features Yuan Yuan Tan as the Snow Queen, Pierre-François Vilanoba as the Snow King, Vanessa Zahorian as the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Elizabeth Powell as Clara, with the grand pas de deux danced by Maria Kochetkova and Davit Karapetyan.
In addition to the stream access, ticket holders are invited to guide themselves through an immersive digital journey through the War Memorial Opera House full of interactive activities, fun videos, the ability to visit the SF Ballet Shop, and much more.
This will definitely be magical, exciting and high-tech appealing. San Francisco Ballet presented America’s first complete performance of Nutcracker in 1944.
Every dancer in the Company dances in this production, along with 160 students from SF Ballet School who perform roles as Clara, Fritz, snowflakes, waltzing flowers, and mice. Wearing your grey flannel PJs will make the Nutcracker’s mice feel welcome at your home.
Information
Admission to Nutcracker Online is available for purchase starting November 17 and is priced at $49 for 48-hour access.
sfballet.org
Photo courtesy of SF Ballet
Virtual Tour of Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul Home in Mexico
I am sure you read in my previous column about the long awaited “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can be Deceiving” lavish exhibit (running through February 7, 2021 at the city’s de Young Museum, deyoung.famsf.org) of her paintings, photographs, personal belongings and a collection of fashionable colorful clothing.
Here is an additional opportunity to expand your visual pleasure by joining the virtual tour of Frida’s Casa Azul in Mexico City with a generous offer from the Google Arts & Culture (artsandculture.google.com).
Stroll the courtyard of her vivid blue house, wander inside her home to view at the decorum and peek at her paints and easel, as if she was still living and paining there.
This is a priceless gift for those who like me are absolutely fascinated by artist Frida Kahlo and her life.
Information
artsandculture.google.com
Photo courtesy of Google Arts & Culture
Predicting the Past: Zohar Studios, The Lost Years
Now on View through February 28, 2021
The museums are opening their doors for the cultural enrichment of the visitors who can see the newly opened exhibition Predicting the Past: Zohar Studios, The Lost Years, featuring an immersive photography installation by Los Angeles-based artist Stephen Berkman.
Berkman’s installation brings to life an enigmatic nineteenth-century New York City photographic establishment known as Zohar Studios, located in the predominantly Jewish Lower East Side. The installation is a tribute to Shimmel Zohar, a mythical nineteenth-century Jewish immigrant photographer, and the founder of Zohar Studios.
The exhibition includes over thirty photographs, several large installations, a cabinet of curiosities, and a large format artist book about the Zohar project. These uncanny photographs take the visual codes of nineteenth-century portraiture as their point of departure, and the images and objects address both Jewish life and the scientific state of understanding over one hundred years ago.
Together, they create an idiosyncratic vision of Victorian life in the United States, revitalizing bygone technologies and themes within a twenty-first century context. Through his work, Berkman shows that history is malleable and contains a multiplicity of meanings.
Welcome back! The Contemporary Jewish Museum is launching Free First Fridays, a day in which anyone can visit the Museum for free. The inaugural Free First Friday will be on November 6. All social distancing protocols and guidelines for reduced capacity will be followed, so they are still encouraging anyone interested in attending to book their ticket in advance.
Berkman was born in Syracuse New York. Now based in Pasadena, California, Berkman’s work revolves around the use of antiquated photographic and optical processes.
Information
415-655-7800
thecjm.org
736 Mission Street in San Francisco
Photo courtesy of the CJM
The Contemporary Jewish Museum
History of Chinese Workers & the Pacific Salmon Canning Industry
November 21 at 1 p.m.
An Online Event
Join Chinese Historical Society of America online presentation of an exploration into the 150 years of Chinese workers in the canning industry.
Presented by Jim and Philip Chiao who spent three summers working in Alaska while learning the secret of canning during their college years. Jim and Philip will take the audience on a guided historical tour of Chinese American and Chinese workers in the canning industry, tracing the history of Chinese workers in the canning industry, starting with the founding of the industry, the expansion and dominance of Chinese workers in the labor market, and its eventual demise.
Along the way, they will highlight the major events that shaped the industry and affected the Chinese workers life in California. Founded in 1963, the Chinese Historical Society of America, located in San Francisco, promotes the contribution and the legacy of the Chinese people in America.
Next time you make a canned salmon salad for lunch you will be happy you learned the fascinating history of it’s canning.
Information
$5 per person
Reserve your ticket at CHSA.org
415-391-1188, ext. 101
Chinese Historical Society of America
CHSA Museum
965 Clay Street in San Francisco
Photo courtesy of CHSA
October 26, 2020:
Just for fun: Little stairs which I decorated (20 years ago) with colorful glass balls leading to my kitchen door. California, USA
Each day from July 31, 2020 and for the duration of the Covid-19 nightmare I will post a different set of decorative stairs with hope we will reach the top when the brilliant minds will find and implement the miraculous vaccine.
Each day from July 31, 2020 and for the duration of the Covid-19 nightmare I will post a different set of decorative stairs with hope we will reach the top when the brilliant minds will find and implement the miraculous vaccine.
Cheer up! Stay safe!
(You can see my previous daily posts on my Lina Broydo TravelLina on Facebook starting July 31, 2020)…
