Red Poppy Art House

Feb. 1st- Family Art MAPP: Vegetable printing, NO on GMO!
2014-02-01 13:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
Family Art takes place every Saturday afternoon.

Time: 1pm-4pm
Feb. 1st- Family Art MAPP: Vegetable printing, NO on GMO!
Fresh vegetables and fruits such as carrots, celery sticks, and oranges are provided to dip in paint and print onto paper. The natural design of the fruit or veggie leaves an imprint that a child can use for a grand creation of art!
All Activities are FREE unless otherwise listed.
Todas las actividades del programa de Arte en Familia son GRATIS a menos que esté indicado en el calendario. Calendar activities are subject to change. Check website for updates.
Las actividades están sujetas a cambio. Revise la página web.

Sheela Bringi & Clinton Patterson: The Singing Souls of Two Souths
2014-01-31 19:30 - 22:00
A Deep American South and South Asian Mash-Up
Think swampy blues, ancient incantations, angelic melodies, dark dancing rhythms, and lush harmonies.
Indian American multi-instrumentalist/singer Sheela Bringi and Southern songwriter/trumpeter Clinton Patterson are best known in the Bay Area for their work together as PremaSoul, a majestic combination of harp, trumpet, and vocal harmonies. In fact, their first show in the Bay Area happened at the Red Poppy to a packed house in 2009. For the past two years, they have gone off in different directions, each traveling a bit further down their own path. Now, the culmination is a new record for each artist. On Friday, Jan. 31st, they will bring it back home, and put it all together.
Sheela Bringi – voice, harp, bansuri, harmonium
Clinton Patterson – voice, guitar, trumpet
sheelabringi.com | facebook.com/sheelabringi
clintonpatterson.com | premasoul.com

“Music for the future…two worlds collide for PremaSoul’s universal appeal” – John Malkin, Santa Cruz Good Times

Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Yiddish Art Trio & Veretski Pass
2014-01-30 19:30 - 22:00
The Yiddish Art Trio features three of the top Klezmer musicians in New York today. Blending infectious traditional melodies with new compositions, sumptuous chamber music-like arrangements and breathtaking improvisations, this rising new ensemble is out to redefine the sound of contemporary Klezmer. Veretski Pass plays Old Country Music with origins in the Ottoman Empire. They collage Carpathian, Jewish, Rumanian and Ottoman styles with seamlessly integrated original compositions.
The Yiddish Art Trio is: Patrick Farrell, accordion; Benjy Fox-Rosen, voice and bass; Michael Winograd, clarinet. Veretski Pass is: Cookie Segelstein, violin, viola; Joshua Horowitz, chromatic button accordion, cimbalom; Stuart Brotman, bass, basy (cello), tilinca and baraban.
Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

YeYe Suarez Ensemble
2014-01-25 19:30 - 22:00
Join the YeYe Ensemble as they celebrate life and the beautiful processes in order to achieve dreams
Afro-Latin fusion defines the rhythms of YeYe Suarez. Their music incorporates many of the most vibrant Latin American musical traditions inspired by the rhythms of the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean. With a Vision to promote empowerment, unification and social justice through original musical and lyrical compositions, YeYe researches, preserves and teaches the importance of understanding roots and ancestry and the transformative power of sound. YeYe transform and unite traditional and contemporary rhythms providing a repertoire full of cultural and historical knowledge, creating a safe and welcoming space for audiences to partake in a performance-based journey of emotions.
Johanna “YeYe” Suarez- Lead Voice, Dance
Yuriza Jared – Guitar, Charango, Winds, Voice
Jeremy Allen – Bass, Cuatro and Percussion
Luis Rodriguez– Percussion, Voice
Special Surprise Guest
“The rhythms and beats of the YeYe Ensemble simmer as Johanna “YeYe” Suarez comes close, opens her eyes and voice to you as if there is no other, invites you to see and be seen, and then swirls on, having baited you with a sense of raw connection, of longing, of fullness” – Katy Fox, Director of We Are Movement

Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Lou Lou and the Gypsy Jivers
2014-01-24 19:30 - 22:00
Django Jazz meets South African Township jazz
Experience a unique fusion between the raw energies of Southern African Township jazz,gypsy jazz, New Orleans jazz and acoustic sounds from around the globe. South African borngypsy jazz guitarist and composer Louis Matthee created the group in 2010 with a debut album “Gypsy Jive” featuring this unique blend of music styles. His original compositions gives personal accounts of life in South Africa and executed in the craft and skill of GypsyJazz and the Selmac style guitar. New and old compositions will be on the menu ranging from Capetonian ( aka Cape Town) music from jazz greats like Abdullah Ibrahim, “Ghoema” inspired tunes to sounds inspired by the Bay Area.

Louis (Lou Lou) Matthee – Guitar & Vocals
Tom Griesser – saxophone & clarinet
Nick Christie – Rhythm guitar
Joe Kyle Jr. – Upright Bass

Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

KaMau
2014-01-23 19:30 - 22:00
Traveling in Black Colors featuring PitchBlackGold, Holly Saucy & J. Mitchell
Ka Mau, also known as Pitch Black Gold, along with Holly Saucy and J.Mitchell will be taking audiences on Africlectic journeys through poetry, genre bending sound and visual experiments. For the last ten years Ka Mau has lived in Bali, Indonesia using the art of poetry, rap and dance to connect cultures, inspire creative thought and action and motivate youth to use their creativity as a means of personal and collective empowerment.
Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Decolonize Your Diet
2014-01-19 16:30 - 18:30
In this workshop, we will share public health research that shows that recent Latino/a immigrants have better health than their American-born children. We will discuss the need for decolonizing our diets through reclaiming ancestral foods, recipes, cooking techniques, and remedios. Our ancestors ate a plant-based diet, with a heavy reliance on nixtamal corn, beans, wild greens, nopales, and other healthy vegetables. They used herbal teas and medicines to cure ailments. They ate in community and gave thanks to Mother Earth. Before colonization and capitalism, food was consider to be sacred and the preparation of food was a spiritual practice.
It is time to return to these ancestral ways. Our presentation will include a cooking demonstration and afterwards we will share a small tasting menu of cactus smoothies, homemade corn tortillas, and vegetarian tacos. This experience will be paired with poetry by Liz Hinojosa, La Chankluda Boladora.
Luz Calvo received her PhD in the History of Consciousness Program at UC Santa Cruz in 2001. She is an associate professor of Ethnic Studies at Cal State East Bay, where she teaches a course entitled, “Decolonize Your Diet: Food Justice in Communities of Color.” Luz traces her food genealogy to her paternal grandparents, who ran a Mexican restaurant in San Fernando, California, from the 1940s through the 1970s. The Calvo business began when the grandparents began selling tacos to the cannery workers, with her grandfather purchasing fresh, seasonal ingredients from the LA Central market, and her grandmother preparing and packaging the tacos.
Liz Hinojosa is a graduate of California Institute of Integral Studies, where she received a M.A. in Expressive Arts Therapy.
Admission: $15-20. Doors at 4:00 Workshop at 4:30.
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Opening Reception of "The Mission Condition: Outwardly Mobile," "Site In Progress," & "Florecer"
2014-01-18 15:00 - 19:00
Come celebrate the opening reception of the Red Poppy’s current art installations. This reception is free and open to all ages.
PROGRAM:
3PM – 4PM: Join the kids and parents at Family Art as we will decorate a few hopeful “sky-houses” by artist Mission Condition artist Dustin Fosnot and launch them into the sky!
4PM – 7PM: Opening Reception for 3 installations:
“The Mission Condition: Outwardly Mobile,” a mural and assemblage collaboration by Mona Caron and Dustin Fosnot. The piece is a poetic expression of the precarious state that many communities find themselves in due to the current housing crisis and the gentrification of San Francisco.
“Site in Progress” by Sebastian Alvarez.
In the tradition of process art, this untitled exhibition will mature with research and dialogue with some of the artists, tradition-bearers and cultural workers connected to the Red Poppy. The initial information presented on the wall is being collected from different local organizations and institution concerned with preserving the history of the Bay Area and researching its growth. Starting as a simple assemblage of info-graphics and data, this installation will gather, sort, collate, and associate qualitative data in order to generate poetic forms.
“Florecer: Blossoming and Living with HIV: Overcoming Stigma Through Art”
This exhibition features masks and personal statements created by clients, staff, and community members of Clínica Esperanza, the HIV Services Clinic at Mission Neighborhood Health Center. It was installed as part of the Red Reels film screening of ‘Blood Brother‘ on Thursday, January 16th. Red Reels is an interdisciplinary film series that explores a unique interdisciplinary approach by incorporating real-time collaborations with artists from varying mediums like dance, painting, and live music.
5PM: A focused moment with a brief presentation of the art, followed by:
– Jorge Molina, with opening words
– Erin McElroy, organizer of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project will present some of their work and findings about the state of the City. The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project is a San Francisco Bay Area digital mapping and storytelling collective working to make visible what gentrification and displacement invisibilizes. http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/
– Adriana Camarena will present a story on the theme of Home & Eviction from “Unsettlers: Migrants, Homies, and Mammas in the Mission District” – a collaboration with Shaping San Francisco, and partially funded by a CalHumanities 2013 Community Stories Grant. www.unsettlers.org
– Miguel Robles, will present a poem from his book, “At 24th and Mission”

Emily Asher's Garden Party
2014-01-17 19:30 - 22:00
Carnival of Joy! a celebration of Hoagy Carmichael
Led by Asher’s tenacious trombone and rich vocals, this all-star ensemble from New York City’s vibrant early jazz scene presents a hot and charming celebration of one of the first great American singer-songwriters, Hoagy Carmichael. Audiences should expect an evening of original songs inspired by and reverently re-imagined arrangements of Carmichael classics like “Stardust,” “Up A Lazy River” and “Georgia On My Mind.”
Hoagy Carmichael was an American composer, pianist, singer, and bandleader. He is best known for composing the music for “Stardust, “Georgia on My Mind”, and “Heart and Soul”, and is arguably one of the most renown song writers of the first half of the Twenty-First century.
Emily Asher – Trombone and Vocals
Mike Davis – Trumpet, Cornet and Vocals
Tom Abbott – Clarinet and Saxophones
Jay Lepley – Drums
Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Red Reels Presents: 'Blood Brother' (film)
2014-01-16 19:30 - 22:00
Red Reels Presents: ‘Blood Brother’ and the installation Florecer, Blossoming and Living with HIV: Overcoming Stigma Through Art.

‘Blood Brother’ tells the story of Rocky Braat, a young man from a fractured family and a troubled past who met a group of HIV positive children living in an orphanage while traveling through India without a plan. There Rocky witnessed the kids endure disease, abject poverty, and death. However, in the midst of these troubles, Rocky also saw the their deep joy. Changed by the encounter, Rocky left his life, friends, and career in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to live with the kids in India. ‘Blood Brother’ is a story of friendship. It’s a story of a life, stripped down to its essence. Most of all, it is a story about love, enduring in the face of death. ‘Blood Brother’ is a documentary feature directed by Steve Hoover.

The screening will also include a presentation and installation led by Eduardo Antonio of Clínica Esperanza, the HIV Services Clinic at Mission Neighborhood Health Center. Eduardo will discuss his work with Clínica Esperanza and the installation featuring masks created by Clínica clients, staff, and community members for Florecer, Blossoming and Living with HIV: Overcoming Stigma Through Art. This exhibition was originally created to commemorate World AIDS Day in December, 2013.

Red Reels films highlight the work of local and emerging filmmakers and expose audiences to diverse global traditions. Screenings explore a unique interdisciplinary approach by incorporating real-time collaborations with artists from varying mediums like dance, painting, and live music.

Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7pm. Screening at 7:30pm.
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Gautam Tejas Ganeshan
2014-01-11 19:30 - 22:00
Gautam Tehas Ganeshan sings classical Carnatic music with distinction, innovation, and an inimitable personal style. A member of the first group of resident performing artists at the Red Poppy back in 2007, Gautam has galvanized the local scene as the director of the Sangati Center and as a musician with his ear to the ground. He has performed at the SFMOMA, Palace of Fine Arts, SFJAZZ, Freight & Salvage, Yoshi’s, and Zellerbach Playhouse, and has led workshops at the Asian Art Museum, SF Conservatory of Music, UC Berkeley, Stanford Jazz Workshop, and more.
Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Beth Custer Ensemble
2014-01-10 19:30 - 22:00
The Beth Custer Ensemble is a veritable crème de la crème of Bay Area musicians and has been delighting audiences for fifteen years from across the US to abroad. Their unique blend of styles underscores the depth of the lyrics and recent projects include a commission by SF Cinematheque to compose and perform live scores from Alexandre Hammid’s films at SF MOMA as well as performing live for The Joe Goode Performance Group’s dance/theatre productions at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Beth Custer – voice/clarinets/piano
David James– guitar/voice
Diana Mangano – voice
Chris Grady – trumpet/percussion
Vicky Grossi – bass
Jan Jackson – drums
Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

POPPY-Ton Benefit
2014-01-04 10:00 - 22:00
This is our “Funders from Under” campaign. We are looking for 100 people to donate as little as $10 throughout the day. You can come to the Poppy anytime from 10am-10pm to make your donation, pick up a complementary glass of champagne glass and appreciate the artwork from Mona Caron, Dustin Fosnot and Sebastian Alvarez. Cash or check only.

Avotcja & Modúpue
2014-01-03 19:30 - 22:00
The Red Poppy is pleased to announce and evening with poet, playwright & multi-instrumentalist Avotcja and ensemble Modúpue. Avotcja has been published in English & Spanish in the USA, Mexico & Europe. She is a popular bay area D.J. & the Founder & Co-Director of “The Clean Scene Theater Project/Proyecto Teatral de la Escena Sobria.” She teaches poetry, creative writing, music & drama in public schools & thanks to the California Arts Council she is also an artist in residence at Milestones Project. Avotcja is also a proud & active member of DAMO (Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization) & National Writers Union Local #3.
Jon Jang – piano
Sandi Poindexter – violin
Yancie Taylor – vibes
Eugene Warren – bass
Avotcja – poetry and percussion
Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30. Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

New Years Special: Adam Shulman
2014-01-01 19:30 - 22:00
The Adam Shulman Quintet presents “Strays” The Music of Billy Strayhorn

Adam Shulman has been a staple of the San Francisco Jazz scene since he moved to the city in 2002. Before the move, Shulman was a student at UC Santa Cruz where he studied with the great Smith Dobson and the trumpeter/arranger Ray Brown. He received his degree in classical performance under the tutelage of the Russian pianist Maria Ezerova.

Currently, Shulman plays regularly with Marcus Shelby in large and small group contexts and with Anton Schwartz mostly in a trio setting. He can also be seen as a sideman with countless bay area musicians and vocalists such as John Wittala, Vince Lateano, Kitty Margolis, Andrew Speight, Dayna Stephens, Ian Cary, and Mike Zilber. This particularly New Years evening, Shulman and other fine Bay Area musicians will be presenting the rich and lyrical music of Billy Strayhorn.

Adam Shulman – piano
Patrick Wolff – tenor saxophone
Erik Jekabson – trumpet
Eric Markowitz – bass
Smith Dobson – drums

Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Yumi Tomsha
2013-12-28 19:30 - 22:00
An Evening with Yumi Tomsha, mezzo soprano

Mezzo soprano Yumi Tomsha gave her New York debut recital in 2008 at Bargemusic, the magical ‘floating concert hall.’ As an oratorio soloist, she has been featured in works including Bach’s St. John Passion and Mass in b minor, and Vivaldi’s third Dixit Dominus and Gloria. Yumi is currently working on a solo album that will include the premiere of a song cycle featuring poetry by Japanese and Japanese American women.

Yumi’s program at the Red Poppy Art House will include Japanese and Lithuanian folk songs, as well as music of Handel, Mozart, Bellini, and Rachmaninov.

Yumi Tomsha – mezzo soprano
Akimi Fukuhara– pianist

Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Bolo
2013-12-21 19:30 - 22:00
Acoustic global fusion bridging Africa and India

Bolo is a dynamic ensemble featuring percussionist/singer Surya Prakasha, bassist and bansuri & ney flute player Eliyahu Sills (The Qadim Ensemble), and multi-instrumentalist Evan Fraser (Hamsa Lila). With a fresh improvisational approach, the group creates songs that will move, uplift and transport. With African-sourced grooves, African and Indian melodies and songs, ‘Bolo’ speaks to the heart and to a musical language that bridges continents. Prepare for entrancing music that will inspire your body and soul. Facebook.com/boloensemble

Eliyahu Sills– bass, oud, flutes
Surya Prakasha– percussion, vocals, harmonium
Evan Fraser– ngoni, kalimba, jaw harp, percussion

Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

A Night of Latin American Music
2013-12-20 19:30 - 22:00
Long time Chilean Bay Area performers Mochi Parra and Hector Salgado team up with pianist/guitarist/composer Steve Lam, bass player and recent NY New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music graduate Joel Kruzic, drummer Juan Manuel Caipo of Bang Data, and musical guest and former Grupo Raiz member Fernando “Fena’ Torres, for an exciting night of rhythms and melodies from Latin America.

This new group of local musicians will be playing music from Chile, Cuba and Argentina. The group combines the sounds and melodies of the Latin American New Song Movement with their own musical arrangements by using electronic sounds, Bossa

Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Posadas at the Poppy
2013-12-19 18:00 - 22:00
Join us in a Mission Community Celebration of the Posadas, a cultural tradition with a theme of seeking shelter, which speaks to our ongoing struggles in the Mission. The procession will start at 6pm on the corner of 24th and South Van Ness and ends at the Poppy where we will come together for performances, speakers, food, and drink. Candles will be provided. Please bring percussion instruments for the procession. If you are familiar with Posadas, and you would like a more active role, please contact Isabel Santis at isantis@gmail.com

John Calloway and the New Riders of the Clave Maze
2013-12-14 19:30 - 22:00
Tales of the Mission: Past, Present and Future
Performing for the first time at Red Poppy is flautist, multi-instrumentalist, and arts educator John Calloway, a long-time Bay Area artist with deep cultural and social ties to the Mission. His new ensemble will present a cross-generational mix of jazz, folk and Latin music, with themes related to the Mission district and social justice.

John, a long time collaborator with John Santos, has also performed internationally with Israel Lopez Cachao, Omar Sosa, and Max Roach. He is currently the music director of the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco and the Afro-Cuban Ensemble of San Francisco State University.

New Riders:
Mike Arnold – bass
Jon Monahan – guitar
David Flores – percussion
Guest Artists:
Alyssa Almaguer – vocals
Carlos Baron – spoken word
Roberto Hernandez – spoken word
Richard Caranza – guitar and vocals
Alicia Mana – vocals

Admission: $15-20. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Rob Reich Trio
2013-12-13 19:30 - 22:00
Jazz Accordion with Hot Rhythm
Avoid Friday the 13th blues and come enjoy the Rob Reich Trio’s musical wonders. The Trio performs new original music and choice old tunes with graceful humor and effortless virtuosity. Reich grew up studying piano from age three. After graduating with a degree in Music Composition from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he discovered the accordion, now his primary instrument. Reich’s music defies genres. Whether it’s composing art songs based on the poetry of E E Cummings with Tin Hat or writing circus music for Circus Bella, his music combines strong melodic ideas, rhythmic drive, and a spirit of irreverence and experimentation. robreich.com

Rob Reich – accordion & piano
Todd Sickafoose – bass
Eric Garland – drums

“Whatever context he’s in, Reich transforms it into a creative hothouse where thousands of musical flowers bloom.” – Andy Gilbert, East Bay Express.

Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Mapp, 10 Years Anniversary
2013-12-07 13:00 - 23:00
Since 2003, the MAPP, Mission Arts and Performance Project has produced 63 neighborhood pop-up art happenings of intimate spaces, all without ever formalizing into a non-profit organization, seeking funding, nor establishing a formal staff structure. Across these 10 years, the MAPP has featured thousands of artists, helping to cross-pollinate ideas and launch careers of artists engaged in social issues. It is a kind of otherworldly art walk, not centered on commercial corridors but within intimate spaces where the magic of genuine connectivity transpires among people across communities and art forms.

The MAPP stands as a testament to the possibility of horizontal organizing among artists intent on building social fabric within our respective communities, as much to celebrate diversity and creativity as to counter the erosion of these qualities that occurs when development displaces artists and minority communities alike.

Why is this MAPP so Special? This December marks the 10 year anniversary of the Mission Arts & Performance Project (MAPP), a non-commercial multidisciplinary and intercultural arts happening that takes place in garages, living rooms, backyards, studios, and community-minded businesses throughout the Mission District of San Francisco on every even month of the year.

Curator: Red Poppy Community

Visual Art: “The Mission Condition – Outwardly Mobile”: a mural+assemblage collaboration by artists Mona Caron and Dustin Fosnot.

Visual-poems: Adrian Arias

Family Art: 1:00-4:00pm.

Performances:
6:10 – 6:25 Ceremonia
6:30 – 6:50 Rayshell, Word Artist/Rapper
6:55 – 7:23 Adrian Arias, Poetry
7:30 – 8:00 Amy LaCour
8:05 – 8:25 Bailes Andinos
8:30 – 9:50 Kamau
9:10 – 10:00 Makrú
10:00 – 11:00 The Poppy House Band

MAPP is free and open to all ages.

Camille Mai Trio EP Release and the Blind Willies
2013-12-06 19:30 - 22:00
Nearly a year after their first show at last January’s MAPP, the Camille Mai Trio returns to the Red Poppy for the release of their debut EP, “We Are No Beautiful Children.” Mixed independently at the SF Conservatory, the EP’s four tracks are a melting pot of French, Argentine, and West Coast culture, interweaving jazz harmonies with middle eastern rhythms while keeping an intimate indie-rock familiarity.

Consisting of Camille Mai on piano/voice/composition, Nahuel Bronzini on guitar/production, Schuyler Karr on bass, and backed by Ben Ring on drums, the trio will perform a mix of new, rhythmically experimental songs and older bluesy-rock ones. They’ll also be joined by halo drum player Gabriel Goldberg and dancer Kenya Moses in some improvised music merging jazz with classical tradition.

The trio will be preceded by Blind Willies, a San Francisco based Americana band with influences ranging from Appalachian ballads, to New Orleans blues, gospel, jazz, soul, cabaret, and rock ‘n roll. Their three albums have been widely acclaimed and played on over 200 radio stations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the UK. They recently returned from a six week tour to Europe (Ireland, England, Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany) and are working on a new album to be released in early 2014.

Camille Mai Trio:

Camille Mai – piano and voice, songwriting
Nahuel Bronzini – guitar
Schuyler Karr – Upright bass
Benjamin Ring – drums

Blind Willies:

Alexei Wajchman – vocal, guitar, harmonica
Misha Khalikulov – cello
Daniel Riera – bass, flute
Alex Nash – drums

Other performers:

Kenya Moses– dance
Gabriel Goldberg – Halo drum

Camille Mai Trio Website
Blind Willies Website
Facebook information for this event

Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

The Nightingale Trio + Tre Sisters
2013-12-05 19:30 - 22:00
Intimate harmonies from Eastern Europe

The Nightingale Trio is a women’s vocal group inspired by folk songs and vocal techniques from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Nila Bala, Rachel LaViola, and Sarah Larsson met each other as students Yale, singing with the Yale Slavic Chorus. Today, the Nightingales sound fuller than a trio, yet still maintain the intimate, tight harmonies of a family band. They are dedicated to recreating the rhythmic, complex, and stunning folk songs that have spanned centuries of Slavic culture, while simultaneously bringing their own unique expression to the dynamic and ever-evolving art form.

Opening: Tre Sisters from Richmond, CA: Camila Luna, Morgan Alicia and Daniela Valdivieso.

Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Ensemble Mik Nawooj
2013-11-30 19:30 - 22:00
Hip-Hop Orchestra

Taoist composer-pianist JooWan Kim performs with his hip-hop orchestra, Ensemble Mik Nawooj (EMN), a chamber orchestra with a rotating personnel of MCs and an opera singer. Ensemble Mik Nawooj “defies such categories as jazz, classical, and hip-hop” (Oakland Tribune), is “ambitious” (The New Yorker), and is “a cosmic melding of culture and genres” (SF Chronicle). MTV called the group “thirsty to change the name of the game”, and NPR praised it by saying “Whoever said that chamber music couldn’t be hip obviously haven’t heard of Ensemble Mik Nawooj.”

JooWan Kim – music director/composition/piano
Do D.A.T & Sandman – rappers/lyricists
Lauren Woody – opera singer
Carmen Lemonie – flute
Nick Litwin – clarinet
Asuka Yanai – violin
Gabriel Beistline – cello
Eugene Theriault – bass
Louie Flores Jr. – drums

MikNawooj.com Mik Nawooj plays ” Black Swordsman” YouTube

“The future of Hip Hop” – East Bay Express
“Mik Nawooj is thirsty to change the name of the game” – MTV

Opening for Mik Nawooj: Ka Mau

“Style AND substance” is the motto of Ka Mau a multidisciplinary performance artist born and raised in San Francisco, California. For the last ten years Ka Mau has lived in Bali, Indonesia using the art of poetry, rap and dance to connect cultures, inspire creative thought and action and motivate youth to use their creativity as a means of personal and collective empowerment. He was named Best Poet in the 2002 Oakland, California Slam Finals. He is the winner of the 2004 & 2005 Ubud Writers & Readers Festival held annually in Bali, Indonesia. More about Ka Mau at: pitchblackgold.wordpress.com

Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

Dance Party @ The Poppy!
2013-11-29 19:00 - 22:00
All Proceeds benefit the Red Poppy!

Latin Dance Party Benefit for the Poppy
Feat DJ Boludo, El Profe, and DJ Guruila, El Estudiante

For those of you that know DJ Boludo, then you know what’s in store for this dance party. Some of you may recall the epic 2007 dance party that he was in on hosted by Indira Urrutia and Todd Brown at Brown’s then loft space on Stevenson St. For those of you that don’t know, DJ Boludo is not someone you will find in the San Francisco club scene. He’s a strictly home-grown house-party specialist of the Mission community. Joining him will be El Profe, DJ Guruila, and El Estudiante, coming back from a long hiatus to spin Latin beats of the African Diaspora including Salsa, Cumbia, Reggae, Samba, 80’s, oldies, and Afrobeat.

Admission: $5-$20
7pm to 10pm

2 Greenprints
2013-11-23 19:30 - 22:00
An informal pena-art-style salon, by Marc Hors

Slide show presentation from an itinerant photographic project which moves on bicycles across the American Continent (From Alaska to the Chilean Antarctic) in search of natural, social and cultural values that characterize the countries of the American Continent. A project promoting solidarity, equity, participation and respect among cultures by linking what we learned from human behaviors, beliefs and traditions with environmental and human right issues.

Suggested donation: $5-10. Doors at 7pm.

Voices for the Poppy: A Special Benefit Concert
2013-11-22 19:30 - 22:00
If you love the Red Poppy Art House, then be there for this special evening occasion and make your support known. Hosted by Ethiopian-born songstress and TED Fellow Meklit Hadero, this unique musical program features an interweave of performances by jazz vocalist Tiffany Austin with Grant Levin on piano, songcraftsman Tom Sway, and instrumentalists Prasant Radhakrishnan, Todd Thomas Brown, Schuyler Karr, and acclaimed poet Michael Warr. 100% of the proceeds will go towards a fund supporting the Poppy’s core staff over the next five months until new funding comes in the spring. If you want to keep artists and art spaces thriving in our beautiful city, then come on down and be a part of the future of the Red Poppy Art House.

Doors at 7PM. Show at 7:30PM
Admission is $15-$50 sliding scale. Please select the ticket price level that best matches what you’re comfortable giving. Thank you for your support! Purchase advance tickets here.

Featured Artists:

Tiffany Austin
Vocalist, songwriter, and Los Angeles native Tiffany Austin possesses a soulful and subtle delivery, that has placed her onstage and onscreen with artists such as Roy Ayers and Marcus Shelby. Since completing her law degree at U.C. Berkeley, Tiffany has graced the stages of SFJAZZ, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, and the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. tiffanyaustinmusic.com

Tom Sway
Tom Sway is nothing short of a great American songwriter whose story-based lyrical compositions possess a rare poetic content with pools of emotion under every metaphor. Tom guides his audience with theateresque sensibility on a tour through nostalgia, laughter, the most delicate tones and an unbridled song- shouting frenzy.

Michael Warr
Poet Michael Warr’s most recent book of poems The Armageddon of Funk (Tia Chucha Press, 2011) received the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature and 2012 Poetry Honor Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. In its announcement BCALA called his book “a poetic soundtrack to Black life.” Armageddonoffunk.com

Nefasha Ayer
Re-joining together for this one night are instrumentalists Prasant Radhakrishnan (saxophone) and Todd Thomas Brown (guitar) of the original ensemble Nefasha Ayer – The Space of In Between, a group founded by Brown and Meklit Hadero in 2006. This performance will especially highlight the expressive complexity of Prasant’s continued study of the South Indian Classical (Carnatic) and Jazz disciplines. prasantmusic.com

Host: Meklit Hadero
Born in Ethiopia, raised in the U.S. and nurtured by San Francisco’s richly diverse arts scene, Meklit Hadero, now a 2012 TED Senior Fellow, has served as an artist-in-residence at New York University, the De Young Museum, and the Red Poppy Art House. She has garnered feature-stories on NPR, PBS and National Geographic. She is a co-founder of the Nile Project, assisting to curate collaborations among musicians from the 11 Nile countries to address the Nile basin’s cultural and environmental challenges. meklithadero.com

Admission: $15-$50. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30. Purchase advance tickets here

Experimental Thursday: Reclaiming Bruj@s
2013-11-21 19:00 - 21:00
Storytelling, Workshop, and Ancestral Tradiciones

Local healers and spoken word artists come together to share their “brujerias.”The suggested donation will include medicinal herbs to take home.

Admission: $5-10. Event 7:00 pm -9:00 pm.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.

The Suppression of Sound
2013-11-20 19:30 - 22:00
An Evening of Poetry and Music

An evening of poetry and sound by Thomas Sayers Ellis and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis. This eclectic duo has been performing together for nearly two years and was recently given the thumbs up by poet Amiri Baraka (for their mixture of free Jazz, GoGo, Be Hip Bop Hop and deep Groove) when they opened for him in New York City. The combination of Mr. Ellis’s bold, lyric activism and meditations on race and American culture are pushed and purposely punished by Mr. Lewis’s muscular and exhaustive tenor. A highlight of the performance is Mr. Dynamite Splits, a searing tribute to the Godfather of Soul, James Brown.

Thomas Sayers Ellis – poet
James Brandon Lewis – saxophonist
Raina J. León – poet, opener

Bios:

Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis ’ debut CD Moments (2010) received stellar reviews and was featured on jazzreviews.com, revivalist/okay player, ejazz news, George Mason University radio and All about jazz.com. James is currently working on his second album Divine Travels featuring William Parker, Gerald Cleaver, and poet Thomas Sayers Ellis to be released by Sony’s Okeh Label in early 2014. James Brandon Lewis was recently heralded by Ebony Magazine as “7 Musicians 30 and under to watch”.

Photographer and poet Thomas Sayers Ellis is the author of Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems (Graywolf Press 2010) and The Maverick Room (His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Open Door, Tin House, Grand Street, Poetry, The Nation and Best American Poetry (1997, 2001, 2010). He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Fine Arts Work Center, and Yaddo. Mr Ellis is the Poetry Editor of The Baffler and currently a Visiting Writer at the University of San Francisco where he teaches in the Graduate Writing Program. More at: tsellis.com

Admission: $10-15. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30.

Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event. Please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets.
