April 2nd MAPP (Online)

Building Community Resilience Through the Arts

Saturday, April 2nd, 2022 @ 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm | FREE

During the last 2 years, our goal has been to continue providing excellent and uplifting programs to our dedicated audiences. We are pleased to announce the next FREE MAPP program. 

Our MAPP FESTIVAL program includes 4 performances on FEB 5TH, live streamed from Mexico City, Los Angeles & the Bay Area to your homes!

From Peruvian music & Puerto Rican Cuatro, to Klezmer-Rock.

Live streaming will be available on Facebook

Please consider investing in the future of the Arts and the Artists and the important role of the live performing arts in our community. 

Make a gift to the Red Poppy Art House today! 

Red Poppy Art House Needs You

MAPP (Mission Arts & Performance Project)

Launched in 2003, the Mission Arts & Performance Project (MAPP) is a homegrown bi-monthly, multidisciplinary, intercultural event that takes place in the Mission District of San Francisco. On the first Saturday of every even month of the year, the MAPP transforms ordinary spaces, such as private garages, gardens, living rooms, studios, street corners, and small businesses into pop-up performance and exhibition sites for a day/night of intimate-scale artistic and cultural exchange among a kaleidoscope of individuals and communities.  Due to COVID-19 we have temporarily changed this dynamic program from an onsite to an online series. Thanks to the mastery and innovation of the presenting artists and curatorial vision we are pleased that the kaleidoscope of cultural exchange continues to be an incredibly enriching experience for the presenter and the viewer. We look forward to the days that we can safely present at our neighborhood venue and we are grateful for everyone’s ingenuity in making the online presentations meaningful and unique experiences.  

This program is funded by California Arts Council Impact Project Grant and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Relief Fund and we will continue our work in presenting unique artistry to the communities that we serve.

RED POPPY MAPP TEAM:

Curator | Artistic Director | Managing Director: Dina Zarif 
Host & Tech Support: Leeav Sofer
PR & Digital Marketing: Jennie D. Legary

RPAH PROGRAM (ONLINE) APRIL 2nd 

PERFORMANCES (ONLINE) APRIL 2nd

Alejandro y Maria Laura  

Duo from Perú, Indie folk LIVE from Mexico City 

ABOUT THE PROJECT:

Alejandro y Maria Laura is a duo from Perú. They have crafted original and genre bending songs with latin american roots. Their setup is intimate but playful. Their songs are like instant pictures of their own relationship and life, most recently regarding themes such as parenting, social and political issues in their home country, and global climate crisis.

Featuring:

Maria Laura Bustamante – Vocals and keyboard

Alejandro Rivas -Vocals and Guitar

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Duo, bandleaders, life partners and co-authors from Perú. Since 2009, Alejandro y María Laura have published three records, one EP, thirteen singles and two compilatory albums with deeply felt songs such as “Agüita del Equilibrio” and “Una fiesta cualquiera”.  

The couple has recorded songs with renowned latin american artists, among them, Andrea Echeverri (Aterciopelados), Kevin Johansen, Paulinho Moska, Perotá Chingó, Juan Campodónico and Susana Baca. 

In the past years they have been awarded with the Ibermúsicas award for songwriting (2016), the Luces award from Diario El Comercio and a Golden Record for the álbum Paracaídas. They have showcased their music in the HBO series “Encuentros en Brasil” and the NPR show “World Café Live”. 

In 2019 they celebrated their tenth anniversary in Perú’s most important theater “Gran Teatro Nacional”. The same year they participated in festivals such as Festival Estereopicnic (Colombia) and Festival Selvámonos (Perú). 

Alejandro y Maria Laura are now living in Mexico City and producing their fourth album.

Adrienne Shamszad | Singer + Songwriter

Songs for the Heart and Soul 

Featuring:

Adrienne Shamszad – Vocalist and Songwriter

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Adrienne Shamszad is a singer, songwriter, composer and teaching artist from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her musical style expresses the union of American Roots and Iranian Tradition, a blend of folk, soul and blues infused with Iranian vocals, melodies and poetry. She combines her study of Iranian Classical music with her decades of experience in American songwriting craft to tell the story of her unique perspective with longing, hope, humor and depth. Adrienne is a multi-instrumentalist and accompanies herself on guitar, piano, and Iranian Setar. She will showcase several songs she has composed during the pandemic and a few re-imagined classics.

Pedro José Pastrana | Puerto Rican Cuatro

Music for an (extra) ordinary future with an instrument from the past

“What does it mean to create and play Puerto Rican music? To capture that duality, the compositions for this performance make use of cultural elements but outside of their traditional context, by combining the melodic elements of folk music, jazz harmonies and Afro-Puerto Rican rhythms”.

Featuring:

Pedro José Pastrana – Cuatro

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Pedro José Pastrana grew up playing the national instrument “cuatro”. His passion for discovery got him to move out his native Puerto Rico and travel different countries allowing him to explore other musical cultures. After years as a sideman, all of these collaborations have been the spark for this original project, fusing all of his influences into one story. With a passion for genre bending rooted in folk music, Pedro brings his dynamism to the fore and shows the versatility of the instrument in popular and world music.”

The Making-of “THIS WORLD IS YOURS”

Sneak preview of Mostly Kosher’s newest album, ​​Experimental Judaic cultural genre & Klezmer-Rock

In this engagement, Mostly Kosher’s bandleader Leeav Sofer and premiere violinist and co-founder, Janice Mautner Markham, will guide the audience through multiple songs off of the album and the multiple layers of cultural history that informed each original, new song. This musical journey will explore ties to historical composers, Jewish diaspora languages as well as the social justice themes tied to the band’s outreach work in Skid Row.

Featuring:

leeav sofer – Vocals, Piano, Accordion, Clarinet

Janice Mautner Markham – Violin ,Vocals

ALBUM DESCRIPTION:

MOSTLY KOSHER, the acclaimed Los Angeles Klezmer-Rock band, boldly redefines their musical genre with a much anticipated 2nd album, This World is Yours. The ensemble takes the listener through a timeline of history with modern protest music, toppling norms of intolerance and indifference. Birthed into an urban jungle of street Jewish folk music, we are led through deserts, wars, failures, triumphs, love & survival. 

The first song begins with footsteps into a shtetl (village) leading us into the depths of old world Judaic folk music, tavern-style! The album’s odyssey quickly twists into the modern era, inspired by the great rock operas of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Decemberists’ Hazards of Love, to reimagine messages of social justice, mutual understanding, sabotaged love and unstoppable joy. The album stands as a natural successor to the Judaic roots genre, and reminds society to pass this age-old message on to future generations: “You save one life, you save the world” – The Talmud. The title track is amply named: this world is yours.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Led by frontman Leeav Sofer, one of Jewish Journal’s “30 under 30” most accomplished professionals in the Los Angeles Jewish diaspora, Mostly Kosher is comprised of some of the highest regarded Los Angeles musicians: violinist Janice Mautner Markham, drummer Eric Hagstrom, bassist Adam Levy, accordionist Gee Rabe, trombonist Taylor Covey and Aníbal Seminario on clarinet and sax. 

Paintings in Pandemic and Revolution | Adrian Arias
The current exhibition on view in walls of The Red Poppy Art House

ARTIST STATEMENT

Adrián believes that poetry is in constant motion, and that feeds on each discipline to continue among us. Sometimes it is a photograph of a feather lying on the shore, sometimes a book-object that seems to tell us the future, sometimes the body moving slowly between blue lights to go dancing with paper and umbrellas, without rain. The absurd, the light, the sensual, the shadow, the dreams, are often elements in the daily life of Adrian, who in addition to declaring himself a Poet in motion, is an art teacher and a cultural organizer of events.

“During 2020 Adrian returned to an old style of painting that he used in Lima, Peru in the 80s, one that was baptized as” Virus Style “, because it is based on painting and spontaneous writing, which grows rapidly with the motivation of what we hear or see around us.

These works are the result of collaborations and virtual conversations with friends from different parts of the world. Adrian was connected with poets and musicians from Argentina, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and various states of the USA, creating several of the pieces in this exhibition live, online. In addition, Adrian spent some time creating his “Monsters of the Day”, showing his feelings about the pandemic, which are also part of this exhibition.

Tarot in Pandemic and Revolution, inspired by Adrian Arias’ lucid dream of a fortune teller and cards embellished with images of viruses, masks, Black Lives Matter, marches, and protests, is a unique 81-card Tarot deck. It is accompanied by an exquisite book of poetry, created by 67 internationally-recognized artists and poets (24 visual artists, 43 poets) with deep ties to the San Francisco Bay Area, who span three generations. These award-winning poet laureates, novelists, authors, muralists, painters, graphic artists, performance artists, composers, musicians, and dancers are each committed to social, environmental, food, public health, and climate justice, and have used their powerful talents to create tarot images and poems in response to the critical times we are living in. This deck is a bold expression of hope, resilience, resistance, and the courage to continue forging a path to justice and love.

Presented in partnership with Red Poppy Art House, Nomadic Press, and Baldocchi Projects & Collaborations. Tarot in Pandemic and Revolution (81-CARD DECK) is available here for purchase.

Adrian Arian is a poet, visual artist, performer, art teacher, and South American cultural activist based in the Bay Area for two decades. His poetry and visual art have won awards and local and international recognition. His work has been presented at the Young Museum, San Marcos Museum, Poetic Nights of Struga, Macedonia, Benamil Residence in Spain, Venice Biennale, Latin American Biennial of Lima, etc. Creator of the multidisciplinary event Illusion Show, and the Poem of the Day.

PREVIEW THE PERFORMANCE

Alejandro y Maria Laura 

Adrienne Shamszad

Pedro José Pastrana

Mostly Kosher

ONLINE EVENT DETAILS 

Time: April 2nd, 7pm- 10:00pm (ONLINE)

Admission: Free (donations are encouraged)

Tune in 10 minutes before each event starts to test your devices for connection.

The event will be streamed live through Red Poppy Art House facebook page

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