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Music, Performance & Arts

July 7 (Monday) 5:30 PM (Free) - SEIU 1021 HALL 350 Rhode Island Suite 100, SF
Opening Reception for
Graphic Work
Imaging Today’s Labor Movement
Art Hazelwood has put together images from workers struggle from many areas of work. The show will continue through July 31.

The American labor movement has an amazing history of graphic production, creating some of the most effective political images in the history of this country. However, work and workers, along with the labor movement, are often depicted as experiences of the American past: paintings of Joe Hill, photographs from the early1900s of children working in factories, historic strikes and Rosie the Riveter.

Today’s workforce looks dramatically different from the majority of images used to depict labor. To address this issue we asked innovative artists to create posters that depict contemporary jobs, the people that do them and the issues workers now face.

What we found was startling. Most young politically engaged people don’t realize the American labor movement still exists and if they do they have little or no relationship to it. We found that now more than ever it is important to create new images of labor. The posters here are the beautiful beginning of a new wave of labor art.

Graphic work curated by Josh MacPhee and Zoeann Murphy
Sponsored by the Workforce Development Institute,
Bread and Roses Cultural Project of ll99SEIU, and JustSeeds.org
http://www.arthazelwood.com/

July 11, 12 7:30 PM, July 19, 20 2:00, 7:30 PM (Donation for St. Boniface in community service & help for the homeless.) St. Boniface Theater -175 Golden Gate Ave., SF
I Remember Mama (A Play)
A Play about the life of Katherine Forbes, a daughter of Norwegian immigrant working class community of San Francisco in 1910. Union members Papa, and the uncles cope with some hard times.
Info: (415) 861-1179, dougmarshall_94142@yahoo.com

July 12 (Saturday) 12:00 - 1:00, 3:00 - 4:00 PM (Free - however, you need to pay to go into the pier) Hyde Street Pier - Hyde and Jefferson St., SF
Living History: SF Waterfront Strike 1901
Join San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park's Living History players in reenactment of the 1901 waterfront strike. From July 13 to October 2, 1901, San Francisco's waterfont was shut down by sailors, longshoremen, and teamsters striking for better pay and working conditions. Experience the sights and sounds of SF history through a reenactment. Hear impassioned speeches and voice your own opinion! Take part in a march as strikers implore ships crews to join their ranks. Watch as soldiers arrive to maintain order and see a ship's captain defy the strikers. Free admission to Hyde Street Pier (reenactment is on pier). Fee for boarding historic ships: Adults, $5, ages 15 and under, free. Free with national park passes. Program repeats at 3:00pm.
John Cunnane
john_cunnane(at)nps.gov
415-561-7170

July 12 (Saturday) 2:00 PM (Free) Phoenix Theatre Annex - 414 Mason St., 4th Floor, at Geary St., SF
Appalachian Redneck (A Play) World Premier
Play by Edward Hernandez
This is a staged reading of the new play Appalachian Redneck by Edward Hernandez.  The stakes are high as Peter and Willy, fearing another deadly coalmine disaster, fight to organize workers.  Powerful forces, fueled by corporate greed and indifference, face off against two insignificant and unknown coal miners in a battle that may save the lives of hundreds of workers, and protect what little they have left in their lives.  This play takes place in the Appalachian coalmine region in the 1930’s, a time labor woke up, and the final lines were drawn, in a battle to change the face of organized labor forever.  The first ‘rednecks’ were the coalmine organizers wearing red scarves around their neck during this period of time.
For info: 209-535-3434, profess2000@yahoo.com

July 12 (Saturday) 8:00 PM (Free) -885 Clayton St., at Carl St., SF
Song and Poetry Swap
For over 20 years, the Freedom Song Network has been helping keep alive the spirit of labor and political song in the Bay Are, on picket lines, at rallies, on concert stages and at songswaps. Bring songs or poems to share. Every one is welcome, regardless of musical ability or training.For more info: (415) 648-3457

July 18 (Friday) 7:00 PM ($5.00/Donation)
SF Community Music Center 544 Capp St., SF
Concert of The Choruses & Show Me Where It Hurts
The concert features El Coro Jouralero, the Day Laborer’s Chorus directed by Ricardo Torres. The San Francisco Bay Area Labor Heritage Rockin’ Solidarity Chorus, directed by Pat Wynne will perform a set about healthcare.
In the theater piece, Show Me Where It Hurts, Annie Larson & Karen Ripley, as characters take a whirlwind ride through the Great Depressions of the 1930s and the 2030s.  They time-travel from Hoovervilles and hobo camps to the Workers’ Non-Paradise of the “BigBoxHumongaMartDepot”, the world’s largest shopping mart.  All social services have been completely dismantled. Social security, retirement, pensions, unemployment benefits, Medicare and Medi-Cal gone. Could it be very far from the truth?” Ripley and Larson have been Bay Area favorites for two decades and have been performing together to standing ovations all over the U.S.
Named Best Musical Comedy –San Francisco Fringe Festival -2005

July 21 (Monday) 7:30 PM ($5.00 donation to actors) Fellowship of Humanity Hall 370 27th St., Oakland
Compared To What? (A play reading)
By Judith Offer
A story about the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
The job of Pullman Porter loomed large over Black American life in 1926, because it was the only job where any number of African American men without higher educations could wear a tie to work, travel, and earn enough (with tips) to (modestly) support a family. They worked 18 and 20 hour days, often weeks on end; they had no paid holidays or control over scheduling;  there was no route to promotion in the industry.
When A.P. Randolph and a small group of porters and ex-porters set out to form the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, they ran into the fear and reluctance of the porters to risk their comparatively superior position. 
Judith Offer is one of the leading working class writers in the Bay Area. Her latest work Compared To What? focuses on the struggle of the sleeping car porters to build a union. This battle for unionization was also a battle against discrimination and segregation in the workplace and their emergence and success as a union is an important part of labor and black history in the United States. Discussion following the reading.
For further information, call Anniversary Productions at (510) 444-8521.

July 26 (Saturday) 7:00 PM ($5.00/Donation) SEIU 1021 HALL 350 Rhode Island, SF (Enter on Kansas between 16th & 17th)
Music From The WPA
Music From The WPA with The San Francisco Bay Area Labor Heritage Rockin’ Solidarity Chorus, Jack Chernos, Carol Denney and others. From Woody Guthrie who worked as a public artist to thousands of other musicians and singers the 30’s was a renaissance of working class music and culture.
The chorus will perform it’s Beans, Bacon and Gravy, a set of spoken word and songs about the depression and the New Deal.
The chorus has performed at the Convergence of the Choruses at the George Meany Center in Washington D.C. and at the celebration for the 75th anniversary of the Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee.
http://www.laborchorus.org/

July 27 (Sunday) 7:00 PM (Donation) La Pena Cultural Center - 3105 Shattuck at Prince, Berkeley
Folk This! And Friends
By Folk This!
Join Folk This! and friends at a tribute concert honoring the late Utah Phillips, singer, songwriter, storyteller, anarchist, railroad tramp, defender of the homeless and working people everywhere.
“I thought I knew all the revolutionary songs there were, but these folks just taught me five new ones.”  Utah Phillips on Folk This!

July 31 (Thursday) 7:00 PM (Donation) Nap's 3152 Mission St. at Precita, SF
Closing Party
Please join us to celebrate the last day of the LaborFest with the Angry Tired Teachers Band, AT&T. This band, which is based in Hayward has written about the travails of teachers at working class districts in the Bay  Area, and was also featured in a daily video strike bulletin of 2007 show called The Truth which can be seen by going to www.youtube.com and typing in “HUSD strike.”
http://www.andrewkongknight.com/att/mp.html