It was a fascinating day yesterday.

You never know who you are going to see or what the day will bring.

We began our morning at CUE Space in West Oakland filming Darkhia our Mongolian Hand Dancer for an artist profile series. Darkhia has a fascinating story we hope to bring to light through this interview and performance. She was raised in the country side of Mongolia and began learning traditional Mongolian Dance at the age of 8. In addition she has gymnastics training, was in the Mongolian Army, can butcher livestock for a meal and then rushed off to catch a plane to perform for kings and queens. She has performed Internationally on many acclaimed stages, festivals and won several international awards. When we are together I cannot help but to be drawn into her life story and it's continuing journey. I also met with a producer at CUE who is using the space and several of our artists for a commercial shoot who cast several of artist for a "ordinary people doing extraordinary things" though I have to admit there in nothing ordinary about a person that can fly through the air on a trapeze or that is training to break the Guinness Book of world records for the most back flips on jumping stilts.

We hurried back to San Francisco after the shoot to meet up with Gregangelo as we had an event last night. We walked into our home which was filled with an extraordinary candy display in the music room and shopping bags full of exotic nuts, fruits and confections. Gregangelo is preparing for a holiday gathering next week at our home and everything he does is art including serving guests and as so his attention to detail is unbelievable.

The event we participated in last night was the launch party for Emirate Airlines at the Herbst Pavillion. It was quite a beautiful event. We were part of the program which was the Salute to the Arts of San Francisco which include the San Francisco Symphony, Alonzo King's Lines Ballet, Velocity Circus and a speech by Mayor Gavin Newsom welcoming His Highness from the Emirates and the Emirate Airlines. In addition Sheryl Crow and Hillary Swank made stage appearances.

Gregangelo and I rushed out of the event after our performance to a private concert for a live recording of Vinsantos new CD. It was held in a gorgeous Victorian home in the Western Addition. The line-up included Vinsantos on vocals and piano, Featuring Kiddie ,Fauxnique, Suzanne Ramsey Uke and Piano, Ricky Furcoat drums and percussion,Kenny Girl Bass Guitar. It was quite a scene full of alternative artists, gays and female impersonators gathering to hear a remarkable only in San Francisco melodramatic sound infused with heart wrenching lyrics and a visual feast of eye candy. Check out Vinsantos site at http://www.vinsantosmusic.com/ I have heard about Vinsantos over the years but this was my first opportunity to see and hear him perform. I am certainly his newest fan!

We finished our night with a cocktail at the Midnight Sun in the Castro where we met a very recent transplant from Seattle "Queen Wilhemina". Wilhemina is a very bright and vibrant gay drag performer who moved through the crowd breaking smiles on the stoniest of faces and throwing fear to the wind literally danced through the crowd introducing himself and everyone to each other. He moved to San Francisco 4 days ago to pursue a career as a R&B/Gospel singer and belted out and sang along with the 70’s disco tunes the DJ was spinning and showing on the video tron.

You have to love this city and its arts, where a person can experience a Mongolian Hand Dancer, the Symphony, the Ballet, a Circus and a new underground sound and scene all in day all in San Francisco.

Jeffrey Ferns

Seeing STARS

by Sottol Weng

This Saturday, the comet of Gregangelo & Velocity Arts & Entertainment swung into the orbit of Santa Cruz for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History's (MAH) annual STARS gala. We shined throughout three floors of red globe motif accented halls and galleries to present in. A juggling-balancing clown, a beaked stuntperson on stilts, a joke-cracking stilt-walker, and an accordionist greeted the guests as they drifted in.

After a few technical difficulties, Velocity Arts contortionist Bogi performed before a rapt audience of VIP guests at the STARS live auction. Surprising how well the Museum did with that item of the evening; someone bid $1800 on a dinner for 20!

After the live auction got under way, dining tables were brought out on the ground floor and a band played some of Billboard's top 40s for the Baby Boomer set. Later that night, one of Gregangelo's rhythmic gymnasts tousled the attentions of the diners milling about the elevator.

Overall, a smooth event and evening.

Here is Tyler Parks looking red and Seuss-icle.

Kitten on the Keys Slideshow

Kitten on the Keys new slideshow created by Hiromi Yoshida of Velocity

Enchanters-R-Us

A peel of laughter and piano music greeted me as I entered the Gregangelo House today. It was none other than Rita Abrams rehearsing one of her new songs for her production of As the Bridge Tolls and the Gregangelo crew gathered around.


Passing through the atrium, I glanced over and saw Darkhia, Mongolian Hand Dancer (and one of the primary chefs here) carefully applying make-up to an elf-in-the-making.

The funny thing about pop culture is that it there are not more accidental crossovers. For instance, there are the elves of Christmas, Oompa-Loompa-like cogs in the great toy making factory of Santa Claus. Then there are J.K. Rowling's moth-beaten house elves, completely different from the noble (and fine) forest elves from J.R.R. Tolkien's novels. And somehow we get away with calling them ALL elves without getting them mushed up together into one gooey surrealistic painting in our heads (or at least my head).



Speaking of spirits and surreal images, I had the opportunity to meet Jim Berenholtz recently. Jim is one of those people with a really old soul. And I mean old like Brothers Grimm or pre-Scientific Revolution old, not old like stale cheese. This guy has traveled and lived with people all over the world, sometimes staying in huts and tin shacks. He is an accomplished ethnomusicologist, composer, snake dancer (see photo), musician, performance artist, and a researcher of many things indigenous.



One of Jim's favorite topics is Ancient Egypt and he is collaborating with Gregangelo & Velocity Arts & Entertainment to develop the "Heliopolis - City of the Sun" presentations. Here is Jim Berenholtz in the first of a 3-part series talking about the influence of Ancient Egypt on other civilizations (with a voiceover by yours truly): Sottol Weng Click HERE.

http://velocitycircus.podbean.com/

The Census for Arts Organizations

by Sottol Weng

Just mailed out a stack of fundraising letters. Fundraising is definitely one of the most creative types of office work you can find. Grant-writing, on-line and physical research, event planning, talking to potential and past donors, marketing - and those are just the fun parts!

Also recently put some information in for CUE on the California Cultural Data Project.

"What is the California Cultural Data Project?" you might ask. "Does it matter to me?"

As politicians at all levels of government look for ways to cut budgets in this time of national recession, we as artists and arts organizations will need to push back against attempts to cut funding to the creative sector. This is where the Cali Cultural Data Project will help make a difference. It's a bit like the U.S. Census applied state-side to arts organizations.

The California Cultural Data Project is a transplant from Pennsylviania, where it got started about 5 years ago when a group of foundations that realized their grant application demands on arts organizations often were redundant and therefore too time-consuming. It has since become a tool for Pennsylvania arts organizations to show, using hard numbers, the wide range of people served and economic contributions of arts organizations to residents of the Keystone State. See this article: {http://www.hewlett.org/AboutUs/News/Foundation+Newsletter/California+Cultural+Data+Project.htm}}
The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance was able to put together this information and present it to politicians and business councils, showing them the big impact that arts programming has in the local economy, both by employing artists and by attracting people to local businesses through their proximity to the arts.

Participation in the Cultural Data Project is absolutely free because it is funded by several of the largest California foundations that realize the necessity of being inclusive of all arts organizations, be they as large as San Francisco Ballet or as small as an experimental theater project.

Do you need more incentive to get involved? Hot cocoa and marshmallows? Seriously.