Crosscurrents

Thirty-four Black women from the Bay Area are addressing issues facing their community with a mix of theater, dance and ritual. It’s the final chapter of a House/Full Of Black Women, a special episode from the Kitchen Sisters. Plus, a poem about self-forgiveness.

It's the final chapter of a House/Full Of Black Women, a special episode from the Kitchen Sisters. It explores the question: how can black people dream, if they cannot sleep?

Danni Blackman is a multi-disciplined artist who’s visual artist name is Decomposing Mystic. Here, she reads her poem by the same name.

From 2015 to 2023, 34 Black women from the Bay Area — gathered monthly around a big dining room table in Oakland. They were artists, scholars, midwives, nurses, an architect, an ice cream maker, a theater director, a choreographer, musicians, a donut maker, educators, sex trafficking abolitionists and survivors. Together, they used theater, dance, and ritual to address issues plaguing their community. 

Today, we take a seat at their table in part one of this special two part story from our friends at the Kitchen Sisters.

Today, we hear about a sport for blind athletes that relies on only hearing and touch to play. Emboldening athletes on and off the court with goalball. Then, a local playwright questions if Shakespeare actually wrote the literature credited to him. Plus, a Bay Area Author reads from his new YA novel. 

Every Wednesday night in Berkeley a group of athletes gets ready to practice their sport. The first thing they have to do is line the court with a tactile marker––string taped to the floor around the perimeter––because this game relies on just two senses, hearing and feeling. 

This is goalball, a sport invented for blind and low vision people which involves hurling a heavy ball filled with bells at each other. 

It is sort of the opposite of dodge ball because players are trying to block the ball with their bodies. It might sound painful! So KALW's Rachel Longan visited a goalball tournament and later even padded up to play to find out if it is worth the risk.

William Shakespeare is possibly the most widely recognized writer in western literature… but did he actually write every single thing he gets credit for? It’s a controversial question that many have explored over the years. Including playwright and Oakland native Ted Lange.

His new play “Shakespeare Over My Shoulder” is a production of the San Francisco Based African-American Shakespeare Company. KALW’s Jenee Darden spoke with Ted Lange for “The Sights + Sounds Show.” Here’s an excerpt of their conversation.

Now, a segment from New Arrivals, our pocket sized book tour with Bay Area authors. Jase Peeples lives in San Francisco. His new book is, "Before You Can Fly." It’s a young adult coming of age romance set in 1988, that follows Clayton Wheeler, a gay, comic-book obsessed teen who is struggling with his growing feelings for his best friend. 

San Francisco’s Sunset district is a quiet, residential area… where almost every house has a locked gate at its front door. Today, what makes a neighborhood safe? Then, we hear a podcast that acknowledges the doom, and envision the bloom, of our shared climate future. Plus, a poet reminds us why fighting for the climate is a way to save ourselves.

If you’ve seen some of the ads in the BART stations… or San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s posts on Instagram… you may notice an emphasis on safety and security in the city. But if you go back in time, there's physical evidence that this rhetoric isn’t new. You can find it in neighborhoods all over the Bay.

Take the Sunset district, on San Francisco's westside, where almost every house has a heavy iron gate. KALW’s Rae Kim went right up to the proverbial front door to find out how those gates got there—and what they might be keeping out.