Art, Dance, Eat, Party: This Week’s Best To-Dos!

02 Mar 2022

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San Francisco’s weird, artsy passions are all on display this week: we’ve got a silent arthouse film with a score performed by witches (!!!), a free flower festival, a cheesemonger battle, plenty of face-melting dance parties, and even a little magic! Here’s what we’re most excited about for the week of 3/1/22…

Our Sponsor’s Events

Turbo Drive: Vector Hold + Kishkumen

Friday, 3/4 | 9:00 pm | DNA Lounge, 375 11th Street | $5-20

Vector Hold is a new retro 80’s Synthwave project by the Bay Area’s own Peter Brian Rice, who specializes in sound design and production for 80’s/90’s retro gaming soundtracks and film scoring.Turbo Drive is the longest running Synthwave party in the world! Music for fans of Stranger Things, Kung Fury, Drive, Turbo Kid, Neon, Lasers, Chrome, Synths, Legwarmers, Fast Cars and Neo-80s nostalgia.

This Week’s Events

Tuesday, 3/1

The Superfine Art Fair

Today through Sunday, 3/6 | Gallery 308, Fort Mason Center | $18.50-50

If you want to see what dope Bay Area artists (and artists from all over) are making, this is your one-stop-shop. It’s an artist-driven fair, maybe the most widespread art fair for artists in the country. The artists get to display their work, their way, and sell art without getting ripped off by a greedy middleman! Check out the work of over 60 independent artists, and enjoy Fort Mason’s fab Bay view while you’re at it!

Oakland Magic Circle Gala Magic & Comedy Show

Doors at 6:30 pm, show at 7:00 pm | Oakland Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland | $10-20

The Oakland Magic Circle returns with a live in person show presenting a Gala Magic & Comedy Celebration! Five award-winning magicians will present a live, family-friendly show in the Grand Ballroom of Oakland’s beautiful Scottish Rite Center. Join Mario the Maker, Meriam al Sultan, James Chan, Pirate Jack Spareribs, and your host, Cousin Otis, for a night of magic and laughter!

Wednesday, 3/2

Gray Area Artist Showcase Opening Night

7:00 pm | Gray Area, 2665 Mission Street | $5-25

Don’t miss the newest works from fresh talent in the Gray Area Artist Showcase, a biannual exhibition of artwork fostered within their Artist Incubator and Creative Code Immersive education program! Gray Area will be presenting the Artist Showcase as a hybrid experience, inviting the audience to interact with the artists’ newest works both online in the virtual gallery, and onsite at the Grand Theater. Using tools like deep-fakes, lidar, 3D animations, and physical computing, the showcase artists create sensory spaces that engage our embodied selves in relation to the new paradigms of Web3.

Thursday, 3/3

Mz Pac Man: Mazed and Confused!

Today through Saturday, 3/3 | Doors at 6:00 pm, show at 7:00 pm | Oasis, 298 11th Street | $30-50

Ms. Pak-Man: Mazed and Confused! is the newest installment of the critically acclaimed Ms. Pak-Man cabaret series from Seattle! Watch this world-renowned video game superstar of the 1980s pop power pills while she shares scandalous songs and stories about her life and loves… glitches and all! It’s a hilarious night of comedy, confessions, camp and quarters. She sings! She dances! She drinks! She might black out! There’s a chance she won’t remember the show, but you will!

Friday, 3/4

The Joffrey Ballet

Tonight through Sunday, 3/6 | 8:00 pm Friday and Saturday, 3:00 pm Sunday | Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley | $40-150

A crown jewel of America’s homegrown dance companies, the esteemed Joffrey Ballet returns to Berkeley to conclude its six-year campus residency. In this delightfully varied program, the company showcases fresh new choreographic voices and works by an international group of renowned creators, many in their West Coast Premieres.

Turbo Drive: Vector Hold + Kishkumen

9:00 pm | DNA Lounge, 375 11th Street | $5-20

Saturday, 3/5

Tulip Day!

1:00 pm – 4:30 pm | Union Square | Free

Need a little color in your day? Stop by Union Square during the City’s 4th Annual (almost) Flower Bulb Day celebration! There’ll be 100,000 gorgeous tulips for you to pick from and create your own take-home bouquet, and floral artist Sarah Campbell (of Netflix’s “The Big Flower Fight”) will be showcasing an incredible sculpture out of tulips.

One-Handed Witch

Doors at 6:30 pm, shows at 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm | PianoFight Oakland, 1540 Broadway, Oakland | $20-50

One-Handed Witch is a silent film of savagery and survival. The film was written and scored by Oakland-based circus composer and theater-polluter Samson Y Hiss, with shadow puppets and film production by filmmakers and shadow artists Rita Deiola and Sara Draghi in Italy. One-Handed Witch will be screened with a live musical score performed by a band of witches. It is a first collaboration with film, shadow puppets and live music – a world premiere!

Switch: A New Queer Dance Party

8:00 pm | Local Maker Mart, 580 Green Street | $25-30

Switch was organized by a group of friends to offer a new and inclusive queer party focused on electronic, house and techno music. Come enjoy some drinks, dance the night away, make new friends, check out the artworks at the gallery and have a blast!

Sunday, 3/6

The Cheesemonger Invitational

3:00 pm | The Midway, 900 Marin Street | $60

Find out what happens when the best cheesemongers from around the country are challenged to create something entirely new and original – with cheese, of course! Purchasing a ticket gets you into the all-you-can-eat event, and while you’re enjoying cheese nirvana, you get to watch the main event – the Cheesemonger Battle!

Black Country, New Road

8:00 pm | Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell Street | $18-20

For many bands two songs is not a lot to go on. It’s a jumping off point or a sketch of what’s to come – it’s the primitive construction of a group’s artistic foundations. Yet Black Country, New Road propelled themselves far and wide from their first two offerings to the world via 2019’s ‘Athen’s, France’ and ‘Sunglasses’. See them tonight at the GAMH!