8th World Folk Jam at the Birdhouse
TEA TRIBE PRESENTS:
8TH WORLD FOLK JAM
A FESTIVAL OF FOLK ARTS
IN A BEAUTIFUL EAST BAY MANSION
Our events celebrate diversity and honor ancient traditions, featuring world-renowned folk music, movement, art, theater, and spoken word artists. These events seek to nurture and support the Bay Area's world folk communities and to facilitate networking, collaboration, friendship, and cross-cultural understanding.
FEATURING:
Elemental Breathing & Meditation
Melody Yan (Chinese Guzheng)
East Bay Oriental Dance Group (Traditional Chinese Dance)
Malian Dance Class (West Africa)
Cornelius Boots (Shakuhachi)
Inti Batey (Latin Fusion)
Kaptain Bottletop (Scandinavian/Celtic/Bluegrass)
Orchestra Gold (Malian Psychedelic Rock)
Lava Lotus, Nini On Fire & Apokolips (Fire Arts)
Oren Baba & Friends (Indian/Middle Eastern)
Mah Ze Tar (Persian/Turkish/Greek/Indian)
Bliss Butterfly (Bellydance)
Outersect (live electronic folk)
Ekhabumi Ellik (Tantric art show and live painting)
FULL SCHEDULE
SOUTHERN AIR TEMPLE (top floor)
8pm: Malian Dance Class by Mariam Diakite
Ms. Diakité is the dynamic front-woman for Orchestra Gold (playing at 11pm). Mariam will help you learn the dance, rhythms and songs of Mali, focused on “Oldstyle” Malian dances rooted in ceremonial practice. Watch this video about Mariam’s dance. Space is limited. First-come, first-served.
9pm: Inti Batey (Latin Fusion)
“Inti Batey is medicine-music. During the lockdown the Sun God known in other cultures as: —“Inti”, “Tonatiuh”, “Apollo”— gifted us with community, music, and compassion: the perfect ingredients to create a ‘Batey’, a space for joy, celebration and jam! Through hundreds of years, pre-Columbian culture of the Puerto Rico native people —also called Taínos— referred to ‘batey’ as a place where people would meet at the end of the day to share, discuss and let off steam by playing music and dancing. In a time of exacerbated isolation and lonely digital screens, the age of longing for community support and warmth our ancestors had felt is more present than ever in us, and it birthed ‘Inti Batey’, which means Sun Gathering.
11pm: Orchestra Gold (Malian Psychedelic Rock)
It’s 1976 and you just stepped inside a smokey club in Bamako, Mali. The air is thick with the gritty analog sounds of funky folkloric music, psychedelic guitar swirling with jazzy horns and hypnotic bass. As the crowd shakes their bell bottoms to the infectious grooves, the singer commands the stage with her soulful vocals and dance moves that give James Brown a run for his money. This is the vibe that Oakland’s own Orchestra Gold creates in their live shows as well as their recordings.
1am: Māh Ze Tār (Persian/Turkish/Greek/Indian)
Māh Ze Tār is a musical fusion project by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Maz Karandish. This project was propelled by the vision of fusing traditional Eastern music with modern electronic composition as a form of cultural preservation.
Featuring a bellydance performance by Bliss Butterfly and Nicole Marie.
All Night in Front Kitchen:
Vegan pizzas, fresh from our pizza oven (gluten-free option), quinoa salad, wraps, young coconuts, chai, hot chocolate, kava-colada, chocolate treats, snacks, and more.
All Night in Back Room: Divine Chaos Sound Healing Lounge & Tea
Sip gourmet tea served ceremonially while basking in a peaceful womb of ambient healing sound. This is an open jam, bring bowls, bells, gongs, chimes, handpans, harps, didgeridoos, and voices.
WATER GARDEN OF DELIGHT (top floor - outside)
7:30pm: Melody Yan (Chinese Guzheng) and the East Bay Oriental Dance Group
Melody Yan will play the Guzheng, an ancient Chinese musical instrument. The gorgeous sounds from the guzheng, coupled with the aesthetics of music shaped by chinese culture, induce a wonderful state of tranquility in the listeners, Melody Yan expands her music beyond the traditional conformity, collaborating with diverse performers from different steps of life, and together, creates the kind of unique musical expressions & performances that make life worth living.
9pm-11pm: World Folk Acoustic Jam
Acoustic instruments only. World folk music only. We guest-list dozens of performers for every party to participate in the jams. If you would like to be considered, please fill out this form.
11:11pm: Fire Arts Performances
by Lava Lotus, Nini on Fire, and Apokolips
All Night: Giant Hot Tub
Fits 20 people. Bring towels. Clothing optional. Keep it clean and respectful.
MIDDLE EARTH LOUNGE (middle floor)
7pm-4am: World Folk Acoustic Jam
Acoustic instruments only. World folk music only. Not a drum circle. We guest-list dozens of performers for every party to participate in the jams. If you would like to be a jam leader, please fill out this form.
All Night: Free Gourmet Tea Ceremony
Sit and enjoy fine teas served to you ceremonially by our charming tea servers while enjoying the accoustic music.
FIRE DRAGON DEN (bottom floor)
Wood Prophet and root philosopher Cornelius Boots has performed at international festivals and up-close for goats with big horns. Professionally active since 1989, he's won awards and created deep catalogues of fresh new repertoire for both bass clarinet and shakuhachi. Boots has written, recorded and released over a dozen albums of his original compositions and teaches his signature playing style to the curious and dedicated around the world. He believes that music and smell are modalities of magic, and we neglect the truth and power of the invisible realms at our own peril.
San Francisco-based “Appalachian Gothic” band Kaptain Bottletop was founded by Lee Corbie-Wells and David Boyden in the fall of 2015. Inspired by Celtic, Scandinavian and bluegrass music, they play tunes old and new, along with their original compositions.
Sadly Samir Chatterjee had to cancel, but Oren Baba will delight you with the mystical sounds of the Indian Sarod and the Middle Eastern Oud, with accompaniment by percussion.
Outersect is Rob Rayle, a San Francisco Bay Area based composer and producer of genre-bending psychedelic electronic music. Inspired by sights and sounds from around the world, Outersect fuses acoustic instruments and sounds with digital production to emerge with his own unique sonic experience. Outersect's 'one-man electronic jam band' shows include live keyboard improvisation and sound loops to inspire ecstasy on the dance floor and auditory bliss.
In the Hallway: Tantric Art show by: Ekhabumi Ellik
Ekabhumi is a published author and ritual artist with works in collections around the world, including the ancient temple of Goddess Mookambika in South India. Tonight he will be live-painting sacred geometry - a ritual diagram (yantra). On show will be Ekabhumi’s line-drawings of Hindu Tantric deities that have appeared in books, scholarly translations, and on altars around the world.
ABOUT OUR TICKETS
This event will definitely sell out, so get your tickets now! Ticket sales go to cover expenses and pay competitive wages to our musicians, performers, shuttle drivers, security, and other event staff. If you would like to attend but the price is prohibitive, please consider applying to be a volunteer using our Volunteer Application. Professional musicians and dancers who wish to participate in our open jams can apply for free tickets using our Guest Musician Application or Non-Musical Performer Application. If you have a band that would like to be hired for one of our future events, fill out our Band Application.
THIS IS A PARTICIPATORY EVENT
We encourage all attendees to participate in creating experiences. Bring instruments to jam. We invite dance, flow arts, circus arts, spoken word, live painting, acrobatics, body-painting, interactive art and theater, puppet shows, etc. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. No alcohol will be provided. BYOB. Free gourmet tea ceremonies by Tea Tribe / Om Shan Tea.
A ticket AND proof that you didn't park in the neighborhood (Uber/Lyft or free shuttle receipt) will be required for entry to the event.
SHUTTLE From 6:45pm to 4am, our free shuttle service will run every 10-20 minutes to and from:
Rockridge BART Plaza, at the corner of College Ave and Keith Ave:
The venue location and Uber/Lyft instructions will be included with your ticket.
---
We love the world folk music and dance community!
Through these World Folk Jams, we seek to support and promote this community in a number of ways. Our events provide a space for professional networking and creative collaboration. We hire many performers for our events and pay them competitive rates, and we are building a gig referral network to connect event producers and performers. We also run a large Facebook group, World Folk Music and Dance (Bay Area), to help the community publicize its events.