Theme: Arts
Thursday, April 6th
On Allston Way between Shattuck and Oxford
Participatory Street Art with The Climate Justice Arts Project
Arts organizer David Solnit, muralist Gemma Searle and educator/organizer/artist Julie Searle will host two interactive arts projects sponsored by The Climate Justice Arts Project on the closed-to-traffic block of Allston Way. Don’t miss the fun: come learn new skills in “engaged art”-making as we collaborate in street mural painting and get your of climate justice art posters for Earthweek.
12:20 pm – 5:00 pm Thursday – Saturday
Catch the Drop
Come paint stunningly beautiful rain catchment barrels and learn about water harvesting with cutting-edge eco artists affiliated with the beloved Women’s Eco Art Directory organization (WEAD), a long-standing, groundbreaking organization with deep historical ties to Bioneers. You will discover the joy of combining beauty with life-affirming green technology.
1:00 pm – 6:00 pm Thursday – Saturday
Sprit Nests Creations
Join Jayson Fann and collaborators for an extraordinary immersive medicine space of rhythm and healing, including a 10 ft drum created in collaboration with the 13 Grandmothers. Come hear music 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm Thursday – Saturday, see the installation anytime.
People’s Earth Week: Climate Justice Art & Action
Come see street art poster designs by 10 movement artists–and take poster art kit home to publicly display for Earthweek! Sponsored by the grassroots climate justice networks People VS Fossil Fuels and Stop the Money Pipeline. Info at: bit.ly/ClimateJusticeArtKit
Climate Justice Movement Flags & Banners
See the display along Allston Way of climate justice movement screen printed, hand painted and flags and banners from in frontline and community struggles to protect people and planet.
Artists’ Way
Come browse the beautiful and thought-provoking work of an array of socially and eco-conscious local artists who will be displaying and vending their work on Allston Way and other conference sites.
1:00 pm – 6:00 pm Thursday – Saturday
April 6th | 12:30 pm to 5:00 pm | On Allston Way between Shattuck and Oxford
The film will be introduced by Ernest Alfred, Hereditary Chief of Tlowit’sis First Nation, elected leader of the ‘Namgis First Nation and leader of the Swanson Occupation.
After a mother orca carries her dead calf for 17 days, two filmmakers join Indigenous leaders and scientists making a final attempt to protect the last 73 Southern Resident orcas from extinction. Winner of many prestigious awards, Coextinction moves beyond a traditional wildlife documentary, taking us deep into the oceans and forests of the Pacific Northwest to witness the complex systems of interconnectedness linking together ecosystem collapse, centuries of injustice against Indigenous peoples, and the frontlines of the world’s most pressing environmental threats.
The Coexistence Films team includes: Gloria Pancrazi, Elena Jean, Andrew Luba, Nicholas Castel, Victoria Obermeyer, Julien Verschooris, Morgane Trussardi, Carolina Vitorino; with co-collaborators: Will George, Chief Ernest Alfred, K’odi Nelson, Jesse and Carrie Nightwalker, and 15+ First Nations and Sovereign Tribes on whose lands filming took place. The film was made with generous support from Dr. Bronner’s, PNW Protectors, hundreds of crowdfunding supporters, and many other organizations and individuals.
NOTE: To support Coextinction’s impact campaign, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/coextinction-film-impact-campaign
April 6th | 6:40 pm to 8:30 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Introduced by
Ernest Alfred
Chief Ernest Alfred (K’wak’wabalas), a traditional (hereditary) leader and elected Council Member of the ‘Namgis First Nation, in 2017 led the 284-day “Swanson Occupation” to protect wild salmon against the impacts of Industrial open-pen fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago of the Kwakwaka'wakw coastal waters of British Columbia. His work to protect ancient rainforests and the cultural and spiritual practices that rely on a healthy environment has inspired a generation of Indigenous leaders to continue to uphold their ancestral responsibilities, rights and sovereignty.
8:30 pm: Film Screening: A Sneak Preview of Regenerating Life, Parts 1 and 2
Part 1 “Water Cools the Planet” and Part 2 “Life Sustains the Climate”
Regenerating Life takes an ecological approach to unpacking the social and environmental crises that confront us, challenging the prevailing climate change story and offering new, attainable solutions. It tracks growing movements of farmers, activists, scientists, and others working to repair the environmental and social devastation we have caused. We will be screening parts 1 and 2. Part 3, “Small Farms Feed the World,” will be available online for conference attendees to watch right after the conference.
A film by John Feldman.
April 6th | 8:30 pm to 10:00 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Whereby we convene the Renaissance Council to banish crack-pot tyranny to the Underworld, to learn knitting and weaving, as the gods sentenced Hercules when he was sundering the fabric of creation.
Pluto, just arrived in Communitarian Aquarius, guides us to constellate the Community of Reverent Ingenuity. Symbiotic Mutualism!
“Who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another? We at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest.” Peter Kropotkin
This evening, Chief Trickster at Coyote Network News, Caroline Casey, the host and “weaver of context” of the Visionary Activist Show (critique and solution) on KPFA/Pacifica for 26+ years, now in her 20th+ year at Bioneers, accompanied by the brilliant, eclectic violinist Briana Di Mara, will proffer her inimitable astro*mytho*political*cultural meta narratives, whereby to quicken our endogenous indigenuity, to set all of our collaborative skills humming. And skidding in to cahoot, long-time ally Amikaeyla Gaston, on drums, “sacred ethnomusicologist/song keeper of chants from indigenous traditions around the world…Confluencing of Allies!” The more words, myths, metaphors – the more ways to cahoot with our Flora Fauna Fungi Kin. Democratic Animism Now! Language crafting – that our words stories be in accord with our dedicated hearts! Drawing on the power of majnoun (“yearning for the Divine” ) – let’s dissolve cruelty and dominance out of humanity’s repertoire. ”
April 6th | 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm | Freight & Salvage
Panelists
Caroline Casey
Visionary Activist Astrologer | Coyote Network News
Caroline Casey, the renowned “Visionary Activist Astrologer” and “story-language crafter” at Coyote Network News (“the Mythological New Service for the Trickster Redeemer within us all”), has been hosting and “weaving context” on her beloved Pacifica Radio Visionary Activist Show for 26 years, and is the author of the book, Making the Gods Work for You. Caroline has long presented her uniquely provocative, inspiring and vividly entertaining “astro-mythological” political meta-story-telling in a very wide range of multi-media venues.
Briana Di Mara
Violinist
Briana Di Mara, an accomplished violinist known for her evocative improvisations and her ability to play a broad range of genres from many different cultures, trained in Western classical music as a child and the went on to study and perform a wide variety of musical traditions, including from the Celtic, Balkan, Turkish and Arabic worlds. She harmoniously weaves these influences into her own unique, eclectic sound and compositions.
Amikaeyla Gaston
Founder and Executive Director | International Cultural Arts & Healing Sciences Institute (ICAHSI)
Amikaeyla Gaston, an award-winning vocalist, musician and musical director, is the founder and Executive Director of the Oakland, CA-based International Cultural Arts & Healing Sciences Institute (ICAHSI), which seeks to “aid at-risk populations by bringing together artists and healers of all forms and from all specialties to promote healing and wellness through the arts.” She is also a Cultural Ambassador for the State Department who has worked with political refugees, war survivors, and at-risk populations worldwide in inter-cultural literacy and restorative justice projects.
Friday, April 7th
April 7th | 8:55 am to 9:10 am | Zellerbach Hall
Keynote
Mar Stevens
Drummer and Teacher
Mar Stevens has studied West African drumming for 19 years. She started her journey under the apprenticeship of Master Drummer Afia Walking Tree of Spirit Drumz and has studied in Guinea, Africa. She has led a number of drum circles for women and taught classes and workshops at Born to Drum and Drum Sundays in Berkeley. She currently teaches a children’s drum class at Meadows Livingstone School and leads the ensembles Sistahs of the Drum and Sistah Boom.
Michaelle Goerlitz
Percussionist and Drummer
Michaelle Goerlitz, a San Francisco Bay Area-based highly versatile percussionist and drummer, has played with a wide range of artists, including: VNote Ensemble, ‘Chelle & Friends, Mark Levine, Tammy Hall, Rhiannon, Yair Dalal, Barbara Higbie, Jami Sieber, Roger Glenn, Mimi Fox and Samba Rio. She also co-founded two long-lived Bay Area groups, the Blazing Redheads and Wild Mango, and she teaches extensively, both privately and at music camps and schools.
Elizabeth Sayre
Percussionist, Hand Drummer and Educator
Elizabeth Sayre, a percussionist, hand drummer and educator based in Oakland, CA, studied with master drummers in the US and Cuba, and has played, taught, and written about Afro-Cuban batá drumming and other folk and traditional arts since the mid-1990s. She has served as Musical Director for Arenas Dance Company, directed by Cuban master dancer-choreographer Susana Arenas Pedroso, since 2012, and accompanies weekly virtual orisha song classes with legendary Cuban vocalist Bobi Céspedes. Elizabeth has written on folk and traditional arts, and some of those essays appeared in the Philadelphia Folklore Project’s magazine, Works in Progress. Elizabeth also plays Brazilian percussion and performed with Philadelphia-based dance band sensation Alô Brasil.
April 7th | 10:52 am to 11:08 am | Zellerbach Hall
Keynote
Rising Appalachia
Internationally Touring Appalachian and World Folk Ensemble
Rising Appalachia, an internationally touring Appalachian and world folk ensemble founded by Atlanta-raised, New Orleans-based sisters Leah and Chloe Smith whose soulful folk-roots sound traces back to their open-minded musician parents and to grassroots music communities in the hills and valleys of the Deep South as well as urban Atlanta, has consistently used its platform to activate, organize and support frontline justice work and community organizations. Fifteen years into an adventure that has taken this self-made, stubbornly independent band around the globe, they have recently released a new master-work, their seventh album, Leylines, recorded in California in a studio overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Introduction by J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer
In our opinion, Kim Stanley Robinson is our greatest living science fiction writer. His more than 20 award-winning books over four decades, translated into some 26 languages, have included many highly influential, international bestselling tomes that brilliantly explore in a wide range of ways the great eco, economic and socio-political crises facing our species, yet nothing had prepared him for the global explosion of interest in his visionary 2020 novel, Ministry for the Future, which projects how a possible climate-disrupted future might unfold and how the world might respond meaningfully. It’s also chock full of brilliant science and wildy imaginative ways humanity steps up. Among other results, he was invited by the UN to speak at COP-26 in Glasgow. Stan will offer us his overview of where we currently stand in relation to the climate crisis.
April 7th | 11:39 am to 12:03 pm | Zellerbach Hall
Introduced by
J.P. Harpignies
Senior Producer | Bioneers
J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer, affiliated with Bioneers since 1990, is a Brooklyn, NYC-based consultant, conference producer, copy-editor and writer. A former Program Director at the New York Open Center and a senior review team member for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge from 2010 to 2017, he has authored or edited several books, including Political Ecosystems, Delusions of Normality, Visionary Plant Consciousness, and, most recently, Animal Encounters.
Keynote
Kim Stanley Robinson
Science Fiction Author
Kim Stanley Robinson, an American science fiction writer, is the author of about twenty books, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future. He was part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program in 1995 and 2016, and a featured speaker at COP-26 in Glasgow as a guest of the UK government and the UN. His work has been translated into 26 languages and won many awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”
On Allston Way between Shattuck and Oxford
Participatory Street Art with The Climate Justice Arts Project
Arts organizer David Solnit, muralist Gemma Searle and educator/organizer/artist Julie Searle will host two interactive arts projects sponsored by The Climate Justice Arts Project on the closed-to-traffic block of Allston Way. Don’t miss the fun: come learn new skills in “engaged art”-making as we collaborate in street mural painting and get your of climate justice art posters for Earthweek.
12:20 pm – 5:00 pm Thursday – Saturday
Catch the Drop
Come paint stunningly beautiful rain catchment barrels and learn about water harvesting with cutting-edge eco artists affiliated with the beloved Women’s Eco Art Directory organization (WEAD), a long-standing, groundbreaking organization with deep historical ties to Bioneers. You will discover the joy of combining beauty with life-affirming green technology.
1:00 pm – 6:00 pm Thursday – Saturday
Sprit Nests Creations
Join Jayson Fann and collaborators for an extraordinary immersive medicine space of rhythm and healing, including a 10 ft drum created in collaboration with the 13 Grandmothers. Come hear music 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm Thursday – Saturday, see the installation anytime.
People’s Earth Week: Climate Justice Art & Action
Come see street art poster designs by 10 movement artists–and take poster art kit home to publicly display for Earthweek! Sponsored by the grassroots climate justice networks People VS Fossil Fuels and Stop the Money Pipeline. Info at: bit.ly/ClimateJusticeArtKit
Climate Justice Movement Flags & Banners
See the display along Allston Way of climate justice movement screen printed, hand painted and flags and banners from in frontline and community struggles to protect people and planet.
Artists’ Way
Come browse the beautiful and thought-provoking work of an array of socially and eco-conscious local artists who will be displaying and vending their work on Allston Way and other conference sites.
1:00 pm – 6:00 pm Thursday – Saturday
April 7th | 12:30 pm to 5:00 pm | On Allston Way between Shattuck and Oxford
LGBTQ2SIA+ communities have long had to imagine and innovate relentlessly in their struggles for dignity and equality. In the face of newly empowered homophobic reactionary forces, queer visionaries have been engaging in ever more social, cultural, political and artistic creativity, forging new paths in a dazzling variety of forms. In this session we will hear from three inspiring, impressive and remarkably diverse innovators: Taylor Brorby, essayist, poet, environmentalist and author of the extraordinary memoir, Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land; Niko Alexandre, a Black Queer forester and co-creator of the Shelterwood Collective, dedicated to a vision of Queer and Indigenous land stewardship and Afro-Indigenous food systems; Ashara Ekundayo, a queer, Black feminist interdisciplinary curator, cultural theologian, maker and the Founder/Director at Artist As First Responder. Moderated by Kristin Rothballer, independent consultant and Senior Fellow at the Center for Whole Communities.
April 7th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Crystal Ballroom, Hotel Shattuck Plaza
Panelists
Ashara Ekundayo
Founder and Director | Artist As First Responder
Ashara Ekundayo is a queer, Black feminist interdisciplinary independent curator, visual artist and arts organizer whose creative practice is rooted in joy-informed pedagogies and the study and creation of Black archives, site-responsive ceremony, and artist-based strategies that illuminate the specific expertise of Black womxn of the African Diaspora. She is the founder/Director of Artist As First Responder, which serves as a platform to support creatives working to heal communities and save lives.
Nikola Alexandre
Co-Creator & Stewardship Lead | Shelterwood Collective
Nikola Alexandre, Co-Creator & Stewardship Lead of the Shelterwood Collective, is a Black queer forester with MA degrees in both Forestry and Business Administration from Yale who founded Conservation International’s Ecosystem Restoration Program. After attending a nature-based healing gathering following the Pulse massacre, Nikola committed his life to tending the earth and reclaiming land stewardship as a way of nurturing a future for the communities he belongs to, which led to his co-founding the Shelterwood Collective in Sonoma County.
Taylor Brorby
Fellow in Environmental Humanities and Environmental Justice | Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah
Taylor Brorby, a Fellow in Environmental Humanities and Environmental Justice at the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah, is an award-winning, widely published writer and poet as well as a contributing editor at North American Review who also serves on the editorial boards of Terrain.org and Hub City Press. Taylor regularly speaks around the country on issues related to extractive economies, queerness, disability, and climate change, and is the author of Boys and Oil: Growing up gay in a fractured land; Crude: Poems; Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience; and co-editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America.
Kristin Rothballer
Senior Fellow | Center for Whole Communities
Kristin Rothballer, a Senior Fellow of the Center for Whole Communities and a founding trustee of the Tyler Rigg Foundation, consults on strategy, programs, equity and organizational development for several nonprofits, foundations, and social and land-based enterprises. Kristin’s previous roles have included: Managing Director of the inclusive green economy nonprofit, Green for All; wilderness retreat leader for Ecology of Awakening; manager of earth-based retreat centers, including Bell Valley Retreat and Tunitas Creek Ranch; and Director of Programs at Bioneers. She also helped co-create the climate change-themed musical FIREROCK, and recently earned a Certificate in Spirituality and Social Change from Pacific School of Religion.
On the one hand, the global ecological, socio-political and economic news is indisputably grim: accelerating climate catastrophes, plummeting biodiversity, increasingly authoritarian regimes and movements on the rise planet-wide, the specter of a classic “Thucydides’ trap” in U.S.-China relations, entrenched capital undermining every effort at decarbonization, etc. On the other: the radical awakening and rising up of younger generations, the emergence of some genuinely impactful large-scale “green” initiatives and policies, the exponential growth of clean energy technologies; the recent successful rebuff of several right wing leaders and parties in key countries, etc. Is the human enterprise precariously perched on the knife-edge between catastrophic unraveling or the birth of a new, life-affirming civilization? It is hard to imagine two more appropriate interlocutors to explore the current zeitgeist: Kim Stanley Robinson, our greatest living science-fiction writer, who has fascinatingly and rigorously envisioned scenarios of human adaptation to the climate crisis in many of his novels; and Leah Stokes, a professor of environmental politics who is one of the nation’s most brilliant experts on energy, climate and public policy; and who many consider to have been a key behind-the-scenes prime mover in shepherding the giant IRA climate bill through Congress. Hosted/moderated by J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Conference senior producer.
April 7th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Berkeley Ballroom, Residence Inn
Panelists
Kim Stanley Robinson
Science Fiction Author
Kim Stanley Robinson, an American science fiction writer, is the author of about twenty books, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future. He was part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program in 1995 and 2016, and a featured speaker at COP-26 in Glasgow as a guest of the UK government and the UN. His work has been translated into 26 languages and won many awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”
Leah Stokes
Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics | University of California, Santa Barbara
Leah Stokes, Ph.D., one of the nation’s most influential leading experts and “engaged scholars" in climate and energy policy, is the author of the award-winning book Short Circuiting Policy, which examines the role of utilities in undermining regulation and promoting climate denial. Trained at MIT, Columbia, and the University of Toronto, Stokes’ widely read and cited work has been published in top scholarly journals, as well as the New York Times, Washington Post, and other popular media outlets. She is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a senior policy consultant at Rewiring America, and co-host of the popular climate podcast “A Matter of Degrees.”
J.P. Harpignies
Senior Producer | Bioneers
J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer, affiliated with Bioneers since 1990, is a Brooklyn, NYC-based consultant, conference producer, copy-editor and writer. A former Program Director at the New York Open Center and a senior review team member for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge from 2010 to 2017, he has authored or edited several books, including Political Ecosystems, Delusions of Normality, Visionary Plant Consciousness, and, most recently, Animal Encounters.
With a special live appearance by Bernie and Katherine Krause to introduce the film.
Bernie Krause, the legendary pioneer of Acoustic Ecology began his journey in the 1960s as a prolific composer at the forefront of the synthesizer revolution helping transform the cinema and the music industries, but a single chance encounter with the sounds of the wilderness set him on a completely new trajectory gathering wilderness recordings across the globe. Over half a century later, his vast archive of captured soundscapes reflects dire habitat devastation in virtually all ecosystems on Earth, yet also yields urgent stories about the need for immediate change. Bernie and his wife Kat tragically faced the immediacy of climate change when their home and recording studio was completely destroyed by the Sonoma wildfires of 2017. Their message to us is ever more urgent.
“The Last of the Nightingales” invites us to experience the rich acoustic beauty of the living world through Bernie’s ears and to reconnect with it. As more and more soundscapes fall silent, Bernie reminds us that it is not too late to begin listening.
Directed and edited by Masha Karpoukhina; cinematography by Justin LaFleur; produced by Hassan Said and Rose Wyatt.
April 7th | 6:40 pm to 7:20 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Protecting and Restoring California’s Ecosystems with Nature-Based Solutions
Three Short Films by Masha Karpoukhina
Produced by Colorfool Films
These 3 short films represent an inspiring patchwork of some of the most ambitious conservation projects to be undertaken in California in response to the climate crisis. What can be achieved if we decide to work in concert with nature rather than against her? If we decide to learn from the wealth of ecological knowledge embedded in the evolutionary process, billions of years in the making? In many ways, the things that we love most about the Bay Area from our coastal redwoods, to the majesty of the Bay, to the free flowing waters that nourish it, deeply depend on the success of these 3 projects. They represent hope, but it’s clear that they will not be enough. How can we inspire a thousand more projects just like these to help redefine what is possible?
A Valley Endures: Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST)
Between two ridges—the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range—lies Coyote Valley, the last remaining, largely undeveloped link connecting 1.13 million acres of habitat that is already severely fragmented by human development. If the wildlife who call these habitats home are to have a chance at adapting to our changing climate, or even surviving, Coyote Valley must be protected forever. (5 minutes)
Where the Wetlands Grow: Save The Bay
As the Bay Area braces for 7 feet of sea level rise by the year 2100, Save The Bay and partners such as the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project are pioneering nature-based solutions for one of the largest tidal marsh restoration projects on the West Coast. This innovative approach protects Bay Area wildlife and human communities with healthy marshes teeming with native vegetation instead of hardened seawalls or levees. (3 minutes)
6000 Miles: CalWild
There are so few free-flowing rivers in the U.S. that the Department of the Interior considers them endangered ecosystems. Enter Kayla Lopez, a young river activist, and Steve Evans (aka The River Guy), who has lobbied for wild rivers in Congress his whole life. Both are on a journey into the spirit of the California rivers they hold dear. Follow their stories as we explore CalWild’s mission to protect a total of 6,000 miles eligible under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act by 2028. (5 minutes)
April 7th | 7:20 pm to 7:40 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
This short film shows frontline Ecuadorian conservationists invoking the “rights of nature” clause in their nation’s constitution to work to save areas of immense biodiversity. This half hour screening is of Episode #4 from Tangled Bank Studio’s brand-new series, Wild Hope.
The film will be introduced by Callie Broaddus, founder of Reserva: The Youth Land Trust, a nonprofit empowering youth to conserve threatened species and habitats around the world.
Great thanks to Tangled Bank Studios, a mission-driven production company.
April 7th | 7:40 pm to 8:20 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Introduced by
Callie Broaddus
Founder | Reserva: The Youth Land Trust
Callie Broaddus, a Washington, DC-based conservation photographer and the founder of Reserva: The Youth Land Trust, a nonprofit empowering youth to conserve threatened species and habitats around the world, has focused since 2019 on the Ecuadorian Tropical Andes, Earth’s most unique biodiversity hotspot, where Reserva is working with partners to prevent gold mining in the fragile Dracula Reserve ecological corridor. Callie also serves on the advisory councils and boards of several leading conservation organizations.
A Friday Night Bioneers Concert
We are delighted to be able to present Rising Appalachia in a special performance in one of the Bay Area’s most revered musical venues, Freight & Salvage, to celebrate Bioneers’ first year in Berkeley. Rising Appalachia, founded by Atlanta-raised, New Orleans-based sisters Leah and Chloe Smith, is renowned for its hauntingly beautiful soulful folk-roots music, but the band has also been truly exemplary in consistently using its platform to activate, organize and support frontline justice work and community organizations. Fifteen years into an adventure that has taken this self-made, stubbornly independent ensemble around the globe, they have recently released a new master-work, their seventh album, Leylines, recorded in California in a studio overlooking the Pacific Ocean and are eager to share their latest creation. This show will feature Rising Appalachia with their full five piece band. Don’t miss it!
Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison St, Berkeley, CA
NOTE: Access to this performance requires a separate registration from Bioneers attendees, with an additional $25 ticket price. Open to the general public as well, ticketing link below:
April 7th | 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm | Freight & Salvage
Panelists
Rising Appalachia
Internationally Touring Appalachian and World Folk Ensemble
Rising Appalachia, an internationally touring Appalachian and world folk ensemble founded by Atlanta-raised, New Orleans-based sisters Leah and Chloe Smith whose soulful folk-roots sound traces back to their open-minded musician parents and to grassroots music communities in the hills and valleys of the Deep South as well as urban Atlanta, has consistently used its platform to activate, organize and support frontline justice work and community organizations. Fifteen years into an adventure that has taken this self-made, stubbornly independent band around the globe, they have recently released a new master-work, their seventh album, Leylines, recorded in California in a studio overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
In the spring of 1972, police raided an apartment on the South Side of Chicago where seven women who were part of a clandestine network were arrested and charged. Using code names, fronts, and safe houses to protect themselves and their work, the accused had built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions. They called themselves “Jane.”
Directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, The Janes offers first-hand accounts from the women at the center of the group, many speaking on the record for the first time. The Janes tells the story of this group of unlikely outlaws who defied the state legislature that outlawed abortion, the Catholic Church that condemned it, and the Chicago Mob that was profiting from it, and risked their personal and professional lives to help women in need.
April 7th | 8:20 pm to 10:00 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Saturday, April 8th
April 8th | 8:55 am to 9:15 am | Zellerbach Hall
Keynote
Elizabeth Sayre
Percussionist, Hand Drummer and Educator
Elizabeth Sayre, a percussionist, hand drummer and educator based in Oakland, CA, studied with master drummers in the US and Cuba, and has played, taught, and written about Afro-Cuban batá drumming and other folk and traditional arts since the mid-1990s. She has served as Musical Director for Arenas Dance Company, directed by Cuban master dancer-choreographer Susana Arenas Pedroso, since 2012, and accompanies weekly virtual orisha song classes with legendary Cuban vocalist Bobi Céspedes. Elizabeth has written on folk and traditional arts, and some of those essays appeared in the Philadelphia Folklore Project’s magazine, Works in Progress. Elizabeth also plays Brazilian percussion and performed with Philadelphia-based dance band sensation Alô Brasil.
Mar Stevens
Drummer and Teacher
Mar Stevens has studied West African drumming for 19 years. She started her journey under the apprenticeship of Master Drummer Afia Walking Tree of Spirit Drumz and has studied in Guinea, Africa. She has led a number of drum circles for women and taught classes and workshops at Born to Drum and Drum Sundays in Berkeley. She currently teaches a children’s drum class at Meadows Livingstone School and leads the ensembles Sistahs of the Drum and Sistah Boom.
Michaelle Goerlitz
Percussionist and Drummer
Michaelle Goerlitz, a San Francisco Bay Area-based highly versatile percussionist and drummer, has played with a wide range of artists, including: VNote Ensemble, ‘Chelle & Friends, Mark Levine, Tammy Hall, Rhiannon, Yair Dalal, Barbara Higbie, Jami Sieber, Roger Glenn, Mimi Fox and Samba Rio. She also co-founded two long-lived Bay Area groups, the Blazing Redheads and Wild Mango, and she teaches extensively, both privately and at music camps and schools.
April 8th | 11:11 am to 11:23 am | Zellerbach Hall
Introduced by
Rashidi Omari
Performing Arts Director | Destiny Arts Center
Rashidi Omari, affiliated with Oakland’s renowned Destiny Arts Center since 2003, is its Performing Arts Director and the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company's Co-Director. He also teaches dance and spoken word in school and community spaces throughout the Bay Area and presents on Destiny’s Creative Youth Development model nationally and internationally. Rashidi, whose passion for and profound knowledge of hip hop and related dance styles were kindled by his youth during the “golden age” of the genre, has been dancing since the age of three and has been performing extensively since 1993 with a wide array of companies.
Keynote
Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company
The Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company (DAYPC) is a diverse group of teens that collaborates with professional artists to create dynamic, original productions. Combining hip hop, modern and aerial dance, theater, song, and rap, company members take the stage to tell stories that stem from their lived experiences and express their visions for a world transformed. Since 1993, DAYPC has performed original work for up to 25,000 audience members annually, garnering critical acclaim and widespread community support for both their technical prowess and their commitment to advancing inclusivity, equity, and justice.
On Allston Way between Shattuck and Oxford
Participatory Street Art with The Climate Justice Arts Project
Arts organizer David Solnit, muralist Gemma Searle and educator/organizer/artist Julie Searle will host two interactive arts projects sponsored by The Climate Justice Arts Project on the closed-to-traffic block of Allston Way. Don’t miss the fun: come learn new skills in “engaged art”-making as we collaborate in street mural painting and get your of climate justice art posters for Earthweek.
12:20 pm – 5:00 pm Thursday – Saturday
Catch the Drop
Come paint stunningly beautiful rain catchment barrels and learn about water harvesting with cutting-edge eco artists affiliated with the beloved Women’s Eco Art Directory organization (WEAD), a long-standing, groundbreaking organization with deep historical ties to Bioneers. You will discover the joy of combining beauty with life-affirming green technology.
1:00 pm – 6:00 pm Thursday – Saturday
Sprit Nests Creations
Join Jayson Fann and collaborators for an extraordinary immersive medicine space of rhythm and healing, including a 10 ft drum created in collaboration with the 13 Grandmothers. Come hear music 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm Thursday – Saturday, see the installation anytime.
People’s Earth Week: Climate Justice Art & Action
Come see street art poster designs by 10 movement artists–and take poster art kit home to publicly display for Earthweek! Sponsored by the grassroots climate justice networks People VS Fossil Fuels and Stop the Money Pipeline. Info at: bit.ly/ClimateJusticeArtKit
Climate Justice Movement Flags & Banners
See the display along Allston Way of climate justice movement screen printed, hand painted and flags and banners from in frontline and community struggles to protect people and planet.
Artists’ Way
Come browse the beautiful and thought-provoking work of an array of socially and eco-conscious local artists who will be displaying and vending their work on Allston Way and other conference sites.
1:00 pm – 6:00 pm Thursday – Saturday
April 8th | 12:30 pm to 5:00 pm | On Allston Way between Shattuck and Oxford
April 8th | 12:33 pm to 12:45 pm | Zellerbach Hall
Keynote
Wildchoir
Musical Ensemble
Wildchoir, formerly known as “Thrive Choir,” is an Oakland, CA-based, politically and socially engaged diverse group of vocalists, artists, activists, educators, healers and community organizers who join together in harmony. They have performed with nationally-acclaimed artists for social change including Rising Appalachia, Climbing PoeTree and MaMuse. They also frequently share the stage with progressive leaders, including Bernie Sanders, Ericka Huggins, Joanna Macy, and Fania Davis. Their music has inspired thousands at marches, conferences and festivals across California. Wildchoir spent its first years as the musical voice of Thrive East Bay and the global Thrive Network, and it is forever grateful to the Thrive Network for all its support and collaboration, but it is thrilled to be beginning a new phase of its musical journey as an independent ensemble.
A working session open to all youth who want to come and complete the Singing Tree Collective Mural collective before the close of the conference. With Leslie Rein and Sweta Chawla.
April 8th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Terrace outside Tamalpais Room, Brower Center
Panelists
Sweta Chawla
Facilitator
Sweta Chawla, PharmD, a former professor of pharmacy turned leadership coach, is a certified Art of Sacred Circle, Singing Tree and Step into Your Moxie facilitator who uses art, self-awareness and vocal expression to empower her clients. She has published articles and essays in many journals and magazines, and is the author of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For...Now What? as well as a contributor to the award-winning anthology: She’s Got This: Essays on Standing Strong and Moving On.
Leslie Rein
Facilitator | Singing Tree Project
Leslie Rein, a former mental health counselor, municipal government administrator, and dancer, has, since 2019, focused on visual art, including by working on collaborative murals as a Singing Tree Project facilitator and by facilitating the creation of large, collaboratively made chalk drawings on school playgrounds and in other public spaces.
In times of crisis, societies look to their storytellers to understand and process the challenges and to peek around corners to see pathways that purely rational analyses simply can’t fathom. Today, best-sellers in fiction and memoir are setting real-world information about the climate crisis, social justice movements, and migration realities within their narratives. Audiences are ready for these stories, but what about artists? Does the moment dictate the art? In our ancestral past it was the myth-makers who guided their communities through crisis. Do modern day writers think about their obligations on the entertainment-awareness spectrum? How do storytellers move in or move out of our current moment? Join a conversation with leading writers about their creative process, how they consider the bigger local and global conversations as they craft their work, and the relationship between fictional narratives and real world movements for change. Hosted by Laleh Khadivi, Iranian-born writer and filmmaker. With: Keenan Norris, novelist, essayist and scholar; Andri Snær Magnason, renowned Icelandic novelist, poet, filmmaker and environmental activist.
April 8th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Magnes Museum
Panelists
Laleh Khadivi
Writer and Filmmaker
Laleh Khadivi, born in Esfahan, Iran, is a writer of fiction and nonfiction as well as (since 1999) a director, producer and cinematographer of documentary films. Her debut novel, The Age of Orphans, received multiple prestigious awards, and her documentary film, 900 WOMEN, aired on A&E and premiered at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Her fiction and non-fiction have been published widely, including in The Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, VQR and The Sun. She was also the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and a Pushcart Prize for her story, Wanderlust.
Andri Snær Magnason
Writer and Filmmaker
Andri Snær Magnason is an Icelandic writer and documentary fllmmaker. His latest book, On Time and Water, is a search for a new language to explain the climate crisis through science, family stories and mythology. His work ranges from poetry to non-fiction, children's literature, science fiction, theater and documentary film. Andri has won some international awards, the Tiziano Terzani Award in Italy, the Philip K. Dick honorary mention in USA for LoveStar and the Icelandic literary Award in all categories. He ran for president of Iceland in 2016 with environmental issues on the agenda and came in third.
Keenan Norris
Novelist, Essayist and Scholar
Keenan Norris, an Associate Professor at San Jose State University, is a novelist and essayist whose latest novel, The Confession of Copeland Cane, won the 2022 Northern California Book Award. His essays have garnered a 2021-22 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award and 2021 Folio: Eddie Award, while his debut novel, Brother and the Dancer, won the 2012 James D. Houston Award. His most recent work is a "biblio-memoir," Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings.
This Open Mic, our final event of the weekend, centers youth voices, showcases youth talent and offers a powerful and sacred space for truth and healing. Open to all youth who have something that they would like to share, it will be rowdy, sweet, high energy, thoughtful and whatever else youth want to bring to the stage. MC’d by the dynamic Hip Hop and R&B artist, Jada Imani.
April 8th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Tamalpais Room, Brower Center
Panelists
Jada Imani
Hip-Hop and R&B Artist
Jada Imani, a Hip-Hop and R&B artist immersed in the Soul, Funk and Jazz traditions, is a community activator who started (at age 15!) curating creative spaces for local artists at cafes, community centers and festivals, including Oakland's First Friday, Life is Living, and Fridays at Oakland’s Museum of California.
Cara Romero: Following the Light profiles the art and inspiration of Bioneers’ Indigeneity Program Co-Director and award-winning photographer, Cara Romero. Q&A with featured artist, Cara Romero.
April 8th | 6:40 pm to 7:25 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Long Line of Ladies tells the story of the return of women’s coming of age ceremonies among the Yurok tribe of Northern California. Q&A with featured culture-bearer, Pimm Allen.
April 8th | 7:30 pm to 8:10 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Join us at the Bioneers After Party to celebrate, hang out and dance. Bring your friends, it’s open to the public. DJ Sandina aka “La Positiva” will be spinning uplifting music, from conscious Hip-Hop, R&B to Afro-Latin rhythms and Reggae, along with ancestral sounds by special guest Eric Terena. The Drop 84 (2284 Shattuck Ave).
April 8th | 8:00 pm to 1:00 am
Panelists
DJ Sandina
DJ Sandina aka “La Positiva” spins positive music for people who love to dance, from old-school R&B to Afro-Latin rhythms, conscious Hip-Hop and Reggae. She's a long-time radio journalist and host of music programs. Former foreign correspondent and contributor to NPR, Pacifica, the Christian Science Monitor Radio, and Latino USA, Sandina is also hosts “Women Rising Radio,” a podcast about courage in action featuring stories of women change-makers from around the world.
Eric Terena
Co-Founder | Midia India
Eric Terena (aka DJ Eric Marky), an Indigenous youth activist and media maker, co-founder of Midia India (an Indigenous communication collective), is a member of Youth4Climate and was responsible for the audiovisual coverage of the participation of Indigenous leaders from Brazil at the United Nations Climate Change conferences COP25 and COP26. Eric is also a specialist in ethno-media and works with Indigenous singers.
Indigeneity shorts present an accurate portrait of the Native American experience by tackling stereotypes, exploring contemporary issues, and celebrating Indigenous contributions to America. Q&A with producer/writer/director, Alexis Bunten.
April 8th | 8:15 pm to 8:45 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
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