Repaying the Impossible Debt
My Mother, the Care-Taker My 90-year-old abuelita’s cataracts gleam under the florescent kitchen light as she watches my mother, her caretaker, pour her a warm cup of milk. My mom has just finished her eight-hour shift at Keiro Nursing Home in Lincoln Heights, California, but…
Heartwork
A pair of attendees exchanged looks of discovery as they balanced on a teeter-totter. Jairo Banuelos’ interactive sculpture at the Irwin Scholars reception on May 25 demonstrated the balancing of self within a Chicanx identity. Like Banuelos, the other 11 recipients of the annual Irwin…
Rainbow Theater Created
An unsuspecting, diverse set of eyes peer out beneath baseball caps as nails tap loudly on desks in Oakes Classroom 105. “Who are you, what’s your purpose, what’s your drive, what’s your goal? How do you make things change?” Don Williams asks the room. Apart…
Selling you the Science of Street Rap
In between spitting grit and rawness about the harsh realities of drugs, death and a hard life, humility poured through the mic as Freddie Gibbs performed to about 150 lucky, loyal — and mostly male — fans. The intimate show transpired at The Atrium on…
The Sound of Sorrow
You can fall in love with a person, a place or a food, but sometimes it’s an album that captures you. Sometimes, you play the album over and over, framing your life’s moments. For local band Boostive, these moments rush through beats in their latest…
The Art The Blood The Cast
Bloodshed, stripping, narco culture — and Shakespeare? “Marqués” unveils a one-of-a-kind experience by re-imagining “Macbeth,” an influential play that focuses on power, the supernatural, fate and time through the lens of narco culture — the phenomenon of a highly-organized identity within drug trafficking. The production,…
Gertrude’s Blues
The “mother of the blues” stands on stage in what looks like a music studio. A trombone, bass, trumpet and piano reverberate throughout the theater as anguish flows from Ma Rainey’s voice in the form of a blues song. Love and lust, white managers’ exploitation…
Letting Go of the American Dream
About 60 listeners absorbed lines from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me.” Coates himself was not present, yet his words rang out through church pews, resonating with those familiar with struggle. Led by Rev. Dr. George C.L. Cummings, a senior pastor at Imani Community…
Swimming the Swamp
The usual crowd of animated Santa Cruzans, students and locals, dripped with sweat as they counted down the 30 minutes until Dr. Dog claimed the stage at The Catalyst on Jan. 31. Blue hues from LED lights decorated drummer Eric Slick’s drum kit, Zach Miller’s…
Radio’s Not Dead
Long gone are the days when an aspiring artist can freak out over hearing their song played on the radio. The once intimate and sentimental relationship between the listener and the radio has been betrayed. Commercial radio is inundated with top 40 hits, where the…