Art

Choreographer, Poet, Playwright Robert Henry Johnson, 54

Robert Henry Johnson, a Bay Area dancer, choreographer, and playwright, passed away on Dec. 16, 2022. His body was identified in March. Johnson will be missed deeply. He worked in the Bay Area for decades, teaching a generation of Black artists.

Published

2 years ago

April 8, 2023

Oakland Post

Robert Henry Johnson. Facebook profile photo.

By Zoe Jung

Robert Henry Johnson, a Bay Area dancer, choreographer, and playwright, passed away on Dec. 16, 2022. His body was identified in March.

Johnson will be missed deeply. He worked in the Bay Area for decades, teaching a generation of Black artists.

He was born Jan. 30, 1968, to Robert Gonzales, a guitarist, and jazz singer Lady Mem’fis. He grew up in the Western Addition neighborhood showing early talent in theatre and dance.

One of the first students to graduate from the San Francisco School of Performing Arts, Johnson went on to receive a full scholarship to the San Francisco Ballet School in 1985, where he studied for four years. After graduating, he moved further into the world of writing and choreography.

He applied for a playwrights’ residency at Sugar Shack Performance Gallery in 1992 where he staged, directed and developed several of his plays. For his poetic and lively writing style, he was honored with the Levi’s & Strauss Certificate of Literary Appreciation that same year.

In 1993, he founded the Robert Henry Johnson Dance Company the same year his first play, “Poison Ground,” was featured in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and was produced by the Hartford Stage Company two years later.

Over time he created works for the Bavarian State Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, Oakland Ballet, and others.

Although his troupe performed for several years, earning local and national acclaim, he disbanded it to focus on solo efforts.

Among those efforts were writing plays and poetry. In the months before his passing, he had taken up a challenge to create poems just for his Facebook audience.

At the turn of the year, Facebook posts from friends showed they were concerned that they couldn’t get in touch with him, especially around his birthday.

When his death was announced, there was an outpouring of grief on social media.

On March 27, Wanda Sabir of Wanda’s Picks radio held an online memorial for Johnson. Each person attending was given a five-minute window to remember Johnson, tell stories about him, speak to his passing, and celebrate his life.

More than 80 people came to watch the memorial on YouTube, which ran for about two hours.

Dancer, teacher, and author Halifu Osumare began the memorial with a libation, invoking the spirits of the ancestors to help mourners through their grief and help Johnson’s spirit find its way.

Raissa Simpson, the founder of PUSH Dance Company, said, “He was young, gifted, and Black, the epitome of it. And he also mentored so many of us, so many of us young Black choreographers. He stood up for us, he protected us . . . he did a lot for us.”

Sherrie Taylor, Johnson’s cousin, said, “He was such an inspiration to everyone here. He will always be a bright light in my life because that’s what he did. He shined like a bright light. He was a wonderful person, and I just wish I could have spent some more time with him.”

Antoine Hunter said it was “a time to celebrate that light that was lit from the day I met him.” At the end of his speaking window, Hunter shared that the last words he said to Johnson were “I love you.”

Another celebration of Johnson’s memory will be held April 8 at the Zaccho Dance Theatre at 1777 Yosemite Ave., San Francisco, and another on May 27 at the African American Art and Culture Complex at 762 Fulton St, San Francisco. Time to be announced.

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Activism

Griot Theater Company Presents August Wilson’s Work at Annual Oratorical Featuring Black Authors

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Published

2 months ago

February 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Late playwright August Wilson. Wikipedia photo.

By Godfrey Lee

Griot Theater Company will present their Fifth Annual Oratorical with August Wilson’s “Half a Century,” at the Belrose on 1415 Fifth Ave., in San Rafael near the San Rafael Public Library.

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20^th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Previous performance highlighting essential Black American authors included Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry with Langston Hughes.

The play will be performed at 3:00. p.m. on Feb. 20, 21, 22, 27, and 28 at 7:00 p.m., and on Feb. 23 at 3:00 p.m.

For more information, go to griottheatercompany.squarespace.com/productions-v2

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Activism

MLK Day of Service Volunteers Make Blankets and Art for Locals in Need

“Everyone has an opportunity to participate,” said Glenda Roberts, kinship support care program manager at CCYSB. “Our nonprofit organization and participants recognize how important it is to give back to the community and this is serving. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, ‘Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve.’”

Published

3 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of the nonprofit.

By Kathy Chouteau
The Richmond Standard

The Contra Costa Youth Service Bureau (CCYSB) and Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church (BMBC) are collaborating with a team of volunteers for a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, Monday, Jan. 20 that will wrap the community’s most vulnerable people in warm blankets and provide them with an uplifting gift of art.

Volunteers will kick off their activities at BMBC at 11 a.m., making blankets for the unhoused people served by the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP) and art for those in convalescence in Richmond.

Others will get to work preparing a lunch of chili, salad, a veggie tray, and water for participants, offered courtesy of CCYSB, while supplies last.

“People of all ages are welcome to participate in the MLK Day of Service,” said Roberts. Volunteers can RSVP via phone to Glenda Roberts at 510-215-4670, ext. 125.

CCYSB Boardmember Jackie Marston and her friends donated the materials and supplies to make the blankets and art projects. The nonprofit is also providing the day’s complimentary lunch, as well as employees to volunteer, under the direction of CCYSB Executive Director Marena Brown.

BMBC, led by Rev. Dr. Carole McKindley-Alvarez, is providing the facility for the event and volunteers from the church, which is located at 684 Juliga Woods St. in Richmond.

Located in Richmond, CCYSB is a nonprofit youth advocacy organization that serves eligible children, youth, and low-income families with a variety of wraparound services so they can thrive. Programs include academic achievement, youth mentorship, truancy prevention and direct response.

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Art

Vandalism at Richmond Ferry Terminal Saddens Residents

Residents have been lamenting the destruction online. Ellen Seskin posted photos of the vandalism to the Facebook group, Everybody’s Richmond, on Jan. 12, saying she encountered it while out on a walk. “It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

Published

3 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Graffiti mars the walkway at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Photo by Kathy Chouteau, The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” stated the post on NextDoor.

The post referenced images of graffiti at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Not just on the terminal, but also on public artwork, on trail signs, on public benches and the boardwalk.

On Wednesday, the Standard stopped by to see it for ourselves. The good news was that it appears the graffiti on the terminal and on the artwork, called Changing Tide, have been cleaned for the most part. But graffiti remained abundant in the area around the relatively new ferry terminal, which opened to the public just six years ago.

Graffiti artists tagged benches and the boardwalk. Cars that had done doughnuts in the street marked the cul-de-sac just outside the historic Craneway Pavilion.

A ferry worker told us the graffiti had been there since before he started working for the ferry service about a week ago.

A member of the Army Corps of Engineers who did not want to be named in this report called the scene “sad,” as “they’d done such a nice job fixing it up.”

“It’s sad that all this money has been spent and hoodlums just don’t care and are destroying stuff,” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how soon the graffiti would be removed. The Standard reported the graffiti to the city’s graffiti abatement hotline. We were prompted to leave a message reporting the address and location of the graffiti.

“It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

In the comment section responding to Seskin’s post, local attorney Daniel Butt questioned why there aren’t cameras in the area.

On Nextdoor, one resident suggested searching to see if the tags match any accounts on Instagram, hoping to identify the perpetrator.

On its website, the City of Richmond says residents should graffiti immediately call Public Works graffiti removal and/or Code Enforcement at 510-965-4905.

Kathy Chouteau contributed to this report.