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Candlelight Club is a new monthly tradition, where we gather some of the most compelling personalities from Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco together to break bread, have a glass of wine, and explore riveting live performances together.
The formula is simple: drinks at 7:30pm, dinner at 8:00pm, and the performance at 9:00pm.
The Candlelight Club (“CC”) is a by-invite potluck dinner event for “artist-centric” (not “audience-centric”) performance, around sometimes challenging, controversial or enlightening (and often thrilling) themes. CC is also an affordable date, a sit down dinner with new and old friends, in a sexy, fun, engaging atmosphere. The crowd is eclectic, extremely warm and generous, and passionately curious. Everyone either brings a dish or a drink, or both–and shares what they’re bringing on the Facebook Event Page (muy importante for the planners!). It’s a co-created, non-profit (but we pay musicians and performers because we believe in what they’re sharing) community event. We limit participation to the 100 who sign up first because we’re committed to an intimate, conversational atmosphere. Friends of The Candlelight Club may request additional invites from the organizers (Kevin and Luke), but we ask that you inquire before inviting others. Thank you!
Theme Performance: Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy
Our world is in the midst of great political, ecological, and social crises, where the future of 95% of earth’s current inhabitants hangs from the frailest of threads. It is in times like this that we can access depths of our profound care and energy for helping turn the tides towards healing and survival. It is also easy to access feelings of despair, overwhelm, and anxiety as we witness great powers abusing our most sensitive communities. In our culture, our inner pain can be interpreted as a sign of weakness, so we hide our doubts and despairs for fear of appearing weak or not receiving the support we need. This pain is not a weakness, but a sign that the we still care deeply about what happens to each other and our planet, a care that is the binding force of life that will pull us back to each other as we move forward in more socially conscious and sustainable ways.
Performer: Lydia Violet Harutoonian – https://www.youtube.com/
Lydia Violet Harutoonian is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist deeply inspired by folk, blues, gospel, and protest music traditions. In her solo project she combines fiddle, banjo, and rich 3-part harmonies to offer a soul-folk revival experience. She also has a Masters in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She has studied closely with Deep Ecology elder and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy for the past 9 years, learning how we can metabolize our pain for the world into resiliency and profound communion with our human and more-than-human communities. In the past year she has collaborated with Rising Appalachia, Climbing PoeTree, Ayla Nereo, and the wonderful women of MaMuse. Two years ago she pioneered, “Music As Medicine In Our Time” with Penny Livingston at the Regenerative Design Institute in Bolinas, CA. In this workshop she brings together facilitation of Joanna Macy’s “Work That Reconnects” with exploring music traditions that nourish resilience and facilitates healing in our communities.
Venue & Logistics: East Bay Community – 507 55th Street (at Telegraph), Oakland, CA 94609
The East Bay Community Space is located at the corner of Telegraph Avenue and 55th Street in the Upper Temescal District of Oakland. The building was once the location of the venerable Leo’s Audio Store, and also briefly housed Leo’s Night Club. There is some on-street parking in the Temescal neighborhood. Candlelight Clubbers using public transportation are a short jaunt (1.1 miles) from MacArthur BART stop and Lyft’s are plentiful.
There are plenty of serving dishes and a prep kitchen at the venue, but please bring mostly prepared food offerings. We will also have ~2 basic dishes (tamales from our favorite West Oakland grandmother, etc.) as a producer offering, along with beer and wine and a dark chocolate-y goodness non-alcoholic drink. Please specify the dish or drink you’ll bring on the Facebook event page. If you can’t bring a dish, still come! We’ll make sure there is enough food for everyone!