Advance tickets available from the Ashkenaz front desk on show nights or online from Ticketweb or call 1-866-666-8932.

Show line: (510) 525-5054

Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center
1317 San Pablo @ Gilman in Berkeley

Ample parking across the street in the REI parking lot. Wheelchair accessible. All ages all the time.

Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center is a non-profit, tax-exempt community organization supported by patrons, donors, staff, musicians and volunteers.

A quintet of virtuosos, Kabile plays all the instruments of a traditional village band. Donka Koleva is the lead vocalist, with Dzhenko Andreev on gaida (the goatskin bagpipe), singer-accordionist Ivan Handzhiev, Angel Krastev on tapan (the large wooden drum covered with sheep or goat skin), and Nikolay Doktorov on the flute-like kaval. These instruments have a centuries-old history in Bulgarian music except for the accordion, which was introduced in the mid-1800s. Based in the city of Yambol, the group took its name from the village of Kabile, where they performed one of their earliest gigs. During its heyday, the band played almost every weekend at weddings, baptisms, and cultural festivals in Thrace.

The Alphabet Rockers sing a funky fresh collection of educational songs that the whole family can enjoy, mixing pop, rock, soul and hip-hop rhythms to combine dancing and learning. Their debut CD has received rave reviews from parents, teachers, and children across the country, including a 2008 Parents Choice Award. Think of it as the new “School House Rock” of the hip-hop generation. Children and families are groovin’ and movin’ while learning counting, spelling, and more! The Rockers are joined today by San Francisco band Me3. The Alphabet Rockers were started by professional singer Kaitlin McGaw and 4 Non Blondes drummer/author/music teacher Dawn Richardson to make high-quality, cutting-edge music and production for a shared learning entertainment experience for kids, family, and teachers.
www.alphabetrockers.com

The band features tunes from the rocking new Flambeau CD, “Serious Fun” (released in September), which boasts 15 songs, 11 of them Rigney originals. Rigney’s 2008 acoustic blues release “Back Porch Blues,” with favorites such as “Drivin’ That Thing” and “Swamp Beat Boogie,” spent much of the summer in the top 15 of “B.B. King’s Top Picks to Click” on XM/Sirius Radio’s Bluesville channel, hitting the #1 spot in August. Guest artists on the album include longtime Rigney friends Norton Buffalo, Roy Rogers, and Bob Brozman.
www.rigomania.com

This monthly event is a revival of ’70s-style Berkeley folkdancing with some international request dancing to recorded music, capturing the spirit that David Nadel was inspired by when he opened Ashkenaz in 1973 with Balkan folkdancing. One does not need a live band to experience the communal pleasure of dancing together, and the dance lessons help newcomers join in the experience.

Lap slide guitarist Adam Bowers is well-known to Ashkenaz as a key member of the bands Old Agoura and High Heat. He provides the live music portion of Dead Night with his own band. A longtime Grateful Dead fanatic, Gankmore (aka Christopher Lull, who attended 118 Dead concerts) plays an ever-changing collection of the best in Dead live recordings. He runs the website www.gankmore.com, where each day he posts several Dead shows from that day in history.

For Santa Cruz-based SambaDá, founded in 1997 by native Brazilian Papiba Godinho, every night is Carnaval. The ultimate goal isn’t just to preserve traditions the musicians are so well-versed in – including samba, bossa nova, pagode, samba reggae, batucada, and forro – but to get everyone dancing to the band’s infectious blend of Brazilian roots and other North and South American styles such as funk, reggae, jazz, rock, and hip-hop. The pulsating percussion, uplifting vocals, and rich melodies of SambaDá give it a distinctive sound, heard in both popular and original songs. The group went to Brazil in July 2009 and became the first band from the United States to play at the legendary house of Ilê Aiyê, the first black Carnaval group in Brazil. Lead vocalist Dandha is a master dancer from Ilê Aiyê, and singer-guitarist Papiba is a master of the Brazilian martial art form capoeira.
www.sambada.com

A veteran of several reggae bands, Asheba brings children and families into his joyful world of Caribbean music. Playing guitar and steel pans and singing, he performs an infectious mix of songs and tells stories from his island childhood in a participatory concert that appeals to children of all ages. The effervescent musician moved from his native Trinidad to New York City in 1989. He has called Oakland home since 1999 and has put out four popular kids’ CDs: “Go Itsy, Music for Kids Caribbean Style,” “No More Monkeys,” “Children Are The Sunshine,” and the recent “In the Kid Zone.” Asheba is also featured on two Putumayo children’s collections, “Reggae Playground” and “Animal Playground.”
www.asheba.net

The Hipline studio is run by Samar Nasser with her sisters Gabriela and Alexandra. They teach contemporary Arabic dance that incorporates some of the techniques of American jazz and modern dance as popularized by Egyptian dance star Randa Kamel. Hipline offers both fitness and technique classes in bellydance.
www.myhipline.com

In Bijou Creole, Watson explores the roots of Louisiana’s Creole music. Playing a variety of old-school zydeco styles, original material, and Creole traditionals, the polyrhythmic and syncopated sounds of Africa and the Caribbean are unmistakable in this ensemble of talented musicians. Michael Doucet (BeauSoleil, Savoy-Doucet Band) says, “To propel our Louisiana Creole culture into the future seems to be quite a task, but if one lives for the music as Cedric does, the path seems effortless.” Along with Watson, Bijou Creole is rubboard player-percussionist Mike Chaisson, bassist Blake Miller, guitarist Chris Stafford, and drummer Jermaine Prejean.
www.cedricwatson.com

Okulolo first came to the U.S. as part of King Sunny Ade’s band, and he was also the bassist in Nigeria’s seminal Afro-rock group Monomono. Since moving to Oakland in 1985, he has created a stable of African bands including Kotoja and the Nigerian Brothers. Along with Okulolo, the West African Highlife Band features Soji Odukogbe, lead guitarist in Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 band; Nii Armah Hammond, founder of Ghana’s Hedzoleh Soundz; Liberian trap drummer Lemi Barrow; and Pope Flyne, lead singer of Ghana’s Sweet Talks.
www.AfricanMusicSource.com

An Ashkenaz and Cajun dance circuit favorite since they got together in 1995, the Creole Belles sing and play rollicking Louisiana Cajun-Creole dance music usually heard in more remotely located dance halls of the bayous and plains of Louisiana. Fiddler-singer Delilah Lee Lewis has been playing such music for the past 27 years, including a three-year stint in Louisiana studying and playing with Canray Fontenot, Dewey Balfa, Michael Doucet, and other masters. She shares singing with accordionist Maureen Karpan, a member of Courtableu and also a veteran of time in Louisiana. Guitarist Karen Leigh and bassist/fiddler Karen Celia Heil are both longtime participants in folk, swing, old-time, and bluegrass bands.
www.creolebelles.com

Ordo Sakhna’s goal is to retain, develop, and popularize Kyrgyz folk heritage around the world. The professional musicians who formed the group have made it their mission to continue centuries-old traditions, learned from the few still-living masters. The music is closely related to that of Tuva (whose musicians have regularly toured the United States) because Kyrgyzstan and Tuva share common roots and were once part of the same country. It expresses wide-open spaces, the lives of shepherds and nomads. Under the leadership of film director Shamil Djaparov, Ordo Sakhna goes beyond music to dig deep into the spiritual culture and heart of the Kyrgyz people, in concerts designed to appeal to a wide audience. The members have resurrected ancient dances that were largely forgotten and present them with detailed recreations of traditional costumes and gestures. Ordo Sakhna’s music ranges widely, from archaic melodies (kuu) to folk-jazz, and can be heard on three CDs (difficult to find but they will be available at the concert): “The Music of the Legends” (2000), “Song of Nomad” (2001), and “The Flame Horses” (2007).
www.ordosakhna.com