6th Annual Fisherman’s Wharf PIERsafe Emergency Expo and Drill sponsored by Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District in partnership with SF Fire Department and SF Department of Emergency Management.

Remarks by

SF Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White & Fisherman’s Wharf CBD Troy Campbell

WHEN:

Friday, October 12, 9am-1pm
9am: Speakers
Ham radio and fishnet test: 9:20am
9:30am – 1pm: ICS Drill

WHERE:

San Francisco’s Aquatic Park, located at Hyde and Jefferson Streets

www.visitfishermanswharf.com

WHY:

The 6th Annual PIERsafe Drill and Expo helps prepare and teach businesses and citizens about how to prepare and recover from a major disaster in the Bay area. The drills demonstrate the formation and implementation of the Incident Command System’s incident command center, as well as examples of extrication, triage, utility shut off and fire suppression. The expo compliments the drill in by exposing local residents, businesses and employees to the tools that they have at their disposal from NERT (Neighborhood Emergency Response Team) training to emergency preparedness kits. Vendors that will be participating will be private industries and government agencies focused on emergency preparedness and business continuity including:, The American Red Cross; San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, San Francisco Fire Department, NERT ((Neighborhood Emergency Response Teams), Cole Hardware, PG & E/ The Safety Expo will provide information to local residents, businesses and employees about tools that they have at their disposal from NERT training to emergency preparedness kits

ABOUT PIERsafe: In 2006, The Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District and the Fisherman’s Wharf Merchants Association banded together to create the PIERsafe committee to develop an emergency preparedness and response plan for the community. The PIERsafe committee also works with the San Francisco Fire Department in providing Neighborhood Emergency Response Training sessions especially designed for the business owners, merchants and residents of the Fisherman’s Wharf. The PIERsafe committee meets on the first Wednesday of each month in Scoma’s Restaurant at 9am.

Dimensions Dance Theater presents Premiere of DOWN THE CONGO LINE II

Saturday, October 13, 2012, 8pm at Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, Oakland

www.dimensionsdance.org

20 September 2012 — San Francisco, CA: Dimensions Dance Theater is pleased to announce the premiere of DOWN THE CONGO LINE II featuring two works rooted in Congolese tradition by choreographers Herve (Kayos) Makaya and Jose “Cheo” Rojas, directed by Dimensions Dance Theater Artistic Director Deborah Vaughan. A celebration of dance and music rooted in Congolese traditions, the performance will be accompanied by Cuban and Congolese percussionists, and two of the Bay Area’s best-known drummers—Sandy Perez from Cuba, and Kiazi Malonga, son of the late Malonga Casquelourd.

DOWN THE CONGO LINE II premieres on Saturday October 13, 2012, at 8pm at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice Street at 14th Street, Oakland. Tickets are $20 in advance; $25 at the door (children under 18 years $15). Advance tickets are available at brownpapertickets.com or in person at the Dimensions Dance Theater office (M-F 4pm-7pm) on the 3rd floor of the Malonga Center (1428 Alice St. at 14th St.). Further information is available at (510) 465-3363 or www.dimensionsdance.org

“Join Dimensions Dance Theater for a special evening of this exciting blend of exhilarating music and powerful dance traditions that are present in Cuba and Congo,” said Artistic Director Deborah Vaughan. The concept of DOWN THE CONGO LINE came about through a trip Vaughan made to the Congo. Her experiences there inspired her to build a collaboration for the company that would recognize the extraordinary contribution that Congolese culture has made to the music and dance of the Americas. This new work engages traditional artists from the Diaspora to create contemporary work that is both rooted in the local community’s traditions and also reflects their Congolese origins.

Jose Rojas’s choreography OF THE ISLAND brings a view of Cuba from a past time – making the old become the new. The impassioned rhythms and dances of the island will light up the stage. This exciting work highlights Cuba’s connection to the Congo with a suite of dances that reflect the enduring and irrepressible spirit of Africa in Cuba.

Herve Makaya’s choreography VUKANA is a lush creation that will entertain and inspire audiences with the spellbinding sound of the “ngoma” (drum), layered with song, story and widely varied dance styles of Brazzaville, Congo. This work has a rich vocabulary and celebrates living traditions in the Congo.

Dimensions Dance Theater presented Part I of DOWN THE CONGO LINE in Spring 2012, featuring works by choreographers LaTanya d. Tigner and Isaura Oliveira, with live percussion accompaniment.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Herve (Kayos) Makaya is a choreographer, musician, and dancer trained in both traditional Congolese and contemporary dance. Born and raised in Republic of Congo, Makaya was initiated and ritually trained in the art of Congolese music and dance. His training spans over two decades and he has traveled the world and earned numerous honors and accolades for his artistic excellence. He traveled to San Francisco in 2007 with Compagnie Li-Sangha to participate in the San Francisco International Arts Festival, and decided to stay in the Bay Area to escape the civil war that was plaguing his home country. He is the Artistic Director of Tata Kaya Art, a Congolese dance and drum ensemble. He is based in Arcadia and is working with DDT for the first time on this project.

Jose “Cheo” Rojas was born in Guantánamo, Cuba, where he began dancing at a young age with his father at changüicera parties (“changüi” being a genre of music and dance born in the Eastern mountains of Cuba), and with his grandfather at Cuban-Haitian parties. He graduated as a dance instructor from the Escuela Profesional de Arte de Cuba in 1988, as professor and choreographer from the Instituto Superior de Arte de Cuba in 1990, and as a folklore specialist from the Escuela Nacional de Arte in 1996. He began his career as a professional dancer and choreographer with Danza Libre in 1989, and co-founded and co-directed the internationally renowned Cuban company Banrará in 1994. Having participated in several national and international festivals, he won a Best Choreographer award in Cuba in 1998. In 1999 he traveled to the U.S. to participate in a production of West Side Story in the Bay Area, where he now resides and teaches. This will be the first time that Cheo has choreographed for DDT.

DIMENSIONS DANCE THEATER

Under the artistic leadership of co-founder Deborah Vaughan for over 39 years, Dimensions Dance Theater has become widely recognized for its presentation of both traditional dances and contemporary choreography drawn from African, Jazz, and Modern dance idioms. DDT has garnered national and international acclaim, performing throughout the US and traveling to Nigeria, Jordan, Germany, Zimbabwe, The Congo (Brazzaville) and Cuba. DDT has advanced African American dance as an art form through a series of interdisciplinary collaborations with composers, musicians and singers working in a wide variety of African and African American traditions. These have included Hugh Masekela, the Edwin Hawkins Singers, Street Sounds, Cab Calloway, Chanticleer, Omar Sosa, Anthony Brown and Fifth Stream Music and the late Khalil Shaheed and the Mo’Rockin Project.

CALENDAR INFORMATION:

WHO: Dimensions Dance Theater
WHAT: DOWN THE CONGO LINE II, an evening of dance choreographed by Herve “Kayos” Makayos and Jose “Cheo” Rojas, directed by Dimensions Dance Theater artistic director Deborah Vaughan
DATE: Saturday, October 13, 2012
TIME: 8 PM
VENUE: Malonga Casquelourde Center (1428 Alice Street @ 14th Street, Oakland)
TICKETS: $20 in advance, $25 at the door, children under 18yrs $15
BOX OFFICE: brownpapertickets.com or: in person at Malonga Center, Dimensions Dance Theater office, 3rd floor, M-F 4-7pm
INFORMATION: 510 465-3363 or www.dimensionsdance.org

The Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf brings the legendary “Emperor Norton” back to life for the San Francisco Welcome Center & History Museum

www.waxmuseum.com

11 October 2012, San Francisco, CA — The Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf (www.waxmuseum.com) has completed a new wax figure of one of San Francisco’s most colorful and celebrated early citizens — Joshua A. Norton, known to all as “Emperor Norton.” Crafted over the last six months by the Wax Production Studio of The Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf, the life-size figure is dressed in Civil War-era military attire, based on contemporary photographs of Emperor Norton in full regalia befitting his noble title. The Emperor Norton from the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf was created to help mark the Grand Opening of the San Francisco Welcome Center & History Museum at 449 Powell Street. “Emperor Norton” will move to his new home on October 11, 2012, where it will remain on loan.

“No one waxed more eloquently in his heyday than did the Emperor Norton, so it’s only fitting that a San Franciscan with an immortal legacy is now preserved immortally in wax” said Rodney Fong, owner / president of the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. “We’re thrilled to see him make history again at the San Francisco Welcome Center & History Museum.”

Museum Curator Curtis Huber and staff in the Wax Production Studio of The Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf relied particularly on a photograph that shows Norton posing formally in Civil War attire. The wax figure is clothed in a Navy blue Union Army tunic with gold bullion epaulettes, and dark heather grey wool pants. He wears a Civil War leather sword belt with brass eagle buckle and shoulder strap, and a U.S.1860 Light Cavalry War Sword. On his head is a white beaver top hat with ostrich and peacock feather adornment, and a ribbon rosette with rhinestone broach. “We are very excited to highlight San Francisco history at its best including SF’s forever reigning Emperor Norton, as created by the famed Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf,” said Barry Barsamian, Curator of the SF History Museum. “We will be highlighting many of the City’s legends from Mark Twain and Jack London to Cecil Williams and Natalie Wood. Our goal is to preserve our rich historical past, blended with our present day history-in-the-making.”

On September 17, 1859, Joshua A. Norton, a Gold Rush-era San Francisco entrepreneur, published a decree declaring himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Known to all in San Francisco, his early headquarters were at Platt’s Music Hall on Montgomery Street. Over the next twenty years, Norton I issued numerous decrees published in San Francisco newspapers. By decree, Emperor Norton dismissed the Governor of Virginia for hanging John Brown; dissolved the United States of America; barred Congress from meeting in Washington, DC; dissolved and abolished the Democratic and Republican parties due to party strife; and declared in 1872 that a suspension bridge be built to connect Oakland and San Francisco, among other things.

In January 1867, an overzealous patrol officer created a civic uproar when he arrested His Majesty Norton I for involuntary treatment of a mental disorder. This faux-pas led to an apology from the city’s Police Chief, and from that time on police officers saluted His Majesty when he passed them on the street.

On January 8, 1880, Norton I dropped dead on California St. at Grant Ave., on his way to a lecture at the Academy of Natural Sciences. Ten thousand people turned out for his funeral, forming a cortege two miles long. His eccentricities and sincerity earned love from his fellow citizens, and he has lived on in the popular legend of San Francisco. (Information from San Francisco Almanac by local historian Gladys Hansen, published by Chronicle Books, 1995.)

Opened in 1963 as the largest wax museum in North America, the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf is one of the most popular landmarks in San Francisco’s busy waterfront neighborhood. The Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf features one of the foremost collections of wax figures in the world, where the magic of 50 years of wax artistry transports you through time. The Wax Museum is “home” to a legion of notorious characters, with over 250 internationally-known personalities past and present in fabulous scenes, representing a millennium of history and fantasy, from King Tut’s Magnificent Tomb to the Yellow Brick Road, from the majesty of the Titanic to the ghouls of the underground Chamber of Horrors. At the Wax Museum, royalty and presidents rub shoulders with today’s pop celebrities, and famous artists and scientists display their masterpieces and discoveries.

Open daily from 10am to 9pm, The Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf is located at 145 Jefferson Street, San Francisco. For full information, visit www.waxmuseum.com