Wanda's Picks

Santero's "El Hijo de Obatala" CD Release Party, Friday, June 26 at the Shattuck Downlow in Berkeley is going to be the PLACE. I've got tickets to give away to the lucky blogger who writes something in the comment section that Santero said which intrigues, motivates or inspires. Joining Santero, whose spiritual name is "Crown of the Father," his dad, Obatala, on this special edition of "Wanda's Picks," is choreographer José Francisco Barroso, whose new work Obokóso debuts Saturday-Sunday, June 20-21 (2 & 8 PM Sat., 2 PM Sun.) at the Ethnic Dance Festival Week 3 at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Both men share a tradition more ancient that the African's brief sojourn in this hemisphere, a place marked with tears. Whether it is music or dance, what Barroso and Santero share in these conversations is the African ability to transcend adversity and evidence that art truly is revolutionary and a most powerful, perhaps the most powerful spiritual tool. Obokóso tells the story of Shango, the fifth king