Groundation’s lead singer Harrison Stafford, wearing a turban, says the band has played at the Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center six times By ARLET ABRAHAMIAN Contributing Writer Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Posted on 02/10/2004 5:55:37 AM PST by chance33_98
Of Hippies and Hipsters
Ashkenaz Center Has Gone From Activists’ Mecca to Hot Spot for Multicultural Music
Groundation’s lead singer Harrison Stafford, wearing a turban, says the band has played at the Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center six times By ARLET ABRAHAMIAN Contributing Writer Tuesday, February 10, 2004
A wall of smoke and relaxed faces greet you as you enter the West Berkeley theater. The band lounges around the back room with their friends, smoking joints while preparing to go on stage, and the smell of burning incense sticks protruding from the walls blends with the marijuana smoke. Wearing a turban on his head and a smile on his face, the lead singer of the reggae band Groundation, Harrison Stafford, speaks fondly of the mellow scene at Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center, as he awaits go-time Saturday night.
Ashkenaz is a place where “every nationality can live together,” says Stafford, who has played at the theater six times.
But although the ideal of bringing different peoples together has remained constant since its opening, the theater’s brand of activism has changed since its founding in 1973.
When Ashkenaz was first founded, human rights activist and folk dancer Dave Nadel envisioned a transformation for the old San Pablo Avenue warehouse into a dance hall devoted to the ideals of peace and world music.
Stepping into Ashkenaz is like taking a time machine to Berkeley in the colorful 1960s: The outside is covered with a mosaic of tiles called the “World Wall of Peace,” and a peace sign stands guard above the door. On the inside, the walls are lined with pictures of Cesar Chavez and protest signs, such as the one reading “R.O.T.C.=Racist Corporate Puppets.”
The patrons, too, are dressed in the decade’s hippie uniforms of loose-fitting tie-dye, like theater-goer and artist Claire Z.
“It’s a remnant of the ‘60s, the old days of peace and activism,” she says.
But it was an act of violence that threatened this relic’s existence.
In 1996, Nadel was shot and killed by a customer who he had banned from the club for being too drunk.
After Nadel’s death, Ashkenaz nearly lost its home in the West Berkeley warehouse, until a group of community members turned the theater into a nonprofit organization. They were able to raise enough money through donations to put a down payment on the warehouse, and try to carry out Nadel’s dream.
“It is very much the same as before David died,” says Janis Kenny, an Ashkenaz patron of 20 years. “The music is always good, it’s laid back, and you can trust people here.”
But the theater has still lost some of its original activist spirit, some employees say.
“In ’75 this place used to be packed with people protesting,” says Dave Chachere, the trumpet player for Groundation. “The hippies are all older now, they don’t have the time and energy to be the spearhead of protest.”
Edwin Thaxter, who has worked at the theater since 1983, when Nadel hired him as his doorman after he broke up a fight at a dance show, says the theater has lost its focus.
“There is something left out—the willingness to help the community,” Thaxter says. “It doesn’t do the same as David did. He fought for equal rights for people.”
Today, the theater’s aging hippies have been replaced by families with children, and the atmosphere of activism and protest has mellowed out over the years. Being inside Ashkenaz today feels more like being in a jazz club than a old stomping ground for flower children.
“They used to have a machine that would cut off bands’ electricity when they got too loud,” says Chachere. “You just had to learn to play more quietly.”
The theater’s focus now is putting on cultural performances, ranging from Afro-Brazilian dance to Balkan brass bands to classes where people can learn belly-dancing and Ta Ke Ti Na percussion.
Ashkenaz has shifted its activism focus from equal rights to making sure people in the Berkeley community are exposed to cultures from all over the world.
Still, the theater’s performers say educating the masses doesn’t pay the bills. The nonprofit relies heavily on community donations to stay afloat and carry on Nadel’s dream, and is currently campaigning to raise $50,000.
“It’s difficult to keep the balance of making enough money and keeping culturally diverse shows,” Stafford says.
But if the theater goes under, hundreds of Berkeley’s retired activists, reminders of a not-so-distant past, will be left without a place to escape the present and return to a decade where they were in their element.
“It’s a home away from home,” Kenny says. “Some call it their church.”
Yes. Yes they do.
We're talking series amounts of pot, here...
Silly me, I used to go to Ashkenaz for the music.
Some "artistes" in that motley congregation will find a way to latch onto taxpayers' funds sitting in the National Endowment for the Arts treasure trove.
Leni
"Ok, multi-cultural seekers of peace and enlightenment, it's time to get stoned! So pick up a rock and help me stone these two naked harlots on my left to death, then get out the nails and we'll crucify the two drunken Jews on my right."
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