Arts & Events

Berkeley's Inferno Theatre, which has staged their own productions locally and collaborated with Actors Ensemble for the summer shows in John Hinkle Park in the hills, will stage their second annual Diasporas Festival this weekend, May 8-10, starting tonight (Friday) at 8, continuing afternoons and evenings through Sunday in the historic South Berkeley Community Church, featuring a broad selection of little companies and independent performers working in all manner of physical and gestural theater in the Bay Area. Last year's inaugural festival proved one of the most interesting, diverting weekends in Bay Area theater. 

Participating companies and performers include the Deborah Slater Dance Theater, the Black Cat Shadow Theater, the Five Deadly Improvisers (who improvise a Kung Fu movie from audience suggestions), Rudradeep Chakrabarti, Blue Monkey Works, Phil Freihofner, Julia Ellis, Jubilith Moore (former artistic director of Theatre of Yugen) with Ryan Hill--and more ... 

Plus two filmmakers, Scott Heath and Eli Zaturianski, as well as two afternoon performance labs led by Stephen Golux which introduce participants to Inferno Theatre's mode of experimentation and First Blush, a Tango Primer, led by Robert Fields and Susan Walters. (Inferno will also present portions of a work in progress, Quantum Love, written and directed by Inferno founder Giulio Cesare Perrone. 

Friday, 8 p. m.; Saturday and Sunday, 7 p. m. at 1802 Fairview (near Adeline and Ashby BART). $20 (some sliding scale tickets at door). www.infernotheatre.org