San Diego's Top Weekend Arts Events: Mother's Day Edition

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's mother's Day weekend, and there are events happening around town, shorter please. All kinds of moms, whether it's comedy by one of the all time greats music from Mexico or a new take on dance. KPBS arts calendar editor, Nina Guerin joins me with the weekend preview. Hi Nina. Hello. So wait, Nina. Today is Mexican mothers day. Yes, Mexican Mothers Day is May 10th. It's celebrated on the same day every year, so you can't forget. So to my mom and my grandma, happy mother's Day and to mine as well. So this is a perfect concert to celebrate. So tell us all about Lila downs. She is a Mexican American singer, songwriter. She was born in Mexico, but she also lived in California and Minnesota. Um, she studied anthropology in college and so her music is very reflective of that because there's a lot of history and her music. And why has she been called the music version of Frida Kahlo? You know, she is very much steeped into Mexican culture. The Way Frida Kahlo was, she uses indigenous influences and sounds. Most of her songs are in Spanish. Even her look is Frida inspired. She wears braids with ribbons and colorful Mexican dresses. Um, some people may have seen her in the actual Frida Kahlo movie. Lila downs was in it as a singer. Let's listen to a song by Lila downs. This is Glenn Dustino. Speaker 1: 01:44 People may recognize that as a cover of a Manu Chao Song, and that song is from a new album that was just released last week. How is this different from our previous work? This is called [inaudible], and for this album she worked with Camilo Lara of the Mexican Institute of Sound, and that uses a lot of the more city streets as an influence. It's a little bit more dancy. And then she's also bringing in a lot of regional guests, musicians. We've let downs perform Saturday at California Center for the arts, Escondido comedian. Jerry Seinfeld is back in San Diego. What's he been doing these days? He's still touring Andy as a Netflix show called comedians in cars getting coffee, which is just exactly what that is. He interviews can understand cars. Yeah, it's good. I'm still his show. Seinfeld seems to be bigger than ever. No. Yeah, you can stream it. There's kind of a nineties revival happening with the young kids. I know a lot of people are into 90s fashion these days. There are some teenagers I know who watched shows like Seinfeld and friends just to look at the clothes and remind us about his comedy style. So he got famous because of his observational humor. He takes something really mundane and he somehow comes up with comedy about the things that think about it. So he's basically putting a voice to your weird, random thoughts. Let's listen to some comedy from Jerry Seinfeld. This is from the late show with Stephen Colbert air. Speaker 2: 03:08 What? What is it about the buffet is it does fascinate me. There's something about it that breaks down the mind. Reason, judgment, portion sizes, combinations. Nobody would go into a restaurant and say to the waiter, I want a yogurt parfait, spare ribs, a waffle for cookies at an egg white omelet. Speaker 1: 03:28 It's amazing how diverse our pallet suddenly get when we go into a buffet. Uh, what are Jerry Seinfeld shows like now? Has his comedy evolved? It's still very observational. Um, now the jokes are more about family, marriage and aging. He does reuse jokes. So you might hear some that you've heard before, but he's also always working on new material. Jerry Seinfeld performs Friday at the civic theater. Finally, I know you're excited about Dorin stance. What is that? That's a tap dancing company from New York. It's a very big deal that they're coming to San Diego. They focus on the history and roots of tap. Um, they're more about the music of the dance rather than kind of the prod way idea of it. And the creator, Michelle Dorrance became a MacArthur genius fellow in 2015. What makes her stand out? She takes tap to places that you don't expect. She brings it to the blues. She takes it to nightclubs. She collaborated with Tyler Peck of the New York City Ballet. She just really doesn't see borders or limitations when it comes to tap dancing. So this isn't a typical tap show. A, what should people expect in the San Diego show is called ETM double down. She turns the state into an instrument and she uses a trigger boards. She uses eight dancers and six musicians and they just create sounds. All right, so let's take a listen at how a little bit of this works. Here's an excerpt from Dorne Stan. Speaker 1: 05:03 Wow. And all I've got is a shuffle step. Alright. Doron stands for forms Wednesday at UC San Diego. Before we go, you wanted to mention a popular mother's Day event. We couldn't leave without mentioning gator by the bay, which is very popular. It's always on mother's Day weekend. Um, kids 17 and under a free, and it's a weekend of Zydeco Blues Cajuns swing and country music along with the music. This is also a big quetsion food event, right? Yeah. It's all about Louisiana food. They say there's 10,000 pounds of crawfish coming straight from the southwest Louisiana by you, they even show you how to eat crawfish. If you don't know how, I don't know how. There's also Gumbo hush puppies, Jambalaya. It is a huge food weekend as well. Oh, that sounds like somewhere I should be a gator by the bay continues through Sunday at Spanish landing park. For more arts events. Make sure to check k pbs.org/arts even a guarantee arts Speaker 3: 05:57 editor. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Have a good weekend and good mother's Day. Speaker 4: 06:01 You too. Oh, when I saw you. Speaker 3: 06:22 Mid Day edition is produced by Marissa Cabrera and Brooke Ruth Art segment producers are Beth Armando and Nina Garren. Midday addition. Senior producer is Megan [inaudible]. Our executive producer is Natalie Walsh, Emily Gen Koski and Rebecca Checon are our technical directors. Stay with us for KPBS round table coming up right after the break. I'm jade Hindman have a great weekend everyone. Speaker 4: 06:49 No water. Well go away. Si.