Spark Festival 3.0: Burning Man Art Installations, DJs & Playa Market | Berkeley

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Inspired by that annual desert pilgrimage in the Nevada desert, Berkeley Spark is a festival of art, music, performance, dance, and workshops happening in Berkeley’s Civic Center Park.

Experience art cars before they head out to the Nevada desert, dance to DJs, make art, and participate in interactive workshops. Spark your Playa preparations with burn-friendly clothing vendors and jewelry designers, lighting specialists, and bike decorating ideas.

2015 Berkeley Spark
Saturday, July 18, 2015 | 11 am to 9 pm
Berkeley Civic Center Park, Martin Luther King, Jr Way and Center St
FREE

Inspired by Burning Man’s 10 Principles, Berkeley Spark is a place for radical self-expression, inclusivity, transformation, and mutual respect. This is a leave-no-trace event.

A number of Bay Area artists will be at the festival sharing their designs before they head out to Burning Man.

2015 Innovation & Interactive Art Experiences

Dance Outside – Starting at noon, take off your shoes and dance, move, and listen to talented DJs from Barefoot Boogie, Soul Sanctuary Dance, Berkeley Ecstatic Jam, Ecstatic Dance Oakland, and other local movement groups. They will be accepting donations on the DJ table to benefit Camp Rhythmwave on the playa.

DJ Lineup

• 12 noon – DJ Christina (Barefoot Boogie)
• 1:30 pm – DJ Farzana (Soul Sanctuary Dance)
• 3 pm – Marka Meeba (Berkeley Ecstatic Dance Jam)
• 4:30 pm – Avani (Ecstatic Dance)
• 6:30 pm – Live Sound Bath

Unaverz is a mutant vehicle currently being re-fabricated into a jellyfish out at American Steel by an extraordinary team of local welders, fabricators, artists, and designers and will be debuting it’s new designs with a number of local DJs spinning throughout the late afternoon and evening. Unaverz, is the brainchild of a traveler who never wanted to go to Burning Man and after 15 years, and finally did. Within a day, he was committed to returning the following year with a gift that could be shared with the Playa and now the Bay Area. This gift is a two story, 30′ x 8′ mutant vehicle called Unaverz which is funded by Studio 1034.

DJ Lineup

• Morning sound check up until 10:30 am: “Lycon Catt” (Mike Hatt)
• 10:30 am to noon (1.5 hrs): “Apollo and Reflektor” (Keith and David)
• 12-1 pm (1 hr): “OnEsource” (Dj Osheen)
• 1-3 pm (2 hrs): “NUGZ of Dusty Rhino” (Brian Cox)
• 3-5 pm (2 hrs): “Nicky Nicky”
• 5-7 pm (2 hrs): “DJ LORYN (www.djloryn.com)”
• 7-9 pm (2 hrs): “Charlemagne and Alex Lin” (Charles and Alex)

Samavesha Triangle
This slice of happiness in the northwest corner of the park can be described as a blend of performing arts, acoustic music, interactive art and community engagement. Samavesha is a multidisciplinary arts organization that brings performing art events to the community, explores the intersection of traditional art forms with contemporary artistic languages, and creates the awareness of the vital importance of creativity and art in human lives as a source of a healthy living.

Samavesha Triangle activities:

• 10:30 am to 12 noon: Mandala concert with Laura Inserra of Samavesha
• Create-With-Nature Zone with Zach Pine throughout the day, invites festival participants to join in and create ephemeral sculptures with rocks, leaves, flowers, shells, branches, pods, pine cones and other wonders of nature.
• Origami Station with Claudia Anfuso at which folks can learn to fold paper cranes and easy dollar-bill shirts (BYO dollar bills).

The Temple of Promise is brought to you by The Dreamers Guild, a new collective of builders, artists, caretakers, and dreamers and they are honored that their first project as a team will be to build the Temple for Burning Man in 2015. Stop by Berkeley Spark to meet them, ask questions, learn how to get involved, and see one of the Temple’s “ribs” up close and in person, as well as other sculptures they are building as part of the project.

ArtIsMobilUs (throughout the day) will be bringing their AnyBodyCanPaint collaborative art wall along with their multi-purpose mobile art gallery bus bringing art to people everywhere while providing platforms for exhibition, arts education, creative collaboration, and community engagement. Look for the art wall in the middle of the park and make some art with everyone on the Happiness Wall.

Berkeley Spark’s Playspace will be hosting a variety of DIY workshops and Burner Hacks as well as throughout the park where you can learn best practices for shade structures, water, energy, food, and so much more.

Camera Obscura To Go – This incredible project is lead by designer/builder Chris De Monterey, who has been involved with camera obscuras for decades; wait until you step inside and experience his full-scale camera obscura from the inside.

Electric-assist Cargotrikes – Meet owner/designer Segue Fischlin and one of her electric-assist cargotrikes.

alGAS Biotech is a start up company rooted in the Berkeley area. Their mission is to create organic batteries derived from conductive polymers and algae based materials. alGAS Biotech is part of a bigger vision knows as Berkeley BioLabs which is a small business accelerator and incubator. Together these two entities will be demonstrating the background of their development as well as opportunities for learning and fostering new innovations.

Photography by Leori – Leori has been a photographer for about 25 years and she’s especially drawn to vibrant color, patterns of light and shadow, and capturing moments in time. This year you will find Leori capturing us in images at Berkeley Spark and you can also find her at Burning Man’s Decompression, Precompression, The Temple of Promise build site in Alameda, the East Bay Burner meet ups, and other local community events.

PocketMe is a 3D Photo Booth is located on Shattuck Ave between Allston and Kittredge. Stop by to experience seventy cameras that will instantly capture a 3D image of you, your loved one, or your pet. Customers can order lifelike figurines in various sizes that will arrive by mail. They will be at Berkeley Spark talking about their design and how you can experience your own 3D image.

Steamy Tech – Since 2012, Lora and Greg Price have been using laser cutters and 3-D printers to build steampunk inspired kinetic art available as completed products or as kits to build yourself. They are pleased to be creating Steamy Tech labs a new place for you to join us and create your own customized pieces without having to be an expert with the tools. Come by the booth and create your own light-up pins on the laser and then decorate it for yourself.

Why the Nose? Tex Allen and his crew will be at Berkeley Spark spreading love around the world, person to person, one nose at a time.

Photo credit: eponamusic

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.