The Lunar New Year Celebration is today at the Oakland Museum from 12 to 4:30, Sunday, Feb. 9th, 2014

The 13th annual Lunar New Year Celebration, The Year of the Horse is today, Sunday, February 9, 2014 from 12 to 4:30PM.  This is an event for the whole family to celebrate the Lunar New Year as the Oakland Museum rings in the Year of the Horse with an array of Asian traditions in arts, crafts, food, demonstrations, live music, dance, family activities, and more.  Performances include lion and dragon dances, plate spinning by "The Happy Chef," contortion acrobatics by Inka Siefler, a magic show by The Magic of Chin-Chin, martial arts by Vovinam America, stories by Storyteller Megumi and Oliver Chin, traditional music by Melody of China, Taiko drumming by Jiten Daiko, K-pop dance with UC Berkeley's Korean Performance Group, and Bollywood and Bhangra dance performed by Duniya Dance and Drum Company.

Resources:

The Oakland Museum of California
Oakland, CA
museumca.org

The Year of the Horse

Lunar New Year Celebration on Sunday, Feb. 2nd, 2014 at Habitot in Berkeley, CA

Habitot Museum in Berkeley is having a Lunar New Year Celebration this Sunday, Feb. 2nd from 9:30AM to 4:30PM.  The admission will be free that day and they will have dragon parades, black inn calligraphy, and the children will be able to creat dragon puppets.

Sausalito Arts Festival

The 59th Annual Sausalito Arts Festival is this Labor Day weekend (September 3, 4, and 5, 2011).  Hours are Saturday and Sunday 10-6 and Monday 10-5. 

The festival is great fun for families.  Bring a stroller, drinks, and snacks (they have food and drink there but you may not want to wait on line).  Also, if you or your child are sensitive to noise, bring earplugs.  The festival features several music venues that are close to the art.

In addition to some fantastic art and good food, there are several great educational displays.  For example, the festival has an exhibit called The Beautiful Brain, which shows "neuroscience images as art."  Lots of interesting pictures; our 3-year-old loved it.  Real images of the brain (we think our son enjoyed this exhibit in Sausalito more than the brain exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in NYC, which we blogged about in March, because that exhibit in NY is darkly-lit and a bit scary for a youngster).