Friday Nights at OMCA with Skip The Needle

Friday Nights at OMCA | Live Music by Skip The Needle, Bachata with In Lak’ech Dance Academy, Live Figure Drawing with Sketchboard, Gallery Chats, and set by DJ Olga T

June’s final addition of Friday Nights at OMCA brings Skip The Needle to the Garden stage! A banging mix of soul, rock, and funk, Skip The Needle is ready to blast sonic love and energy! Furthering the rhythmic love is a Bachata lesson with In Lak’ech Dance Academy. Bachata Queer instructors,  Angelica and Jahaira, are creating a gender inclusive and beginner friendly space to learn and bachata with Pride.

Come express your creativity and unique perspective in the OMCA galleries with Sketchboard Live Figure Drawing. 

OMCA welcomes all skill levels, including those who have never drawn before and want to try drawing. Art supplies and clipboards will be available for use, and your artwork will be yours to take home or exchange with others. A costumed model representing the diversity of the Bay Area will be posing in the Gallery of California Art for times ranging from 2 to 20 minutes. Since drawing will take place in the gallery, please be mindful of the space and bring only the following media from home: sketchbooks (max size 9×12 inches) and pre-sharpened enclosed graphite or charcoal pencils.

Sketching in the gallery is included with the price of general Museum Gallery access and free for Museum Members. In addition, Gallery Chats will be activating–in its very final days–our  Special Exhibition, Por el Pueblo: The Legacy and Influence of Malaquías Montoya with facilitated community conversations that brings new light to the work with every iteration. All this creative engagement will be framed with an exceptional set from DJ Olga T featuring Latin, Afrobeat, R&B, and Soulful House sounds.

Limited $10 flat rate parking for Friday Nights is available in the OMCA Garage until 10 pm. Learn more about getting to the museum.

Program Schedule:

5—9 pm Core Galleries and Special Exhibitions evening hours with Museum ticket

5:30—6:15 pm Sketchboard Live Figure Drawing | Gallery of California Art

5:30—6:30 pm Bachata with In Lak’ech Dance Academy | Amphitheater 

6—8 pm Gallery Chats  | The Great Hall 

6:30— 8:00 pm Skip The Needle | The Garden Stage

6:45—7:30 pm Sketchboard Live Figure Drawing | Gallery of California Art 

6:45—8:45 pm DJ Olga T  | Amphitheater

About Friday Nights:

Gather with family, friends, and community every Friday at 5 pm for free live music and hands-on activities, Off the Grid food trucks, and late night access to our galleries and special exhibitions, with a Museum ticket.

Bring your own or grab dinner from any one of the 8 Off the Grid food trucks on 10th Street between Oak and Fallon Streets. Beer, wine, mixed and non-alcoholic drinks are available for sale. After grabbing a meal from a wide and weekly changing menu of culinary creations, head to the OMCA Garden where you’ll find picnic tables and blankets to enjoy your local eats. Play lawn and table games, enjoy weekly rotating Museum programming, and create new memories at one of the Town’s most treasured spaces right in the heart of Oakland.

No outside alcohol permitted. Performances are subject to change. Limited $10 flat rate parking for Friday Nights is available in the OMCA Garage until 10 pm.

Accessibility 

Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) is committed to providing programs that are accessible, welcoming, and inclusive of our community. Wheelchairs, sensory inclusive devices, and additional amenities are available for checkout on a first come, first served basis at the Ticketing Desk. To request other accommodations, like American Sign Language (ASL), Cantonese, Spanish or another language interpreter, please email [email protected] at least three weeks before the event. Learn more about our accessibility options.

This Oakland-based formidable female powerhouse quartet brings a depth of personal insight and performing experience to their politically astute hard rock/funk songcraft. If Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Chrissie Hynde, and Chaka Khan all jammed together, this band would be the result. 

Skip The Needle is an Oakland-based queer female quartet made up of musical superstars of the Bay Area; Vicki Randle (The Tonight Show, Mavis Staples) Shelley Doty (Shelley Doty X-Tet, Jambay), Kofy Brown (Kofy Brown Band, Sistas in the Pit) and Katie Cash (Katie Cash Band, Year of the Fist). Together, they make politically astute, rock n’ roll-funk. Their songs are musically diverse and carry a strong, socially conscious message, delivered with extreme joy. Formed in 2014, Skip The Needle has released two full-length albums and their latest EP – Octavia Of Earth, Volume 2, inspired by black feminist icon Octavia E. Butler, released on Soulectric – A division of Little Village Foundation in Fall of 2023. The band just wrapped a 2 month, entirely sold out run, of Hedwig and The Angry Inch at Shotgun Players in Berkeley, CA and have started writing their next album, after receiving a grant for the project from WAM.

In Lak’ech Dance Academy‘s mission is to co-create a community of queer, trans and allied dancers to celebrate resilience, nurture collective strength and heal from oppression. In Lak’ech Dance Academy’s Founders Angelica & Jahaira created the organization with the intention of using Afro-Latin dance as a tool for self-care and healing. In Lak’ech Dance creates a safe space
for LGBTQ2S+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Queer, Two Spirited, +) people to claim their identity with pride while reaching personal goals through dance. In Lak’ech aims to increase LGBTQ2S+ visibility in hetero-normative Latin Dance environments by training strong LGBTQ2S+ dancers. Visibility increases awareness and open-mindedness, which positively impacts LGBTQ2S+ communities and society at large.

A Puerto Rican lover of all things music, community and human connection through the language of rhythm and beats, born in NYC and raised in San Francisco, Olga T has an exceptional style of DJing that never fails to grab your attention on the dance floor. Known for masterfully transitioning through nearly every genre of music and often creatively implementing both analog & digital gear when spinning, Olga T consistently delivers a uniquely infectious excitement to the audience. DJing for the past 20 years while producing legendary Bay Area events year-round in addition to teaching DJ classes, creating exclusive remixes, edits and mixtapes is Olga T’s full time passion. Go to www.soundcloud.com/djolgat to explore a plethora of mixtapes of various music genres created by DJ Olga T.

Sketchboard is a BIPOC figure drawing collective, curating eclectic, diverse, and affordable events in the Bay Area over the last 10 years. Their mission is to feature the bodies of people at the intersection of multiple identities, offer living wages to our art models, and create an inclusive environment for the artists in Sketchboard’s community.

Sponsors

Friday Nights at OMCA with Off the Grid is sponsored by the Oakland Museum Women’s Board and Bank of America.