Lauren Harvey

My Recent Work

www.dailycal.org •

SF Ballet’s ‘Mere Mortals’ is astonishing blend of technology, mythology, humanity

In the world debut of “Mere Mortals,” SF Ballet seeks to explore the ethical implications of artificial intelligence, weaving in an electronic score and high-tech lights and visuals. Even so, the project is divinely human. “Mere Mortals” is SF Ballet’s first full-length commission from a female choreographer, Aszure Barton, and the first production in Tamara Rojo’s inaugural season as artistic director; so, it feels apt that it reimagines the myth of Pandora — the first created woman in Greek my...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

San Francisco Ballet’s ‘Manon’ sets stage for big, dramatic, British season

Written inside the lead ballerinas’ costumes in San Francisco Ballet’s “Manon” is a familiar name: “T. Rojo.”Tamara Rojo, who is entering her second repertory season as the Ballet’s artistic director, danced in the titular role in 2004 during her time at the Royal Ballet in London. Now she’s bringing Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s dramatic three-act ballet to the Bay Area for the first time — complete with original sets and costumes from the Royal Ballet, where it made its world debut in 1974. “For me,...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett swaps arenas for intimate Bay Area club shows 

Chris Shiflett has played some major Bay Area shows over the years, from headlining festivals like San Francisco’s Outside Lands with Foo Fighters last year to playing solo at BottleRock Napa Valley in May.But for his latest string of concerts, scheduled for Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 19-21, the Foo Fighters lead guitarist will be trading large festival and arena stages for more intimate venues, starting at Old Princeton Landing in Half Moon Bay before moving on to HopMonk Tavern in Novato and a b...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

‘Art does change the world’: Choreographer Sean Dorsey reflects on ‘Lou’ and legacy

Sean Dorsey spent much of 2007 and 2008 digging through the archives at San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society, parsing through and transcribing 30 years of diary entries by Bay Area trans activist Lou Sullivan, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1991.Looking back on this time, the choreographer recalls “getting goose bumps and chills when I opened up the (first) box and took out a diary… and spent hours reading through so many diaries and just falling in love with this person that I nev...
San Francisco Chronicle •

No one wants to splurge on concerts and festivals anymore. Are live music events dead?

This year was the first since 2012 that passes for the second weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which draws more than 600,000 people annually to the desert city of Indio (Riverside County), didn’t sell out. Even resale tickets were popping up on third-party sites such as StubHub for less than face value ($499 to $1,269).

This year was the first since 2012 that passes for the second weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which draws more than 600,000 peop...
San Francisco Chronicle •

Fentanyl is contaminating S.F. club drugs. Here’s how the city’s nightlife is responding

Rude’s independent naloxone work at Oasis has become one of many grassroots initiatives working to address the fentanyl crisis in San Francisco as overdose rates remain at an all-time high. In July alone, the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported 39 accidental overdoses, 27 of which were caused by fentanyl. The synthetic opioid can be up to 50 times more potent than heroin and deadly even in small doses.
The San Francisco Chronicle •

Who's brat in the Bay Area? Here's the definitive list

If 2024 is the summer of “brat,” anyone who’s older than Generation Z might be wondering what that means.But even if you already understand the slang term popularized by English singer-songwriter Charli XCX, the Chronicle wants to take it a step further by naming the Bay Area’s top brats.Elder millennials Tony Bravo and Lily Janiak stood in for the olds, asking Zoomers Lauren Harvey and Zara Irshad to explain what all the hip young kids are talking about. Then, the four of them, soliciting nomin...
San Francisco Chronicle •

Sabrina Carpenter goes country at Outside Lands with Kacey Musgraves, sneak peek of unreleased song

Carpenter, whose frothy single “Espresso” became an early summer hit, lured thousands of concertgoers to Lands End Stage on Saturday, Aug. 10, with a string of flirty songs from her 2022 album “Emails I Can’t Send” and a highly produced set that felt more like a full-scale Broadway musical than a concert.

Carpenter, whose frothy single “Espresso” became an early summer hit, lured thousands of concertgoers to Lands End Stage on Saturday, Aug. 10, with a string of flirty songs from her 2022 album...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Caro De Robertis embraces new kind of mythmaking in ‘The Palace of Eros’

Caro De Robertis was disowned by their parents in their mid-20s, told they could never be both Uruguayan and queer. That experience prompted them to spend their first five books digging into Latin American history and literary tradition, carving out a space for their identity. But on a trip to southern Italy with their oldest child and now ex-wife, the Oakland author unexpectedly found familial acceptance among the descendants of their great-grandfather, who live in a small village called Prepez...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Cal Shakes extends deadline for emergency fundraiser

California Shakespeare Theater has extended the deadline for its emergency fundraiser.The East Bay Theater, where actress Zendaya got her start, initially tried to raise $350,000 in a single week for “As You Like It,” its first self-produced show in two years scheduled for Sept. 12-29 at the Bruns Amphitheater in Orinda. But since the company’s GoFundMe campaign didn’t reach that goal by its deadline of Thursday, Aug. 1, the company announced an extension through Monday, Aug. 5.Cal Shakes receiv...
San Francisco Chronicle •

S.F.’s Stern Grove Festival evolves for new audiences in its 87th year

The annual free concert series, which began in 1938, takes place at Sigmund Stern Recreation Grove, a natural amphitheater 14 stories below street level. For more than eight decades, music lovers have hiked through eucalyptus trees and picnicked on the grass to catch live performances by acts from San Jose classic rockers the Doobie Brothers and gospel singer Mavis Staples to funk band Kool & the Gang along with series regulars such as the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Ballet.
uDiscover Music •

'I Sing The Body Electric': A Literary Guide To Lana Del Rey

If one artist speaks to the affinity between music and literature, it’s Lana Del Rey. Even before the release of her 2020 poetry collection Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, she wove great works of poetry, prose, drama, and philosophy into her eclectic catalog. From Sylvia Plath to Walt Whitman, Lana’s lyrical library is vast, and close reading uncovers her complex concerns with time, being, and identity.To dig deeper into Lana’s literary interests, we’ve created a guide to the writers who i...