Selena Chau

  • Welcome

    I’m a librarian and archivist with digital preservation, digital asset management, research, and collection management experience. Please see https://www.linkedin.com/in/selenachau/ to learn about my varied past in dance performance and web & database development. I value holistic wellness, individual empowerment, creativity, and adventure.

  • Arts in Society 2025

    I’m delighted to share that my poster session has been accepted to the Twentieth International Conference for The Arts in Society! My research on the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in Oakland, California ties in nicely to the conference theme, the art of hospitality.https://lnkd.in/eEdBHtr6

  • SWPACA 2024

    I had the pleasure of presenting my research on a panel at the Southwest Popular and American Culture Association conference this February 2024 in Albuquerque, NM. Below are the slides and script from that presentation. Tracing Culture through a Historic Building: Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, Oakland Slides: Script:

  • Oakland Ensemble Theatre: Creation of the Alice Arts Center, 1978-1990 (part 2)

    Oakland Ensemble Theatre’s second decade was marked with real estate challenges and transitions in leadership. Among the issues to be faced were: Founding director Thompson had moved on, and the next two artistic directors aimed to take this successful community theater company born of a Merritt College class and turn it into a premiere, professional…

  • Oakland is the capital of African dance in the US! – Mandeleo Institute

    The Mandeleo Institute was developed by a group of Bay Area African teachers, master artists, and ethnomusicologists who began offering African cultural arts workshops and classes in 1974. The institute was formally created in 1985 out of a desire for artistic self-determination, to present their African dance and music themselves, from their own perspective. The…

  • Maya Angelou’s 1976 “And Still I Rise” ballet-symphony at Oakland Ensemble Theatre

    This performance occured in Oakland Ensemble Theatre’s former home at 660 13th Street. In August 1976, after writing her poem And Still I Rise, Maya Angelou created a staged production with the same name with 10 musical recitations for a cast of 26 and directed it at Oakland Ensemble Theater’s 13th street home. After being…

  • Oakland Ensemble Theatre: Origins (part 1)

    The Oakland Ensemble Theatre (OET) had a history before and after it moved into the Alice Arts Center as an anchor tenant in 1985. OET’s twenty-seven year history demonstrates a company with determination to exist, through times without a home theater, over leadership transitions, and the disruptive Loma Prieta earthquake. It grew talent and fans,…

  • 1426 Alice as the Metropolitan Theatre; Vern Nerden in the Bay Area

    In 1969, the Oakland Metropolitan Ballet Company announced the grand opening of their new home theater at 1426 Alice Street. They organized a black-tie gala event to celebrate the completion of renovations to the building which included improved equipment and lighting, an enlarged backstage area, and a redesigned lobby area. Under the artistic direction of…

  • Ruth Beckford’s recital at the Oakland Women’s City Club

    Ruth Beckford was the first and only black student at Florelle Batsford’s studio in downtown Oakland, California. The Florelle Batsford studio was on 14th street in 1928, then moved to 1710 Franklin in 1943.1 A program of one of her recitals was found in the the Ruth Beckford papers, African American Museum and Library at…

  • Timeline Highlights: the Malonga Center for the Arts

    I’m still adding as I learn more. Images look better when the timeline is viewed in a separate window: https://tinyurl.com/alice-arts-timeline

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