SAN ANTONIO – Dreamweek San Antonio has officially kicked off Friday with its opening ceremony breakfast.
This tips off about 265 events in the next 17 days around the city.
DreamWeek has officially started in San Antonio. San Antonio’s MLK March — touted as the largest in the nation — is one of over 200 events featured as part of DreamWeek. Copyright 2023 by KSAT – All rights reserved.
When he considers the devastation of conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, DreamVoice founder Shokare Nakpodia asserts that the seeds for global peace are first sown at home. Through dialogue, compassion and an understanding that each person has a singular perspective, we can then begin to envision change, he said.
With this ethos and the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. built into its DNA, DreamVoice’s annual DreamWeek summit will feature over 230 events across 100 San Antonio venues from Jan. 12-28.
“The thing that would bring about peace and goodwill in this world does not exist presently, otherwise there would be peace,” said Nakpodia. “So how do we go about setting a stage to allow that to come about?”
For Nakpodia, community-born activities — from thoughtful panel discussions to cultural events and opportunities for proactive compassion — are apt starting points.
Since its inception in 2013, DreamWeek has grown to become what Nakpodia calls “the largest community-curated summit in the nation.” The two-week-long series features a constellation of ticketed and free opportunities for all ages.
This year’s celebration, The Compassion Drive, will introduce several inaugural events, including the debut of Dreamstage at Pearl with a free jazz concert on Friday, Jan. 12, featuring the Aaron Prado Quartet; Soul Spot DJ sets on Saturday, Jan. 13; and Gospel and Soul music by Devsoul and Friends on Jan. 14.
The complete DreamWeek events schedule is available to browse, and we’ve put together some highlights from this year’s lineup below.
Kick-off events
Civic leaders will help lead the DreamWeek festivities throughout the summit.
Donna Costa, restorative practices and trauma-informed care trainer and Technical in Bexar County’s Office of Criminal Justice, will kick things off as keynote speaker at Friday’s opening ceremony breakfast at 7:30 a.m. in the Jack Guenther Pavilion at the Briscoe Western Art Museum.
The 12th annual San Antonio DreamWeek offers a packed series of civic-engagement events scheduled around Martin Luther King Jr. Day. How packed? So packed that it’s long outgrown its name, now spanning the better part of a month — from Jan. 12-28. Founded by San Antonio ad exec Shokare Nakpodia, the ever-expanding series of lectures, concerts, celebrations, discussions and happenings is designed to promote conversations around race, social justice and empowerment.
Ahead of the Dr. Martin Luther King March and Celebrationon Monday and only days before the 17-day Dreamweek begins, the City of San Antonio named a winner in its poster art contest.
The Department of Arts and Culture’s Krystal Jones explained that “every year, our department partners with the Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Commission to launch a student art contest,” Jones said. “And so we had students from all around San Antonio submit artworks. And we just announced a winner at the Carver Community Cultural Arts Center: Alexa Villanueva [for] her artwork, My Today, Our Tomorrow, is the winner of this year’s celebration.”
The 15 year-old from Cole High School was selected from among 82 entries, and she said the honor was overwhelming.
“Just absolutely thrilled and very gracious. She is a student at Robert G. Cole High School, and she really wanted to honor her art teacher, which is the person who told her about the contest,” Jones said. “She’s an aspiring artist and just really excited — she’ll be going to a Spurs game as a part of winning this contest, and she’ll see her artwork all throughout the commemoration.”
“The instructions that they’re given is that their artwork will be the official poster of the commemoration. And T-shirts will be made with this image and this artwork,” she said. “And so really, we try to leave the parameters open as much as possible for our young artists to be as creative as they can.”
Jones said she felt the artwork’s composition and its content were uplifting. “It has this beautiful sunrise behind the San Antonio skyline, but the skyline looks like it’s walking forward,” she said. “There’s a lot of individuals’ legs coming out of the bottom of the skyline to really represent the city moving forward.”
The yearly march often draws about 300,000 participants. “We’ve heard from the MLK Commission that it is the largest in the nation because San Antonio is a city that really comes together and works together,” Jones said. “I think that it really speaks to San Antonio to say that we do have this largest march.”
The march is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 15. It begins at Martin Luther King Park, heads west and then ends with a post-march celebration at Pittman-Sullivan Park.
March lineup begins as early as 9 a.m. Dress warmly — forecasters warned of very cold weather gripping the region on Monday morning.
Participants can access free VIA bus service to the march from 8 to 10 a.m. at the Freeman Coliseum and St. Phillip’s College. Return service from the park to original pickup locations will last from 12 to 3 p.m.
Dreamweek
The march is the biggest of many events during San Antonio’s Dreamweek, which kicks off on Friday, Jan. 12. It’s 17 days of creating human interaction through civic engagement and embracing ideas for the common good.
Shokare Nakpodia, the founder of Dreamweek, said the theme this year is about a commitment for compassion.
“The theme is ‘the compassion drive’ we want to encourage as many individuals and organizations as possible to do a lot more to reach our goals in terms of taking care of our neighbors and taking care of our community,” Nakpodia explained.
Dreamweek will offer more than 200 events, including blood drives, discussions on anti-racism, science symposiums, and the Mayor’s Dream Ball event. More information is at Dreamweek.org.
Joey Palacios, Brian Kirkpatrick, Steve Short and Lauren Terrazas contributed to this report.
SAN ANTONIO – Martin Luther King Jr.’s teachings inspired a 12th annual city-wide summit, “DreamWeek 2024: The Compassionate Drive.”
The Dream Week mission is to encourage a healthy exchange of ideas regarding real world issues in a civil manner.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg, District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur and DreamWeek founder, Shokare Nakpodia are among the speakers for the press conference.
SAN ANTONIO — More than two hundred events centered around education, the arts, civic engagement and community conversation will take place this month as part of the 12th annual DreamWeek SA initiative.
The 2024 event, dubbed #TheCompassionDrive, runs Jan. 12-28 and will make use of more than 100 locations throughout San Antonio. The event’s mission is to “bridge the gap between people and ideas through a community-curated summit,” made up of open forums, film screenings, exhibits, workshops and symposiums.
DreamWeek’s 11th installation kicks off on Friday with 17 days of events, including a new series that highlights local musical talent.
Context: DreamWeek started in 2013 as a summit of panels, symposiums, exhibits and more that unite the community. It serves as a platform to foster discussions on diversity and equality.
What’s happening: DreamStage, an inaugural event and partnership between DreamVoice and Pearl, will take place Jan. 12-14.
- The music sets will be at Pearl’s amphitheater and will be free and open to the public.
- Guests can expect jazz starting at 5pm on Friday. DJ sets on Saturday and gospel and soul on Sunday start at 3:30pm.
- The musicians have not been announced.
What’s next: The full itinerary includes health screenings, tours of historic East Side sites, a soul brunch and the Mayor’s Dream Ball.
- See the schedule, including free and ticketed events, here.
Here are some of the biggest events in San Antonio that you’ll want to mark on your new calendars.
January
MLK March: One of the country’s biggest
SAN ANTONIO — She stepped to the microphone and introduced herself as Gola, the stage name she’s used since self-exile from Iran more than a decade ago.
The singer spoke of her homeland as a land rich with Persian art, culture and history. As a child, she heard about a more open life before 1979 when the Iranian government issued fundamentalist laws that suppressed women’s rights and banned Western culture.
When Gola received her green card, it was a passport to America she called “a country of dreams.” When she arrived, the immigration officer said words she hadn’t heard in a long time: “Welcome home.” His greeting gave her hope. That moment, she made a promise — she would not lose her home again.
The call to speak at a DreamWeek 2023 opening event in San Antonio surprised the Iranian singer. Gola also sang the national anthem Saturday at the Mayor’s Ball held at the Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.
“It’s an honor to be part of something that takes us toward a better future for all,” the singer, songwriter and activist said. “Singing the anthem is a reminder for myself and everyone what this country is about and that nothing is impossible. It’s a vision of victory, achievement and unity.”
Wellness trainer Amira Abdelkader introduced Gola to DreamWeek founder Shokare “Sho” Nakpodia, who invited her to take part in the event that closed the citywide summit.
Nakpodia said Gola embodies DreamWeek’s theme, “Identity and Representation.”
“She overlaps and identifies with so many people, but at the same time produces this unique being,” Nakpodia said. “And that’s what we want to express through DreamWeek.”
Gola said she’s not only trying to be the voice of those fighting for freedom in Iran, but she will also do her best in her new home to create positive and tangible change through music and activism.
“So, many innocent people lost their lives in the current revolution fighting for freedom in Iran for us and future generations,” she said. “Now it’s our responsibility to talk about it, act and make sure they are not forgotten. The fire of this revolution doesn’t go out — it keeps burning stronger until we see victory.”
A decade ago, Gola made the painful decision to leave Iran and her family to follow her dream of performing music. She said women aren’t allowed to sing, record, or perform solo in her homeland.
As the singer left, she closed the front door and kissed an outside wall of the home where she grew up. It’s where she played the piano and sang in front of a mirror, imagining she was Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. She touched the wall and said, ‘I may never see you again, but I will always cherish our memories.’”
“That was my mecca,” Gola said. “This feeling is not right. It hurts so bad.”
Good memories of home lift her spirits as she performs. Thoughts of family and home kept Gola going when she left on a one-way ticket to London and a new life.
She calls the stage her “holy place.” She stayed active in music, getting her master’s degree in music psychology while working part-time jobs.
Gola gradually broke through the Iranian music industry around the world. Her first English song, released in 2018, reached the top 20 U.K. pop charts. She continued fighting for women, gender equality and human rights through music by releasing her protest Farsi album, “Change.”
On track nine, called “Haghame” (It’s My Right), she sings about her feeling toward the Iranian regime’s compulsory hijab law. She knows the subject well, something she said women and girls have been fighting against since the Iranian revolution. The singer said, as a teen, the Iranian morality police jailed her three times, including an arrest for a strand of hair outside of her hijab.
“It’s my right to feel the wind blowing in my hair,” she sings in “Haghame.” “It’s my right to live my life free from any threats.”
The self-directed video of the song was released weeks before a fatal incident in Iran sparked protests across Iran and around the world. On Sept. 13, 2022, the morality police arrested and beat 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for allegedly not wearing a hijab properly. She died three days later in police custody. Amini’s death ignited protests, with thousands marching in the streets and around the world in support of the revolution in Iran.
They chanted, “Woman, Life, Freedom,” as they held up Amini’s photo. Women cut their hair and burned hijabs. Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour wrote “Baraye (Because of),” thread with tweets by protesters that became an unofficial anti-government anthem around the world.
“She was a normal girl from a normal family,” Gola said. “She was a girl that any dad, brother or husband would like to have.”
Gola doesn’t take her freedom for granted. Speaking for girls and women without a voice is her focus.
“I truly believe we are where we are at for a reason,” Gola said. “I can’t think that the years of not being with my family and friends was for nothing. Who knows, one day we can all go back and show the beauty of Iran.”
vtdavis@express-news.net
