For Immediate Release
Date: August 28, 2024
Contact: Kristen Caven - 510-338-5206
The Dirndl Diaspora Brings Fashion and Culture to Oaktoberfest
Oakland, CA – This year’s Oaktoberfest beer festival in the Dimond District will feature more campy cultural fun and fashion through the lens of Kristen Caven’s animated play, The Dirndl Diaspora. “Dirndl Day” events include a dirndl fashion show, a polka “brawl”, and showings of the movie with facilitated cultural conversations around our Town’s multicultural German diaspora, ancestral healing, and creativity.
The play, which Caven calls “a couture comedy about cultural healing,” was inspired by Oaktoberfest, local fashion designers, her German immigrant heritage, and her Oakland-fueled desire to expand thinking on racial identity and belonging. Intended to be staged in 2020, it was instead presented on Zoom as an animated play for “the world’s first virtual Oktoberfest celebration.” The quirky movie, featuring blank-faced paper dolls, has been shown annually since then, and in 2023 received an honorable mention from the LA Underground Film Forum. Caven has created numerous other cultural works centered on Oakland.
The fashion show, featuring prizes in several categories, will be dedicated to Julie Johnson, with cult fashionista Aja DeCoudreaux as emcee. There is a $100 “dirndl diversity” prize inspired by Caven's play for the best dirndl made with fabric from a non-European culture. Before the event, dirndl-making classes are offered live by Barbara Beccio and online by Jennifer Rossburgh. Caven, also a Zumba teacher, will take the stage at the annual About The Music dance battle to engage onlookers in an easy-to-learn community “Polka Brawl,” another annual tradition she hopes to instill. (A free pre-festival practice class will be held at Banana Yoga in the Jewel Box.)
All of these events are intended to highlight the historic influence of German immigrants in the Dimond District, and celebrate the world’s affection for Bavarian kitsch. Before she wrote her play, Caven, who learned to love German at Mills College before a “roots trip” to Europe, would pass out long, hilarious German words from the pocket of her dirndl at Oaktoberfest. Her favorite word around this festival is “Gemütlichkeit,” which connotes warmth, friendliness, and good cheer, as well as coziness, peace of mind, and a sense of belonging and well-being. Caven leans on on the humor and playfulness of German culture to expand the focus from beer into a celebration of the beauty and diversity of Oakland women.
Reserve a table and get your drink packages at https://www.oaktoberfest.org/!
Kristen Caven is also an Oakland cartoonist, filmmaker, poet, community builder, and author. She is currently the Writer in Residence at Joaquin Miller Park, and her most recent book is The Winning Family: Where No One Has to Lose. For more information, visit www.kristencaven.com.
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