3rd Annual Little Italy San Jose Street Festival

The annual Little Italy San Jose Street Festival goes down this Sunday (Sep 30) from 11am to 7pm. Almost 25,000 people attended last year and this year could be even bigger. You can expect authentic Italian Cuisine, local bands, children's activities, Italian Arts & Crafts, and more info on the future Italian Museum & Cultural Center. The event will be a blast and admission is free!

Parking is available across the street at the County Social Services building on Julian. For more info, head over here.

Dual-branded hotel and condo coming Downtown

A unique multi-use building is coming to the corner of Clinton Place and Stockton Avenue, which is on the border of Downtown San Jose and The Alameda. The nine-story (97-foot-tall) project would host two different hotel brands, a Courtyard by Marriott and a Residence Inn. Combined they would have 311 hotel rooms and three stories of underground parking.

What is even more interesting than two hotel brands in a single building, is the fact that they are also building 19 market-rate condos on the top floor. This is the first time in Silicon Valley proper that condos are being included as part of a hotel project. Yet even more unusual, these are entry-level hotel brands. Typically you find condos that share hotel facilities in hotels like the Four Seasons, St. Regis, or Ritz Carlton. This goes to show how in-demand housing is in the area.

The hotels and condos are an easy walk to Whole Foods, the SAP Center, and Diridon. When Google builds their headquarters Downtown, these will be the closest rooms to their offices. It's a safe bet that nightly rates will be astronomical throughout the workweek.

If final approval from the city is received within 10 months, the hotels could be ready by 2020.

I'm happy to see more hotel rooms proposed for the area, but the building aesthetics could use some work. We don't want another AC Hotel fiasco (this kind of looks like a prison as well). Each new project should bring additional character to San Jose, and this looks quite generic. At minimum, perhaps they could utilize the giant roof area to build a park/outdoor lounge for guests and residents. The Pierce is a great example of how you can build something without height that is visually appealing and is additive to the neighborhood.

Source: SVBJ

San Jose Puzzle

Here's a quick brain teaser before the weekend. Where should San Jose go on the list below? Submit your answer over here.

Hat tip to Serhiy Grabarchuck for submitting this.

New hotel planned for SoFA

San Jose's artsy SoFA District is about to get a much needed new hotel. Downtown San Jose is starving for more rooms with occupancy and room rates hitting astronomical figures--we're talking up to $550 a night (with taxes & fees) for a normal room at the Fairmont in the middle of the week.

Krishna Hotels is planning to build a 106-room, seven-story hotel at the corner of South Second and East Reed. Two stories of parking with 39 spaces would be built underground. While not a huge hotel, every extra room matters at this point. The location is also in an undeserved area close enough for San Jose business travelers but also far enough from the Downtown core that it can add more foot-traffic and vibrancy to SoFA.

The Hotel would be built on what is now and empty parcel. No timeline has been given so far.

Source: SVBJ

sjDANCEco Opens Season 16 with “Flying” October 12 and 13 in San Jose

Who: sjDANCEco presents

What: Flying

When: Friday and Saturday, October 12 and 13 at 8:00pm

Where: California Theatre, 345 S. First Street, San Jose, CA 95113

Why: The 16th Anniversary of sjDANCEco is entitled Flying and will feature a collaboration with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Barbara Day Turner.

Tickets: $45 to $70. Visit online at https://www.sjdanceco.org/ or call 408.520.9854

More: The 2018-19 Fall Season entitled Flying returns the company to the beautiful California Theatre with two public performances, and again this year a free Youth Performance for under-served Title 1 schools. In its 9th year of collaboration with Barbara Day Turner and the San José Chamber Orchestra, the program will feature the Company Premieres of “Corvidae” by Limón Dance Company Artistic Director Colin Connor and “Flying Colors” by sjDANCEco’s Choreographic Advisor/Mentor Fred Mathews. The Program will also include World Premieres by company choreographers Maria Basile and Gabriel Mata as well as excerpts from José Limón “Mazurkas” which premiered in 2014. Saturday night's VIP tickets include entry into our aftershow Gala, with a chance to meet the dancers and choreographers of sjDANCEco. 

Artistic Director, Maria Basile, confronts ‘Parallel Universes’ with her World Premiere for sjDANCEco’s 16th Anniversary Fall Season. An abstract story about two people who have one foot in each reality creating a dynamic field between them. With two working titles…htaPReset or htaPParallel, the work is danced to contemporary composer, David Crowell’s Open Road – played live by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra.

Gabriel Mata, a company member since 2012, is a dedicated risk-taking choreographer who has been winning accolades across the country. Chosen at last year’s Minnesota Fringe Festival by the Twin Cities Arts Reader as “Best of the Fringe” and this year the “Audience Pick”, his current solo work Dreaming will be a Company Premiere. Reviewer Tim Wick wrote about this year’s sold out Fringe performances: "What I love about Gabriel Mata is his understanding of the ways dance doesn’t always succeed. At it’s worst, dance can be aloof and impersonal. The audience seems almost like an interloper – there to watch but not to interact. Mata breaks down the walls between audience and dancer. He joins them together in an experience that neither could have without the other. This is what binds together all good theater – an interaction between the audience and the performer. When that bridge is not built, the audience is left wondering why they are even there. Mata has a deep respect for what the audience brings to the equation. He wants us to appreciate his work for the story it tells and he takes the time to help us understand the story though movement but also, sometimes, through words. His stories may come from him but he wants to give them to his audience. More than most, he knows how to make that connection."

Gabriel will also present the World Premiere of In This Time which addresses the heteronormativity that is imposed on lgbtq dancers, their personal dreams, and aspirations. Set to Franz Liszt’s - Benedictus und Offertorium aus der ungarischer Krönungsmesse the work explores the idea of what a "perfect dance" would be for the performers, how they would like to perform the work, what roles they would like to take on and the kind of movement quality they would like to dance. Taking the choreography into their own hands, they begin to reset it while discussing their personal views on normalized gender roles.

Choreographic Advisor/Mentor Fred Mathews’ Flying Colors was originally commissioned by Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers and had it Premiere in 1978. It was a signature work of the Mathews – Masters Dance Company/New York, was the highlight of the company’s tour in France in the 1980’s and has been staged for professional and university Dance companies. 

Set to JS Bach’s Violin Concerto #2, the work has been staged for nine sjDANCEco dancers with Artistic Director Maria Basile in the Solo role.

Hsiang Hsiu Lin’s new work is inspired by the poem -The Road Not Taken -by Frost Robert. A World Premiere

The Road Not Taken

Dancers: Hsiang-Hsiu Lin, Maria Basile

Choreographer: Hsiang-Hsiu Lin

Hsiang-Hsiu Lin, one of the founding sjDANCEco dancers that is still with sjDANCEco today! He is the Director of Lin HH Dance Company of Taipei.

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Fall 2018 Program Repertory

The 16th Anniversary Season entitled Flying will again be in collaboration with the San José Chamber Orchestra under the Direction of Barbara Day Turner.

Guest Choreographer Colin Connor (Artistic Director, Limon Dance Company/NYC)

            Corvidae Company Premiere 6 - 9 dancers – 8 min)

             Music: Phillip Glass (Violin Concerto #1, 1^st movement)

______________________________________________________________________________

Fred Mathews (sjDco Choreographic Advisor)

            Flying Colors (1977)

                         Company Premiere (7 - 8 dancers – 15 min)

                        Music: JS Bach (Violin Concert #2)

______________________________________________________________________________            

Maria Basile (Artistic Director)

            TBA -  World Premiere (duet)

                        Music: David Crowell (Open Road) 

Hsiang Hsiu Lin (Company DanceArtist/Choreographer)

            The Road Not Taken –World Premiere (duet) 

Gabriel Mata (Company Dance Artist) 

            In This Time

                        World Premiere (4 dancers - 16 min)

                        Music: Franz Liszt - (Benedictus und Offertorium aus der ungarischer Krönungsmesse)

____________________________________________________________________________

Gabriel Mata (Company Dance Artist)  

            Boundless Trajectory (2017)                                                            

           Company Premiere (Solo – 12 min)

                        Music & Text: Gabriel Mata (recorded)

______________________________________________________________________________

José Limón 

            Suite from Mazurkas (1958)

                        Revival (4 sections - 4 dancers – 10 min)

                        Music: Frederic Chopin

 ______________________________________________________________________________

ABOUT US

sjDANCEco is a year-round contemporary dance company based in San Jose, California that produces world premieres by its core and guest choreographers, and presents the very best of Contemporary and Classic Modern Dance and Masterpieces of the American Modern Dance Repertory. In addition to a full season of dance concerts, sjDANCEco also is a major participant each Spring in free outdoor dance presentations during National Dance Week, international dance festivals, and has a full schedule of contemporary dance classes for the advanced and professional dancer. sjDANCEco ignites the spirit of dance.

Self-driving grocery deliveries coming to San Jose courtesy of a San Jose startup company

The timeline for self-driving cars has been significantly underestimated. Waymo is already running a limited number of rides to beta customers in Arizona with no safety driver. Tesla is 6 months away from enabling basic self-driving features on over 200,000 consumer cars. And AutoX Inc. just started doing self-driving grocery deliveries late last month.

AutoX is headquartered in North San Jose (off of Trimble) and has two satellite offices in China. They raised $43 million in fundy last year from Danhua Capital, MediaTek Ventures, and SAIC Capital.

Several residents in a geo-fenced area near the headquarters are already eligible for service. Customers can either pick what they want to be delivered from the app or make last minute purchasing decisions when picking up the groceries from the car. You read that correctly... the car itself is a store.

They just have a handful of vehicles today, but are looking to grow to 20 cars very soon and expand the service to Mountain View and Palo Alto. For more info, head over to AutoX.ai or watch the video below.

It's great to see a San Jose company both pushing technological boundaries and providing new services to their immediate community!

Source: SVBJ

San Jose is the 3rd most educated city in the US

It should come as no surprise that a region overflowing with tech talent is also one of the most educated in the country. The San Jose metro ranked third when it comes to education. The study looked at the 150 largest metros and evaluated the number of adults with college degrees as well as the quality of schools in the region. Ann Arbor came in 1st place, followed by the DC area. SF/Oakland came in 5th and New York was 29th.

Source: WalletHub, thanks to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

Tea Collection announces first brick-and-mortar location at Santana Row

Santana Row has scored another exclusive retailer. Tea Collection already has a strong online presence as well as partnerships through boutiques and Nordstrom department stores, yet they decided to open their very first physical store on the row. See the press release below for all of the details.

Globally-Inspired Kids Fashion Brand Announces First Brick and Mortar Location at Santana Row

Tea Collection, the high-quality children’s clothing brand inspired by the beauty of global cultures, is pleased to announce its first brick-and-mortar location at Santana Row in San Jose, California. The Tea-Collection-dedicated retail location opened its doors to little citizens of the world and families alike on August 22.

The Tea Collection store will be a first-of-its-kind shopping experience for the brand, and is designed to further connection between Tea Collection's loyal customer base and its boutique partners. Driven by curiosity, the Tea Collection store will serve as a living classroom to play with new ideas and products, and a chance for the brand to engage one on one with families.

“We see our Santana Row location as a way to spread the love in San Jose. We have many customers there, but not a strong boutique presence. Having our own space provides us an opportunity to meet existing ecommerce customers who don’t have a nearby Tea retailer,” says Emily Meyer, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Tea Collection. “We have been so impressed with Santana Row and how they have created a destination and community that draws people in to spend time.”

Santana Row is Silicon Valley's premier destination for shopping, dining and living. The Tea Collection store will serve as the area's exclusive brick-and-mortar provider of Tea Collection goods.

“Opening a Tea Collection shop is a natural evolution for our brand and will make us a better partner with the hundreds of retailers who carry Tea already,” said Leigh Rawdon, Co-Founder and CEO of Tea Collection. “We hope that the announcement will demonstrate to our retail partners that we are committed to being a great brand at retail, and that what we learn in Santana Row will be translated into their stores.”

Tea Collection will be open seven days a week during regular mall operating hours. All are invited to visit Tea Collection at Santana Row, 377 Santana Row, San Jose, California 95128.

For more information, please visit www.TeaCollection.com.

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About Tea Collection

Based in San Francisco, California, Tea Collection makes children's apparel and accessories for ages 0-16 inspired by global travel and the world’s natural beauty. Believing that all cultures deserve to be celebrated, twice a year Tea Collection designers explore a new region of the world and transform their discoveries into a collection of high-quality, modern clothing for children, making the foreign more familiar. Tea Collection clothing is available online, in over 250 boutiques across the U.S. and exclusive Nordstrom locations. For additional information, please visitwww.TeaCollection.com or follow our adventures on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.

About Santana Row

Offering 1.7 million square feet of retail, office, hotel and residential, Santana Row is located in San Jose, California; the hub for high-tech innovation and development. Featuring 615 luxury rental homes, 219 privately owned condos, 376,000 square feet of office space, over 50 shops, 30 restaurants, a boutique hotel and a movie theatre. Santana Row is a property of www.federalrealty.com (NYSE:FRT), headquartered in Rockville, Maryland. For more information, please visit www.santanarow.com.