Help Us Solve the Mystery of the Young Artists’ Stage

Working in the Oakland History Center involves solving countless mysteries. The majority of our work is finding the answers to people's questions, but sometimes we also have to solve mysteries about items in our collection. Whether that means trying to identify where a photo was taken, or figuring out why we have a certain book, there's always something interesting to research.

This video is one example. We know that it’s a video of the Young Artists' Stage at the Festival at the Lake in 1992. We know that watching it is like a dose of pure joy. Kids from all over Oakland are singing, dancing, clowning, reciting poems, and playing taiko drums. It’s 1992, so the fashions are stunning and the song choices are impeccable. I was singing the very catchy and informational Festival at the Lake theme song from the beginning of the video for days after watching. I highly recommend watching the whole thing if you have an hour to spare.

Title screen from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage — A helpful title screen.

But, then there's the question of what else would be nice to know about this video. I would love to be able to provide a better description for this video, because a good description would make it easier for people to find and enjoy. But I’m having trouble matching the printed program with the performers in the video. Can you help? Maybe you were a part of one of these groups, or maybe you were in the audience cheering on your friends or family members. A few groups are easy to identify, with the help of the Festival program, but most are not.

Here’s the breakdown of when new groups take the stage in the video. Starting at…

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage, showing children wearing red sweatshirts printed with the words Jazz All-Stars. — 03:15 – Jazz All Stars – an elementary school aged singing group. There is no group listed by the name Jazz All Stars in the program.

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage, showing teenagers singing and wearing in solid colored shirts and black pants.. — 09:54 – A high school aged choral group

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage, showing teenagers singing. — 16:36 – A different high school aged choral (a’capella) group

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage, showing four teenagers singing. — 23:57 – A quartet of boys who were also in the previous group. This is the Boyz II Men portion of the program.

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage, showing children in matching yellow baseball caps and t-shirts. — 26:53 – Shelton’s School Choir and dances under the direction of Evelyn Thomas. Another elementary-aged group, easily identifiable thanks to their matching t-shirts. Don’t miss their rendition of “Young, Gifted, and Black.”

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage, showing teenagers dancing in matching white cotton dresses. — 34:00 - A teenage African dance group

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage showing four ballet dancers in pink tutus. — 36:41 – Youth Ballet. This is how they’re listed in the program, and on the sign in front of the stage, but I would love to know if this was a class sponsored by the Recreation Department.

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage showing teenage dancers wearing denim overall shorts. — 40:43 – An older elementary or junior high hip-hop dance group

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage showing three children walking on stilts and wearing colorful clown costumes. — 45:33 – Prescott Clown Troupe. Easy to identify!

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage showing barefoot teenage dancers in brightly colored skirts, with a drummer in the background. — 49:05 – An elementary or junior high aged African dance group with drummers, followed by a recitation of an Opal Palmer Odisa poem.

Image from a video of the Festival at the Lake's 1992 Young Artists Stage showing children playing taiko drums. — 53:11 – San Francisco Taiko Dojo Children’s Group

For reference, here's what the program looked like for the Young Artists' Stage on Saturday and Sunday. The video seems like it has been edited from the original performance order, and not everyone listed in the program made it onto the video. There’s definitely no Folklorico and no Fancy Dancers.

Cover of the 1992 Festival at the Lake program — One of many Festival at the Lake programs in the Oakland History Center's collection.

Schedule listing Young Artists Stage performers for Saturday, June 6, 1992. — Saturday's performers on the Young Artists' Stage.

Schedule listing Young Artists Stage performers for Sunday, June 5, 1992. — Sunday's performers on the Young Artists' Stage.

And here's a little description from the program of what I assume is one of the high school age choral groups in the video, Street Sounds and/or Joyful Sounds:

Brief article describing the Joyful Sounds and Street Sounds choirs that began at Skyline High in 1992. — Possibly one of the groups from the beginning of the video?

I don’t need everyone’s names, but I would like to know the names of the groups or what schools or organizations they’re representing. Please let us know in the comments, or send us an email at ohc@oaklandlibrary.org with any clues you can share.

Want to know more about Festival at the Lake? Make an appointment or stop by the Oakland History Center. Want to see more of our digitized video and audio recordings? Head over to our California Revealed site to see and hear much more.

If you enjoy trying to figure out mysteries like this, please be sure to follow the Oakland History Center's brand new Instagram account (@oaklandhistorycenter) where we'll be posting items from our collection, behind the scenes photos of our work, and more mysteries that we need help identifying.