2010 Hot 20: Alayna Stroud, Aerial Dancer and Creative director of Cirque Noir
You’ll need to know the password if you want to catch a glimpse of Alayna Stroud and her small company of aerial-burlesque dancers at her Divisadero Street studio. For the past three years, audiences have lined up outside to get into Cirque Noir’s sexy speakeasy performances. But this is no mere striptease. Her choreography tells fantastical stories about love and transformation—but, you know, in the air and with legs wrapped around a pole connected to a swaying bathtub.
Hot 20 2010: Veronica Belmont, Host of Tekzilla
Veronica Belmont, 28
Host, Tekzilla
When Veronica Belmont—one of the most recognized technology personalities on the Internet—gives a thumbs-up, you listen. So take note: Her desert-island gadgets are the iPhone 4, the Kindle 2, and the MacBook Pro. Belmont is the host of Tekzilla, a weekly technology video podcast on Revision3.com and Qore, an online gaming magazine on the PS3 network. More than a million people follow her thoughts on gadgets and gaming on Twitter.
2010 Hot 20: Chris Kronner and Anthony Strong
Chris Kronner, 27,
executive chef, Bar Tartine
Anthony Strong, 27,
executive chef, Locanda
Chris Kronner and Anthony Strong might be the envy of every chef in town. They rein over two of the city’s most nationally acclaimed kitchens: Anne and Craig Stoll’s Pizzeria Delfina and Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson’s Bar Tartine. Strong is transitioning to be executive chef of Locanda, Delfina’s new Roman restaurant at Valencia and 16th streets. It has a hopeful January opening, as does the expansion of Bar Tartine, which will include a stand-alone bakery for Robertson’s breads. Now that they’ll be next-door neighbors, Kronner and Strong will share something less glamorous—an alleyway trash area.
2010 Hot 20: Michelle Blade, Painter, 2010 SECA Art Award Finalist and Owner of Sight School Gallery
Artist Michelle Blade is the first to admit that she has rightfully earned her role as the token black sheep of her family. Instead of staying in LA to join their restaurant business, she fled to SF in 2006 to pursue a master’s of fine arts in painting at California College of the Arts. Soon she was organizing social experiments such as group hugs with strangers in Golden Gate Park and a full moon feast and fire ceremony that entailed burning bits of paper scrawled with people’s wishes and burdens. “In grad school, I started painting large groups of individuals going out into nature and doing crazy things,” says Blade, whose canvases nod to Romanticism and German Expressionism. “A teacher of mine asked, ‘Michelle, why is this just a painting?’”
Hot 20 2010: Wassana Korkhieola and Lalita Souksamlane, Owners, Osha Thai
Wassana Korkhieola, 37, and Lalita Souksamlane, 39
Owners, Osha Thai
Ask Thailand natives Lalita Souksamlane or Wassana Korkhieola about the time Radiohead dined at Osha Thai, and they’ll look at you blankly. The sisters’ idea of a celebrity is more like chef Charles Phan of the Slanted Door, whose take on Vietnamese food has provided inspiration for Osha’s own mini-empire.
Hot 20 2010: Jane Kim, President, SF Board of Education and Candidate for District 6 Supervisor
If Jane Kim looks familiar, it could be that you recognize her as the SF Board of Education president, not to mention the leading candidate in the race for District 6 supervisor (a post held by controversial legislator Chris Daly since 2000). Or you might know her as the electric-bass player in a female indie-rock band called Strangely, which performs at venues such as Brainwash. “After politics, my second love is definitely music,” says the Stanford grad.
Hot 20 2010: Meklit Hadero, Musician
Meklit Hadero,
Musician
Meklit Hadero was born to sing. “I always wanted to be a singer,” says the Ethiopian-born, U.S.-raised cultural activist who studied political science at Yale and ended up serving as the director at Red Poppy Art House for two years. “You hear singers say all the time, ‘When I was barely talking, I was singing, and I always felt like something was missing in my life.’ That was me. When I got to San Francisco, I realized it put up or shut up.” The result is Hadero’s new album, On a Day Like This ... .
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