The B HERE campaign that raises awareness of the life-threatening disease hepatitis B launched Thursday, but it really swings into high gear on the UC Irvine campus today.
First, a free art exhibit featuring works by up-and-coming artists working in a variety of mediums to explore the many facets of the “silent killer” that impacts up to 2 million Americans opens at 10 a.m. in the Pacific Ballroom inside the Student Center at Pereira and West Peltason drives.
Those who check out the exhibit before 5 p.m. get a free ticket to live performances from 6 to 9 p.m. in the Barclay Theatre at 4242 Campus Dr. (Parking for the art exhibit at the live show is available in the Student Center Parking Structure.)
Entertainment will be provided by young, Asian-American singers, musicians, dancers and comedians, including stand-up comic Happy Slip and KABA Modern, an award-winning Hip Hop dance act that originated at UCI and rose to national fame on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew. The emcee is “YouTube sensation” KevJumba.
The events are sponsored by Gilead Sciences, a leading maker of medicines for chronic hepatitis B, with support from campus partners Alpha Phi Omega and the Chinese Association of UCI. There's an Asian flavor to the events because though the liver disease can strike anyone, it disproportionately effects Asians. It is believed as many as two-thirds of Asian Americans with chronic hepatitis B do not know they are infected, putting their health and that of their loved ones at risk.
The B HERE poster follows after the jump . . .
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.