The Annual San Francisco International Arts Festival (till June 7) Dazzles
by Jenny Lenore Rosenbaum
Until June 7, 2015, the San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF) is a nearly three-week cornucopia of theater, dance, music, performance art and art exhibitions that few American cities can match in aesthetic diversity and sheer exhilarating power. San Francisco, with its world famous multi-cultural pizzazz, is the ideal setting to showcase and celebrate the power of Bay Area and global art to inspire, thrill and engender cross-cultural understanding.
Indeed, among the goals of visionary SFIAF Founder, Andrew Wood, is to nurture cross-cultural collaborations among the featured artists. Another is to showcase both emerging and established artists who often do not have U.S. or overseas representation (agents, producing organizations) and whose creations are rarely (and, in some cases never) seen in the States. Because the featured artists are not part of the American touring circuit, the 2015 lineup of performances cannot be seen elsewhere in the U.S., or the world.
Among the Festival’s other curatorial priorities and values is to serve as a catalyst for the emergence of enlarged audiences for the arts, to expand opportunities for artists to showcase their work globally, to heighten the public’s awareness of the transformative power of the arts (on mind, body and spirit), and to spark new perspectives — provocative and illuminating– on psychological, spiritual, social, cultural, political and environmental issues.
Now in its 10th year, the Festival and its partners have presented over 150 arts ensembles from the Bay Area and over 50 countries. This year the Festival is being co-presented with Fort Mason Center, the conglomerate of performing arts venues, museums and other cultural institutions stunningly situated along San Francisco’s waterfront, in the Marina district.
The featured work, including 150 ticketed performances, spans the gamut from traditional to innovative and avant-garde. Participating artists and companies are from Australia, the U.K., Belgium, Brazil, Ireland, Poland, El Salvador, Japan, South Korea, Austria, the Congo, France, Peru, Germany, Russia, Taiwan — as well as many American and local Bay Area performing and visual artists. Among the exhibitions is “Bearing Witness: Surveillance in the Drone Age” (curated by Matt McKinley and Hanna Regev).
Unquestionably, the world class SFIAF can serve as a model for cities, around the world, to nurture the performing and visual arts in ways that transcend the giving of pleasure to audiences. Even beyond this — the pleasure that of course is an irresistible and compelling goal of any performing or visual artist — a festival such as SFIAF offers other cascading, ever reverberating benefits.
It creates the kinds of cultural bridges and proffers powerful transformative perspectives sorely needed in an era blighted by war, international tensions and sectarian violence. In this arena, the SFIAF and the concurrent Venice Biennale can be seen as “co-conspirators” in the quest for nothing less than global harmony through the potency of the arts, for the kinds of cross-cultural admiration that perhaps, just perhaps, can work miracles. We can only hope the Festival will be an ever-reverberating annual force to work such magic, in San Francisco and throughout the world.
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SFIAF events will take place in a number of Fort Mason venues including Cowell and Southside Theaters, the Firehouse, the Fleet Room, and the Conference Center. For detailed information on daily performances, opening receptions, pre- and post-performance soirees, workshops and free shuttle buses to Fort Mason (departing from Valencia and 24th Streets, and Market and The Embacadero), go to: www.sfiaf.org // info@sfiaf.org// or call (415) 399-9554. Tickets: from $12 to $50 with some free events.