On any given weekend, the Mission offers up an artistic feast with enough dance, music, film, poetry and other forms of creative expression to satisfy even the most gluttonous culture maven. But May is shaping up to be an overflowing repast as the San Francisco International Arts Festival completes its transition from the cloistered confines of Fort Mason to the cultural heart of the city.
Running May 1 to 12 at about a dozen very different venues, the SF International Arts Festival brings more than 100 performances to essential Mission institutions, including the Red Poppy Art House, Accion Latina, Bissap Baobab, the Community Music Center, Dance Mission Theater, El Rio, La Casa de los Sentidos, Medicine for Nightmares, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, and Studio 210.
It’s not the first time the International Arts Festival has worked in the Mission, but it’s never inhabited the neighborhood like this, and the landscape looked very different the last time it had a presence here in 2008. For Andrew Wood, the festival’s founder and executive director, embracing the Mission means celebrating “the neighborhood that identifies what San Francisco is,” he said. “Everything good that happens is there. It’s the center of everything. It is gentrified, but still has its edge and history and worldview.”
10 recommended performances from the SF International Arts Festival
The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents “Borealis,” an eclectic program for flute, viola and double-bass including music by Saariaho, Schulhoff and Komschlies. El Rio, Thursday, May 2, 6 p.m., free.
The ecstatic Carnatic jazz trio VidyA used to perform regularly in the Mission, including a Red Poppy residency. This concert reunites saxophonist Prasant Radhakrishnan, bassist David Ewell and drummer Sameer Gupta, who recently returned to the Bay Area after 15 productive years in New York (where he co-founded the Brooklyn Massive Raga collective). Community Music Center, Saturday, May 4, 3:30 p.m., $20 to $28.
Neblinas del Pacifico is a group dedicated to the incantatory marimba music of the Afro-Colombian Pacific coast, sounds that evoke the aqueous environment and the resilient spirituality of a people long neglected by the government. Community Music Center, Saturday, May 4, 8:30 p.m., $20 to $28.
Butoh-inspired Ranko Ogura Dance presents the work-in-progress “Land of Kamuy — Soil and Soul,” an excerpt of a piece exploring the beliefs of Japan’s indigenous Ainu people via folk dance, film and animation. Studio 210, Sunday, May 5, 2 p.m., $20 to $28.
Trombonist/vocalist Natalie Cressman and guitarist/vocalist Ian Faquini have performed around the world as a duo, delivering exquisite arrangements of Brazilian jazz gems and Faquini’s beautifully wrought originals. Their new album, “Guinga,” is a celebration of and collaboration with the great Brazilian guitarist and composer who’s mentored Faquini. Arcana SF, Sunday, May 5, 7:30 p.m., free.
Ireland’s Edinburgh Fringe First-winning Fishamble Ensemble, one of several international groups performing at the SFIAF, presents the Northern California Premiere of Pat Kinevane’s “King.” Set in rural County Cork, the play focuses on Luther, a shut-in who only leaves his home to perform as an Elvis Presley impersonator. Mission Cultural Center, Wednesday & Friday, May 8 & 10, 8 p.m., Saturday, May 11, 3:30 p.m., $20 to $28.
Featuring Katherine Park, Lisa Graciano, Frances Ancheta and MJoy, the Pandan Leaf Collective brings together four Asian-American women singer-songwriters to present a program of songs inspired by the women who’ve shape their lives. El Rio, Thursday, May 9, 6 p.m., free,
Rachel Garlin, an accomplished Noe Valley singer/songwriter, performs her song cycle “The Ballad of Madelyne & Therese,” detailing the treacherous emotional terrain surrounding two women falling in love in 1940. Her concert is followed by a period dance party with DJ Rockaway. El Rio, Thursday, May 9, 8 p.m., $12 to $15.
Vocalists Bryan Dyer and David Worm have decades of history performing together, but in recent years they’ve been improvising weekly as part of Bobby McFerrin’s a cappella ensemble Motion. As the Flex Duo, they toggle between loose-limbed arrangements and spontaneously generated pieces that often include riffs and rhythms from the audience. Red Poppy Art House. Saturday, May 11, 7 p.m., $20 to $28.
A double bill pairing the world premiere of InsynchKathak’s “Pravaasi,” which explores the emotional terrain of immigration via Indian Kathak dance, with Sarada Kala Nilayam’s “Chakras — the wheel of energy,” choreography detailing the location of all seven chakras. Dance Mission Theater, Sunday, May 12, 2 p.m. $20 to $28.
