Disasters lurked around every corner. But, like a circus performer who can keep three stacks of plates spinning precariously in the air, Andrew Wood came through the San Francisco International Arts Festival’s trial run in the Mission relieved that nothing got broken, gratified that dozens of performances were successful by any measure, and already thinking about the next act.
Presenting more than 50 shows in a dozen venues between May 1 and 12, the SFIAF reinvented itself as a multifarious urban arts festival after years under the sole umbrella of Fort Mason. It was a grand experiment that provided reams of valuable data. “We learned a lot about the different venues, as to how they work and how we can work with them,” Wood said. “But we had to find out as the events were happening in real time. It was more work than we thought, but we handled it really well.”
Wood credits a crack team of interns from San Francisco State University and his bare-bones staff for pulling off the sprawling festival with barely a hitch. According to SFIAF analytics, the shows drew some 2,800 attendees, which means the festival sold a little more than 50 percent of the available tickets. Eight performances sold out, and another four hit more than 80-percent capacity. About half of the audience traveled from one of the eight Bay Area counties surrounding the city, and a high percentage of San Francisco residents who bought tickets hail from 94110. San Francisco State is working on an economic impact report, but that information won’t be available for months.
Most importantly, the SFIAF put on some excellent shows. I caught a packed May 4 performance by Neblinas del Pacífico at the Community Music Center that opened with an unamplified, a cappella invocation that immediately transformed the room into a communal space. As each of member of the group switched between the marimbas and hand drums, the quintet delivered a gorgeous set of lapidary Afro-Colombian songs from the country’s little-known Pacific coast (the group also performed last week at the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival).
Other highlights included the 25th anniversary celebration of John Calloway’s SF State Afro-Cuban Ensemble last Saturday at the Community Music Center, “which was packed to the rafters,” Wood said. “When you think about what he’s done over 25 years, and all the great musicians who’ve come through the ensemble, it was quite the celebration.”
The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble’s free performances at El Rio brought a different vibe to the club’s patio, while Noe Valley singer/songwriter Rachel Garlin presented her lesbian song cycle “The Ballad of Madelyne and Tyrese” to a standing-room-only audience inside. At the Red Poppy, the “West Oakland to West Africa” production went off smoothly, with a live-streamed collaboration involving musicians in Ghana, a technical feat managed by CounterPulse’s Kevin Lo.
Syncing up remote performances in real-time was hardly the only challenge the festival faced. The downpour Saturday, May 4, put the kibosh on the day’s Precita Eyes Mural walking tour. Montreal performer Mykalle Bielinski arrived in San Francisco to discover that Canadian transportation authorities had confiscated the transformer she uses to store electricity in “Warm Up,” her one-woman, pedal-powered show that made its U.S. premiere at Studio 210.
“They thought it was a lithium battery and took it out of her luggage,” Wood said. With sponsorship from the Canadian and Quebecois governments, she had some leverage, and “the Canadian government had to get Air Canada to fly it in the next day and deliver to her hotel room.”
The festival faced another international incident when someone at SFO walked off with the set for the U.S. premiere of “The Soul Catcher” by Denmark’s Kassandra Productions. The company’s lighting designer didn’t make the trip because his visa came through too late. But when the Mission Cultural Center’s antiquated electrical system couldn’t handle the theatrical lightning anyway, his absence was moot. “Stage director Phil Lowery came through, and the show went on for a very enthusiastic audience,” Wood said.
Improvisation is part of the skillset required to put on a sprawling arts festival, and next year “we’re looking to do more outdoor spaces, more non-traditional spaces where artists think about the environment of the performance.”
The SFIAF will continue to maintain a regular presence in the Mission with The Last Supper Party, the monthly spoken-word and music series at Medicine For Nightmares that returns on June 19 for a special Juneteenth presentation featuring Abdul Kenyatta, Allen Jordan, Idrissa Lattier, Kevin Dublin, Mia Pixley and Thomas Laymon. As for the festival, it’s still very much a work in progress. “Next year will be another interim year, with another set of things to learn,” Wood said. “This was a consolidating step. Now, how do we build on it? It’ll take another couple of years to really ramp it up to galvanize the whole neighborhood.”
Recommended gig at Medicine for Nightmares
Multi-reed player David Boyce continues his semi-regular Friday residency at Medicine For Nightmares Bookstore with Sink Head Trio, a recent configuration by frequent collaborators. Featuring clarinetist/composer extraordinaire Ben Goldberg, cellist Ben Davis, and drummer Jordan Glenn the group can explore free improvisation, Thelonious Monk, and American Songbook standards.
I attended a free Natalie Cressman SFIAF concert at Arcana Wine & Plant Bar and when I filled out an online post-concert survey I won a drawing for 2 free tix to upcoming concerts and attended them at the Community Music Center. I met Andrew Wood at a post-theatre reception at the Dovre Club sponsored by the Irish Consulate. Charming.