Tickets Now On-Sale For San Francisco International Arts Festival's October Program

Early Bird tickets and Festival passes are now on sale for the San Francisco International Arts Festival's two-day outdoor program to take place at the Fort Mason Center on the weekend of October 23-24. The weekend will feature 28 ensembles and companies in 24 separate concerts.

The program marks the return of the SFIAF's popular Festival Pass offering discounts to multiple performances. Early Bird Passes range in price from $28 for two concerts to $103 for eight performances. The Early Bird expires on September 15.

This year's Highlights include:

Pop-Up Theatre from St. Petersburg, Russia presents the English language premiere of its barbed tribute to one of Russia's most respected icons -- Leo Tolstoy. Pop-Up founder and director, Semion Aleksandrovskiy works in collaboration with intrepid Bay Area actors and members of Shotgun Theatre, Megan Trout and Caleb Cabrera to bring to life the script with the indecipherable title of Y.Y.aD.F.H. R.M.C.M.A.al.oH. This turns out to be the English translation of the unpronounceable acronym that Tolstoy initially scrawled in chalk on a card table for his beloved Sophia Bers that she had to unravel in order to guess his true feelings. "Your youth and the need for happiness remind me cruelly of my old age and the impossibility of happiness."

CHELLE & Friends led by composer and singer Michelle Jacques. Ms. Jacques has been commissioned by the Festival to create a body of work titled Daughters of the Delta about significant (but often forgotten) women composers and band leaders from Louisiana whose contemporary accounts documented the phenomenon of the Great Migration. Daughters will premiere in 2022 and Ms. Jacques will present excerpts on October 24.

The Festival debuts of:

• The all-women hip-hop crew, Mix'd Ingrdnts Dance Company led by co-directors Shinobi Jaxx and Samara Atkins;
• Los Nadies (The Nobodies), the politically inspired Latin street band inspired by Eduardo Galeano's celebrated poem;
• Bay Area body percussion ambassador Keith Terry with his musical quintet Free Dive;
• Sandy Cressman with her Brazilian inspired ensemble Homenagem Brasileira;
• The gamelan / folk fusion ensemble Purnamasari finally celebrating the release of their two-year-delayed album, The Weaver;

In addition, veteran shadow-master Larry Reed will take advantage of the outdoor eveing to present an acoustic, single light-source, Balinese shadow play, ABADA Capoeira will use the occasion to celebrate the birthday of founding artistic director, Mestra Cigarra (Marcia Treidler) and there will be new choreography by Alyce Finwall, Vinnie Jones and Natasha Adorlee. Plus new site-specific work Amy Downing Lewis of Push-Up-Something-Hidden.

The list of confirmed artists to date includes: ABADA Capoeira San Francisco, Abhinaya Dance Company of San Jose, Alyce Finwall Dance Theatre, Ars Minerva, CALI & Co., CHELLE & Friends, Concept o4, Embody Dance Project, Florante Aguilar, Free Dive (featuring Keith Terry), Homenagem Brasileira, Las Almas Piano & Bandoneon Duo, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Los Nadies, Mission Hot Club, Mix'd Ingrdnts Dance Company, Nkechi Emeruwa-Neuberg, Pop-Up Theatre, Purnamasari, Push-Up Something Hidden, Rosewater Vigilante, Sha Sha Higby, SISK Dance, Shadowlight Productions, STEAMROLLER Dance Company and Theatre Flamenco de San Francisco and Wind Weavers.

The outdoor performances are part of a week-long program of live, in-person and virtual performances, films and panel discussions from October 18-24, 2021. Details of the online component of the program will be released later this month.

Festival Director, Andrew Wood said of the program, "We are delighted to be able to stage this year's program. We have been advocating for the safe return of live performing arts since the summer of 2020, so we are thrilled to be able to feature and provide income opportunities for so many local artists. Ironically it will be exactly one year since our landmark First Amendment Event at Fort Mason in October 2020. Who could have imagined how bizarre the interim 12 months would have been."

Finally and sadly, these are likely to be the final Festival program presented by SFIAF at Fort Mason. After a relationship spanning more than a decade since 2009, the Festival is seeking pastures new. For more information on the future plans of the San Francisco International Arts Festival, members of the media can contact the Festival offices at 415-399-9554 or respond via email to this press release.

The outdoor component of this year's program has been underwritten by generous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Sam Mazza Foundation.

For Fiscal Year 2021-22, the San Francisco International Arts Festival is funded in part by California Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Federal Small Business Administration (through the PPP, EIDL and Shuttered Venue Grants Programs), Bernard Osher Foundation, New Place Fund, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Sam Mazza Foundation, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, WESTAF's Tourwest Program and other generous individuals and institutions.

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