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World Arts West Festival Information
Frequently Asked Questions: What are the Dates and Times of this year’s Festival Activities? The 2024 World Arts West Dance Festival is three weekends of free artist dialogues, dance workshops, and live performances. Sundays, August 25 + September 1, 12-6pm, artist dialogues and dance workshops at Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco. Sunday, September 8, 1-4pm live performances at the Presidio Tunnel Tops in San Francisco. What is the performance lineup and times for each group? Sunday, September 8, 1-4pm Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company Noorani Dance Company Chinyakare Ensemble International Performing Arts of America KITKA (Balkans vocal ensemble) Suhaila Salimpour & the Salimpour Collective Destiny Muhammad (harpist) Ishami Dance Company Parangal Ensamble Folclórico Colibrí Ishita Milli International Performing Arts of America La Mezcla Destiny Muhammad (harpist) Fua Dia Kongo Why is the festival theme this year “Dance as Activism?” Dance is driving social change! The theme of the 2024 Festival is “Dance as Activism” – reflecting the power of cultural dance to challenge societal norms, preserve cultural heritage, and inspire social change. There's a cultural movement that’s building solidarity amongst holders of ancestral knowledge. To meet this current historical moment, cultural artists are telling stories of resistance and revolution. Each festival presentation is a coded blueprint for survival, resilience and evolution. World Arts West is telling stories that demonstrate dance as more powerful and persuasive than shackles and guns or fear and violence. Through dance, cultural communities retain storehouses of knowledge and wisdom for how we can persist and resist today. How can I donate to WAW? We accept donations via:
How can I volunteer for WAW? We would love your support as a volunteer! Please send an email to [email protected] to start the conversation. How can I stay updated from WAW? Join our Mailing List by visiting our website, WorldArtsWest.org and follow us on Instagram and Facebook (@WorldArtsWest) How can my group perform in the festival? We will have an Artist Open Call for the 2025 Festival. Sign up for the mailing list to be the first to know and follow us on Facebook and Instagram (@World ArtsWest). What happened to EDF? Our current World Arts West’s board and staff have a strategic plan to support cultural artists through a racial and cultural equity framework. This transformed the annual festival which now has a new name and new format. We will continue to evolve and present an annual festival with a focus on equity. What is the difference between EDF and World Arts West? World Arts West is the San Francisco-based, non-profit organization that presented the Ethnic Dance Festival as well as other programs including the sunsetted program People Like Me and the current programs of Career Pathways, Grant Accelerator Program, the World Arts West Dance Festival and more. What is WAW doing now? In the last few years, World Arts West has undergone a transformative equity journey. We are leaning in to our mission and vision to build an organization that is by and for artists. By listening to the artists we serve, we have expanded our programmatic offerings to include:
We are grateful to our community for your continued support and enthusiastic participation in World Arts West programs including the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival for so many years! Thank you to the amazing artists and staff who have made the festival a local tradition and a national model for cultural dance production. We salute your talent, dedication and hard work to bring our stories to the stage! The San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival was founded in 1978 to create a platform for the visibility of cultural artists in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the 1980s and 1990s World Arts West steadily grew to include other programs and services as well as the Festival. In recent years the festival had become a highly produced, large-scale presentation but not a financially sustainable model. In 2019 World Arts West made a transformative change in staff and leadership. Dr Anne Huang is the first Executive Director of color, immigrant and San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival artist to lead the organization. For the first time since 1978, the World Arts West board and staff reflect the diversity of its artist community. Even before the Covid pandemic made a lasting impact on the resources of arts organizations and how audiences engage with performances across the world, World Arts West needed to reevaluate our presentation model to create a fiscally responsible production format. World Arts West, like presenters around the nation, continues to navigate how we can bring back our indoor performances in a more equitable and sustainable way, which includes a deeper understanding of our artist community. With support from the Wallace Foundation, World Arts West is embarking on a groundbreaking research project to learn about the World Arts West cultural artist community. By listening to the artists we serve, we’ll gain a deeper understanding of the demographics of our artist community, what they need, and how we can best serve them. Whether or not we are able to present indoor performances depends on many factors. Our staff is exploring different performance presentation models through the lenses of artist equity, fiscal responsibility, and attracting audiences. These are some of the questions we are asking ourselves:
We will keep our community updated as we find answers to these questions and move forward with bringing cultural dance and music to the Bay Area and beyond. Join our email list, follow us on social media and look for information on our website! If you have thoughts or questions during this process of discovery and change, feel free to drop us a line at [email protected]. |
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