WAW 3
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About >
      • Mission & Vision
      • Program Pillars
      • Staff & Board
      • Press & News
  • Live Performances
    • Annual Festival >
      • 2025 WAW Dance Festival >
        • 2025 WAWDF FAQ's
      • 2024 WAW Dance Festival
      • 2023 WAW Dance Festival >
        • The Artists
        • Festival Team and Funders
      • 2022 WAW Dance Series >
        • WAW Dances in the Park >
          • The Artists
        • First Sundays at the Presidio
      • 2021 SFEDF Film
      • Festival Program Books
  • Artist Service Programs
    • Career Pathways Roundtable
    • Professional Development Workshops
    • Special Artist Commissions >
      • Migrations
      • 5th Quarter Bantaba
      • Ipat a Kadsakay
  • Visibility & Advocacy
    • Visibility & Advocacy
  • support
    • Donate
    • Funders and Partners
    • Contact Us
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:
  • Online donation
  • Cash
  • Check - Please make it out to “World Arts West” and write “Donation” in the note.

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: 
​
  • Live Performances - We partner with other institutions to offer performance opportunities to artists throughout the year, including our annual festival. This year we present the 45th Annual World Arts West Dance Festival at the Presidio. We continue to explore the best presenting options and locations to serve our diverse community’s needs.   
 
  • Artist Service Programs - The Grants Accelerator Program provides capacity building support to an annual cohort of cultural artists and dance companies. Since January 2022, the GAP cohort has raised over $1,000,000 ! The Career Pathways Program introduces cultural artists to careers that support our cultural arts ecosystem. 
 
  • Visibility & Advocacy - We work to uplift artists into leadership positions to ensure the voices of culture bearers are heard in policy decisions surrounding the arts. This year WAW staff participated in the Dance/USA National Arts Advocacy Initiative, CA Arts & Culture Summit, and the Greater Bay Area Arts Advocacy Coalition. And 2023 marked the beginning of our groundbreaking research project to survey our community, funded by the Wallace Foundation.
 
  • Archiving & Documentation - We have 45 years of World Arts West history to organize, digitize, and share. There are also many stories and oral histories we’d like to document so they are not forgotten. This year we are piloting our first WAW Archive Cohort to learn about best practices for archiving and strategize solutions as a group.


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:

  • What is the festival audition process? 
    • Are in-person auditions that require months of time to prepare, and significant expense to the artists, equitable?
    • Should we implement video submissions to make our application process more accessible for artists? 
    • What is the responsibility of WAW to curate the festival so that it is continually diverse, inclusive, and uplifts emerging companies?
  • What is the right size and type of indoor venue/s? What is the availability and cost of indoor venues? 
  • What is a realistic timeline to create and produce the festival?
  • What parameters are we working under as far as budget, capacity, and health protocols?
  • What are new sources of funding?
  • Should we live stream the festival?
  • What are new ways to engage our audience and volunteers?
  • How can our community help us achieve our goals?
  • Who will we partner with to achieve our goals?

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].

​
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
You Can Make A Difference - Donate!
​​​World Arts West ©2020.
​All rights reserved
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About >
      • Mission & Vision
      • Program Pillars
      • Staff & Board
      • Press & News
  • Live Performances
    • Annual Festival >
      • 2025 WAW Dance Festival >
        • 2025 WAWDF FAQ's
      • 2024 WAW Dance Festival
      • 2023 WAW Dance Festival >
        • The Artists
        • Festival Team and Funders
      • 2022 WAW Dance Series >
        • WAW Dances in the Park >
          • The Artists
        • First Sundays at the Presidio
      • 2021 SFEDF Film
      • Festival Program Books
  • Artist Service Programs
    • Career Pathways Roundtable
    • Professional Development Workshops
    • Special Artist Commissions >
      • Migrations
      • 5th Quarter Bantaba
      • Ipat a Kadsakay
  • Visibility & Advocacy
    • Visibility & Advocacy
  • support
    • Donate
    • Funders and Partners
    • Contact Us