SF Arts Fest is back: San Francisco’s Mission District will be humming through May 10 as the annual San Francisco International Arts Festival returns, featuring scores of events ranging from concerts and dance performances to theater productions, workshops and more.
Performers include the circus-arts troupe Cirque Kikasse; singer-songwriter Duane Forrest, performing his solo show “Bob Marley: How Reggae Changed the World”; the dance/theater outfit InkBoat presenting “Clouds from a Crumbling Giant: Our Wild Shining Days”; neo-folk duo Emma’s Revolution performing “We Are the Power: Songs for the Resistance”; and much, much more. In all, there are more than 700 artists and arts groups from the U.S. as well as 60 other countries slated to perform. Besides presenting a wide range of arts and entertainment, the event is meant to generate a spirit of global togetherness at a time when some are embracing isolationism and intolerance.
Tickets to most events are $28-$33, and festival passes are available for $45-$455. Tickets, a complete schedule and more information are available at www.sfiaf.org.
Freebie of the week: Don your dancing shoes and trip the light fantastic to tunes poured out by period instruments Saturday afternoon at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as the Bay Area ensemble Philharmonia Baroque joins forces with the historical dance company Dance Through Time to sponsor lessons for the light of heart in honor of Bay Area Dance Week.
They’re calling it “Dance Like It’s 1699,” and instructions in the art of English country dancing as it was practiced in the Baroque era are offered in this free workshop, starting at 2 p.m. on the Blue Shield of California Theater stage in San Francisco. The instructor is Jennifer Meller, the artistic director of Dance Through time, and the musicians are members of Philharmonia Baroque, and they will be performing music by the great Baroque composer Henry Purcell.
Participants of all ages, capabilities and mobility levels are welcome; they ask only that you register in advance at philharmonia.org/dance.
Blues singer Katie Knipp is the headliner for Concord fifth annual free SpringFest on Saturday. (Phil Kampel/Katie Knipp via Bay City News)
More freebie(s) of the week: May kicks the Bay Area’s festival season into high gear and fortunately, admission to most of these events is free. At Concord’s Todos Santos Plaza on Saturday, it’s the city’s fifth annual SpringFest from noon to 7 p.m. There will be lots of food, arts and crafts and plants for sale and live music from the U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West as well as ‘80s-’90s blues rockers Audio Mynde and Concord’s own blues singer Katie Knipp as the headliner. More information is at https://www.kidfestconcord.com.
Meanwhile, Mountain View is hosting the free Multicultural Festival from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at its Civic Center Plaza, featuring a dozen dance and music performances from —as the event title suggests — all over the globe. There will also be artist and vendor booths, kids’ activities and food trucks on hand. Go to https://www.mountainview.gov.
And if you’re looking for a Cinco de Mayo event this weekend, Hayward’s been hosting one for some 40 years, and it returns on Saturday. The event runs 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday on B and Main streets, and it features mariachi bands, DJs and other music, dance performances, a car show, food and drink vendors, kids’ entertainment and more. Go to https://laalianzadehayward.com.
Bluegrass bash: The Bay Area may be known, musically speaking, as the birthplace of psychedelic rock, but its long and vibrant bluegrass scene shares roots with psychedelic rock. Many major players (like the Grateful Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage and Moby Grape) during the formative years of psychedelia and jam-rock in 1960s and ’70s had bluegrass in their foundation.
This weekend, some Bay Area 21st-century bluegrass standard-bearers as well as talented musicians from out of town play The Freight music hall at the Berkeley Bluegrass Festival. The event offers workshops, demonstrations and an impressive lineup of performers. Saturday features the sensational fiddler Jason Carter, best known for his work with the Del McCoury Band and the Travelin’ McCourys; Chris Jones and the Night Drivers; Berkeley icon Laurie Lewis and her band The Right Hands; and the East Bay-based Critical Grass. On Sunday, the lineup includes Tatiana Hargreaves, a rising star in the bluegrass fiddling scene, with her band and special guest Michael Daves; the honky-tonk duo Caleb Lauder and Reeb Wllms with their band the Cali Cutups; and Pleasanton native and all-world strings player Tony Furtado.
Shows are 7 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; tickets are $64-$69, $115 for a two-day pass. Go to thefreight.org.
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain closes the season for San Francisco Performances May 1 at the Herbst Theatre. (Stefan Mager via Bay City News)
Plinkety plink, plink, plink: San Francisco Performances proudly — and quite gleefully— closes out its season Friday night by bringing The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain to the Herbst Theatre stage. Founded in 1985, this group of seven savvy string pluckers is the world’s first such assemblage and has been the inspiration for copycat ensembles ever since. Its current players are Peter Brooke Turner, who plays soprano ukulele; Ben Hales and his baritone ukulele; Ben Rouse on tenor uke; Leisa Rea on concert and soprano ukulele; Guy Hargreaves on concert ukulele; Laura Currie on tenor ukulele and Laurie Higgins on bass. (And who knew that ukes have different vocal ranges?)
There’s no advance word on what will be on the program, which will be announced from the stage, but we can all hope for a rousing rendition of “Ukulele Lady,” right? Performance time is 7:30 p.m., and tickets, $70-$100, are available at sfperformances.org. You can catch a preview here.
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