Global perspective at S.F. Arts Festival
Mary Ellen Hunt, Special to The Chronicle

Friday, May 16, 2008

Multiculturalism is the watchword at the San Francisco International Arts Festival, which runs Wednesday through June 8 at a dozen venues around the city and will feature artists from China, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Israel, Spain, Germany and Croatia, side by side with such mainstays of the local arts scene as Joe Goode, Axis Dance Company, John Santos and Earplay. But while the out-of-town visitors are an appealing part of the 5-year-old festival, the brainchild of director Andrew Wood, it also, perhaps even more important, serves as a proving ground for international collaborations and a way of encouraging Bay Area artists to seek out inspirations abroad and bring back fresh ideas to their home base.

Dancers without borders
San Francisco International Arts Festival thinks locally, acts globally

BY RITA FELCIANO, Wednesday May 21, 2008

What do you need to create a first-rate hot product that is of value to others besides yourself? A great idea, a support structure, and money are good places to start. But what if you had no support structure and no money? If you believe in your idea, you'd plow ahead anyway — just like Andrew Wood, executive director of the San Francisco International Arts Festival.

Review: 'Thirty Seven' overextends body motif
Rachel Howard, Chronicle Dance Correspondent

Monday, May 26, 2008

Strange and wonderful how butoh, the post-World War II Japanese "dance of darkness," is spawning such a strong new generation of artists here in San Francisco. The latest to emerge is Paige Starling Sorvillo, and if you didn't know of her butoh background, you might not guess it immediately from "Thirty Seven Isolated Events," which her company Blindsight premiered at CounterPULSE over the weekend as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival