Dance Review: Trolley Dances a San Francisco Treat

Bright blue skies favored the sixth annual Trolley Dances, the itinerant series of performances in various sites along the J-Church line from Dolores to Balboa parks on Saturday and Sunday.

Most people on the first tour - there were half a dozen excursions each day - seemed to know all about the event, but a few were drawn up the hill to the statue of Miguel Hidalgo by the music of Mexican folklorico dancers Rosamaria Garcia and Jorge Rodolfo De Hoyos Jr.

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Global perspective at S.F. Arts Festival

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.

Whether through an existing project, like Kim Epifano's collaboration with Shanghai artists on "Speaking Chinese," or an outgrowth of an existing relationship, such as Mark Jackson and Beth Wilmurt's work with Berlin choreographer Sommer Ulrickson on "Yes, Yes to Moscow," or even a reason to fulfill a commission, like Erling Wold's one-man opera for John Duykers, the festival gives performers a venue and springboard for exploring outside their comfort zones.

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