SF’s “ChoreoFest” Outdoor Dance Festival: Day Two (Yerba Buena Gardens)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

SF’s Yerba Buena Gardens Festival 2024 (May 4 – Nov. 2)

The 2024 Yerba Buena Gardens Festival hosts a full lineup of free outdoor music, theater, circus, dance, poetry, and children’s programs. The Festival opens on Saturday, May 4 at 1:00pm with Cuban soul from Pedrito Martinez.

Now in its 24th year, the Festival will run each and every week and weekend until November 2 and is located between Mission and Howard Streets and Third and Fourth Streets in downtown San Francisco.  

YBG Festival presents classical, world, and jazz music, contemporary and traditional dance, theater, children’s and family programs, and cultural events reflecting the rich cultures and creativity of the region. Artistic excellence, inclusion, diversity and innovation are at the heart of our mission. As the only curated arts park fully dedicated to the long-term presentation of free arts and cultural programs, Yerba Buena Gardens has a unique place in the cultural landscape of San Francisco.

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival 2024

May 4 – November 2, 2024
Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission btwn Third and Fourth, SoMa, SF
FREE

Directions & Parking | Admission-Free Seating | Performance Times | See the Full Calendar

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Programs & Series 2024

Salsa at Jessie: Open-Air Salsa Dance Party

The outdoor, monthly salsa event takes place at Jessie Square, near the Contemporary Jewish Museum and the historic St. Patrick’s Church. From May to October, folks are invited to dance into dusk to amazing live salsa bands. Many musical acts hail from the Bay Area and some from out of town, all bringing electrifying salsa sounds to Jessie Square.

Starting just before sunset, Salsa at Jessie is a casual, outdoor event to get your body moving under San Francisco skies. Fun for first-time and seasoned salseras/salseros, or music lovers enjoying rhythms of the syncopated top-notch performers. Salsa at Jessie is a unique dance experience, just one of many cultural activities the Yerba Buena neighborhood has to offer. And it’s FREE! Friends, families and conga-lines welcome.

Salsa at Jessie performances begin promptly at 6pm (unless noted otherwise), so plan ahead and arrive early! Performances are approximately 90 minutes long at Jessie Square is located on Mission Street between Third and Fourth Streets, San Francisco.

Children’s Garden Series
June through August is a great time for parents, caregivers, and camp counselors to bring kids to the Children’s Garden for sunshine and a show. The Children’s Garden Series features professional artists with expertise in engaging children under 10 and their adults. Each show features excellent performers skilled in puppetry, music, dance, acrobatics, body percussion, clowning and more! Outstanding featured groups like Ka-Hon and Duniya Dance & Drum demonstrate diverse musical and dance traditions from all over the world. With such rich cultural and artistic experiences, the Children’s Garden is the place to be in the summertime.

Children’s Garden shows are on Fridays, June–August, and feature two repeat performances: 11:00am & noon (unless noted otherwise), so plan ahead and arrive early! Each performance is approximately 30 minutes long and held near the Children’s Creativity Museum and LeRoy King Carousel at Howard/Fourth Streets, San Francisco.

Thursday Lunchtime Concert Series

From May to October, the Thursday Lunchtime series features artists carving out their own niches in the world of music and dance. While international and touring artists perform in the Lunchtime Series, many homegrown Bay Area artists view Yerba Buena Gardens as the perfect venue for new works. These fantastic performers are exploring new depths in jazz, blues, soul, classical, world, swing, salsa, modern dance and more!

Always free, fresh and outdoors, Thursday Lunchtime programs are a great way to reinvigorate the day. Downtown office workers, neighborhood groups, students and even out-of-towners needing a break from the city’s hustle and bustle come down to the Gardens with lunch in hand. Then, stroll through Yerba Buena Gardens for a jolt of fresh air, art and inspiration.

Thursday Lunchtime Concerts performances begin promptly at 12:30pm (unless noted otherwise), so plan ahead and arrive early! Performances are approximately 60 minutes long, at Yerba Buena Gardens on Mission Street between Third and Fourth Streets, San Francisco.

Poetic Tuesdays
A fabulously curated line-up of poets and musicians grace Yerba Buena Gardens to share poems and songs that delight, provoke, stir and inspire. Held monthly from May-October, Poetic Tuesdays make for a lovely lunch. Downtown office workers, neighborhood groups, students and even out-of-towners needing downtime from the city’s hustle and bustle come down to the Gardens. Poetic Tuesdays are the perfect midday breather over line breaks. Poetic Tuesdays readings begin promptly at 12:30pm (unless noted otherwise), so plan ahead and arrive early!

 Performances are approximately 60 minutes long, at Yerba Buena Gardens on Mission Street between Third and Fourth Streets, San Francisco.

Outdoor Classes

San Francisco locals and visiting out-of-towners can look to these outdoor classes to refresh their body and spirit through dance, music, movement, public art and more. On any given day of the week, you can always find something Free, Outdoors and Fresh at Yerba Buena Gardens.

Outdoor Classes are each approximately 60 minutes long at at different spaces in Yerba Buena Gardens, on Mission Street between Third and Fourth Streets, San Francisco.

Weekend Sessions

The Weekend Sessions is the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival’s premier program series, highlighting touring and regional artists performing to delighted audiences. Each weekend program features a diversity of world-class artists giving thrilling performances not to be missed. Crowds of arts-lovers, Bay Area locals and out-of-towners flock to Yerba Buena Gardens for outstanding entertainment in music, dance, poetry, circus, theater or large-scale cultural festivals.

Weekend Session performances begin at 1pm (unless noted otherwise), so plan ahead and arrive early! Performances are approximately 90 minutes long, located at Yerba Buena Gardens on Mission Street between Third and Fourth Streets, San Francisco.

2024 Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Programming Highlights

All events are free and take place outdoors in Yerba Buena Gardens, off Mission Street between 3rd and 4th Streets, and the Yerba Buena Children’s Garden located at Howard & Fourth Street.

APRIL 2024 – Pre Festival Events

• Earth Day 2024 – April 20
• Bay Area Dance Week Kickoff – April 27

MAY 2024

• 2024 Official Season Kickoff w/ Pedrito Martinez – May 4
• Balaklava Blues & Kitka: Songs for Ukraine – May 11
• CAAMFest – May 18
• Islands by the Bay Festival – May 19

JUNE 2024

• Native Contemporary Arts Festival – June 16
• RAWdance: Drawing on a Decade – June 14-15
• Circus Bella – June 21-22
• SF Uke Jam – June 29

JULY 2024

• Get Free Festival – July 6
• Yerba Buena Gardens ChoreoFest – July 13 & July 20
• Color Your Mind Festival – July 27

AUGUST 2024

• San Francisco Mime Troupe – August 4
• Pistahan – August 10-11
• Brazil in the Gardens – August 15

SEPTEMBER 2024

• 5th Annual African Arts Festival – September 7
• YBG Dance Day – September 28

OCTOBER 2024

• San Francisco Indigenous Peoples Day – October 14

Saturday, September 30, 2023
SF’s Yerba Buena Gardens Festival 2024 (May 4 – Nov. 2)

A two-weekend festival of site-specific work, the Yerba Buena Gardens ChoreoFest showcases the extravagant creativity, diversity and vibrancy of the Bay Area dance scene. Programmed by RAWdance for its first five years, YBG ChoreoFest opens a new chapter co-curated by David Herrera Performance Company (Artistic Director David Herrera) and PUSH Dance Company (Artistic Director Raissa Simpson and Associate Artistic Director Ashley Gayle).

Day Two Artists:

PUSH Dance Company, described as “emotional and kinetic” (San Francisco Bay Guardian), performs vibrant contemporary dances, providing audiences an opportunity to examine issues of identity and intersecting cultures that surround and affect us all. Founded in 2005 by Artistic Director Raissa Simpson, PUSH maintains a philosophy that bold movement and intellect can coexist. The company has performed at Joyce SoHo, Aspen Fringe Festival, Dance St. Louis, Ferst Center, Los Angeles Women’s Theater Festival and Black Choreographers Festival, among others. Raissa has held creative residencies at Dance Initiative Carbondale, Bayview Opera House and more. Most recently, PUSH received a WAVE Award, Hometown Media Award and Isadora Duncan Award for its project EMME YA.

Mix’d Ingrdnts is a multi-ethnic, multi-genre dance collective composed of female-identified artists, who work together with the intent to contribute to the impact of social change. Mix’d Ingrdnts Dance Company was established in 2010 and exists to empower women to express themselves. The company connects with communities through forums, school assemblies, festivals, large curated occasions and various events around the Bay Area that promote social change and/or entertain the community. Mix’d Ingrdnts strives to inspire those around them and through skillful artistry, uses their platform to continue to pave pathways for womxn and youth to authentically express themselves and utilize their very important and necessary voices.

Noorani Dance Company (NDC), founded by Artistic Director Farah Yasmeen Shaikh, specializes in Kathak dance of South Asia and is comprised of pre-professional and professional dancers. Displaying a unique artistic sensibility that is both traditional and innovative, much of the work of NDC examines social and historical topics of South Asia that are relevant to a global society. NDC is committed to enlightening minds and hearts through the arts through traditional and innovative repertoire and performances and collaborative partnerships across other forms of performing arts. Performance experience and collaborations include the New York Kathak Festival at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Beyond Bollywood and the Sari Dress Tent at Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, performances for Maitri, Community Seva and Asia Society of Northern California, Gilead Corporation, Google Talks, Ballet Beyond Borders and in The Partition Project at Z Space in San Francisco and Hammer Theatre in San Jose.

David Herrera Performance Company, founded in 2007, prides itself in providing visibility, agency and exposure of a diverse Latinx American experience within an American context. Rich in theatricality and immersed in nuanced, visceral movement, the company makes its statement by weaving dance, story-telling, music and media into a textured conversation between Latinx cultures and a multicultural audience. The company is centered on equity and representation of Latinx peoples in modern dance arts as topic/themes, performers, choreographers, audience, curators, scholars, policy makers, teachers and students. We hope to create a lineage and network from which other Latinx artists can learn from and work with. DHPCo. is one of few predominantly Latinx focused modern dance companies in the United States.

Know Before You Go:

• This program moves to various locations in the Gardens, spanning approx. 2 blocks or .5 miles
• Seating at each site is very limited and prioritized for seniors and those with disabilities
• ASL interpretation will be provided on both September 23 and September 30 events

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.