Celebrating a monumental 27 years, the annual San Francisco International Hip Hop DanceFest brings hip-hop dancers and choreographers from around the world to showcase their work on a theater stage. Ahead of this year\u2019s festival, taking place at the Palace of Fine Arts Nov. 9-10, The Daily Californian sat down with both Micaya, the prolific founder of the event, and LeDarius \u201cGipsi\u201d Parker, a choreographer whose routine is featured, to discuss the festival\u2019s iconic importance within the dance community and what to expect from this year\u2019s program.<\/p>\n
What spurred one woman to take the leap to produce an international hip-hop festival nearly three decades ago?<\/p>\n
\u201cI was already producing smaller shows on a local level here in \u2026 San Francisco and I saw the lack of respect (in) the way that these artists were treated. And it just led me to want to \u2026 take it to a different place and make it a little bit bigger and put them on an actual, real theater stage, and treat them like the artists that I \u2026 have seen other dancers, modern dancers and ballet dancers be treated,\u201d Micaya explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an industry that often touts other genres as the titular image of dance, respecting and uplifting hip-hop artists felt incredibly important to Micaya. The San Francisco International Hip Hop DanceFest provides all travel and lodging expenses to dance companies chosen to perform in the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the success and growth of the festival over the years, she noted: \u201cThe festival being able to go from just ticket sales, being able to figure out how to make it work, then asking for donations, writing grants, getting arts funding, made (it so) every time I would get a little bit more money (I) would (say) okay, now I can give these dancers more than the pizza every night \u2026 now I can put them in a hotel \u2026 So that\u2019s been my measure of success.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked to elaborate on the importance of providing resources for these artists to come to San Francisco and perform, Micaya added: \u201cIf I was producing the San Francisco Ballet Dance Festival, would you ask me the same question? If I was producing the San Francisco Jazz Festival, would you have asked me the same question? \u2026 Why is hip-hop amateurized or made a juvenile art form, when I\u2019m seeing people making these intentional works of art, just like an Alvin Ailey or SF ballet. (When it comes to other genres of dance) we would never question that we wouldn\u2019t treat them like the professionals that they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
The care for these artists that Micaya brings into the curation and production of DanceFest is reflected in the jubilant way LeDarius, choreographer of the hip-hop company MUNA from North Carolina, discussed his working relationship with her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe treats us like the artists that we are \u2026 She treats us the way I feel like dancers should be treated, especially street dancers \u2026 She treats us like we\u2019re the stars, because we are the stars \u2026 She just (acts) like that mom I didn\u2019t know I had and I needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
That kind of familial, supportive environment is hugely important for hip-hop artists to rely on as they showcase their craft in the fine arts world, a space that they are typically excluded from.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When asked about putting street dance onto a theater stage, LeDarius said: \u201c(Street dance) can be extremely versatile. It can be powerful, elegant, strong, beautiful, like all of these things, without compromising the history, the movement, the mannerisms, all of it can be done in a setting that most people don\u2019t think it would be put (in).\u201d<\/p>\n
A festival that seeks to encompass the beauty of street dance and all that it is through a variety of artists and performances, is a huge undertaking to curate.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The process requires) trying to put this puzzle of energy together so that the audience \u2026 really feel like they\u2019ve had a whole complete journey,\u201d Micaya said when asked.<\/p>\n
What can audiences expect from this year\u2019s program?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, I think I received about 80 or 90 applications and all the artists sent a lot of deep (work) \u2026 There\u2019s a collective consciousness that sometimes happens on this planet that we all feel, and I happen to be witness to it when I received all of these deep and meaningful (pieces) \u2026 This is a very artistic program.\u201d Micaya said. \u201cThere is some mesmerizing stuff this year with topics like toxic masculinity, interdependence, political freedoms.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While many of the pieces are deeply personal, political and cathartic, Micaya ensured that both comedic numbers and dances that would serve to uplift the audience were included, such as LeDarius\u2019 piece for MUNA that plays with the harmony of dance that occurs through discipline and passion.<\/p>\n
As for why they think people should come and watch, LeDarius laughs: \u201cWhy aren\u2019t you coming? It\u2019s something new \u2026 It\u2019s beautiful \u2026 It feels like coming home, in a way \u2026 And then there\u2019s gonna be music and fun performances!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celebrating a monumental 27 years, the annual San Francisco International Hip Hop DanceFest brings hip-hop dancers and choreographers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[28640,28639,28641,28637,101,103,28638,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-42668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-ledarius-gipsi-parker","tag-micaya","tag-muna","tag-palace-of-fine-arts","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-international-hip-hop-dancefest","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}