San Francisco International Arts Festival

The San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF) celebrates the arts by bringing together a global community of artists and audiences. The organization presents innovative projects that are focused on increasing human awareness and understanding. SFIAF’s curatorial priorities include developing collaborative projects led by Bay Area artists working with their national and international peers and presenting world-class international artists who often do not have US representation and whose work is rarely (or has never previously been) seen in the United States. From 2003-14 SFIAF and over 100 presenting partners have coordinated, presented and/or produced performances by over 150 arts ensembles from the Bay Area and 50 countries, as well as conducting numerous educational and outreach activities. SFIAF develops long-term relationships with Bay Area artists based on their unique program, infrastructure and capacity needs. The goal is to create cross-cultural performances that will expand their artistic horizons, develop stronger community-to-community connections, have an extended shelf-life for the work and yield subsequent earned-income opportunities. SFIAF is dedicated to coordinating the shared resources of multiple organizations to reach mutually beneficial goals. The organization’s core values are based on principals of cultural and economic equity. In addition to working with larger institutions, SFIAF places a high priority on the participation of culturally diverse and smaller entities. Activating and supporting relationships between such organizations and artists is a key component of SFIAF.