African drumbeats, Ecuadorian dolls and Aztec art were among the sights and sounds greeting thousands of attendees at the seventh annual community festival in the Excelsior. Local volunteers played an important role in organizing the free event this year held at Persia Triangle on October 4.
The Excelsior Arts & Music Festival emphasized the diverse traditions of the multicultural neighborhood, located in the district with the highest proportion of foreign-born residents in San Francisco. Local singers, dancers and musicians performed everything from spoken word to violin in the first-ever “Excelsior’s Got Talent” competition, and vendors sold crafts from around the world.
The festival helps keep traditional identities alive, according to Daniel, a vendor who sold items featuring symbols of his Aztec ancestors. “I really feel it’s important for me to be a living instrument of my culture,” he said. “It isn’t like in books; it’s really a very lived ‘here-now’… The booth and the company give us a really good venue.”
Celebrating the neighborhood’s diversity strengthens community relations, according to Delanzo Pope, who performed at the festival with the African Drum Ensemble. When neighborhoods “have an exchange of culture, an exchange of music, an exchange of ideas, then they grow as a community together, and they learn to be with each other in peaceful manner,” Pope said.
Highlighting the Excelsior’s unique heritage also helps put this low-profile neighborhood on the map, according to festival organizers. The event demonstrates “what wealth…not just economic wealth, but cultural wealth, historical wealth, social wealth, there actually is here in the neighborhood,” said Eric Brewer Garcia, Project Director at the Excelsior Action Group (EAG), which spearheaded the event.
Organizers said that they hope showcasing the attributes of an area that often sees negative media coverage will attract visitors and investment, which is especially important in today’s tough economic climate. “This event is an opportunity for…folks to come and see that there is a reason to be in this community – there is a reason still to set up shop and stay here,” said Cristy Johnston, Executive Director of EAG.
With operating budgets down by half, local volunteers took on a bigger role in planning, publicizing and running the festival this year. “This is really the community’s festival,” Garcia said. “There’s a real lot of opportunity to unite folks.”
One of the city’s few community-run festivals, the event’s local roots gave it a unique flavor. “What’s special about this event…is that it’s put on by the neighborhood, by a committee of people who actually live and work and shop and raise their children in this area,” Pope said. “And that’s important.”
