As founder and producer of the San Francisco International Hip Hop DanceFest, Micaya (who goes by a single name) has faced no end of challenges, especially over the past four years.
“When I’d hear one of our dancers made it past customs, I’d shout, ‘Thank you!’ because with the travel bans our almost-past president issued you’d never know what they’re gonna go through,” she told The Chronicle on a recent video chatfrom her home in El Cerrito.
Still, she persisted — until the pandemic. “When that hit, I basically wanted to put my head under the covers and not come out until everything was over,” Micaya said. But her community wouldn’t let her. “People I love and respect were like, ‘I know Micaya’s gonna do something.’ And if they believe in me, I better step up.”
Streaming for one day only from the Commonwealth Club of California at noon Saturday, Nov. 21, the 22nd annual dance festival hopes to keep alive the essence of what fans — who in normal years sell out multiple-program runs at the vast Palace of Fine Arts Theatre — expect and love. On the program are live solos from house dancer Rama Mahesh Hall and turfing virtuoso i-Dummy, highlights of past festival performances, and special guest appearances by strutting pioneer Fayzo, Electric Boogaloos star Popin’ Pete and Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza. And instead of the usual children’s dance circle that always steals the show, there will be a montage of kids dance footage.
但是,因为这是旧金山国际al Hip Hop DanceFest, there will also be something ambitious: a world premiere, “Isolation in Humanity,” created collaboratively by five distinctive dancer-choreographers from around the globe.
Some of them are technical wonders: Norway’s Navid Rezvani, a.k.a. Bboy Spaghetti, can spin on his head for 30 secondswith his limbs held above in perfect sculptural arrangements — while others, like London’s Jade Hackett, are unclassifiable actor-dancers. Sun Kim, a native of South Korea who now lives in New York, is a popper whose presence suggests performance art; Jardy Santiago is a house dancer based in San Jose; and Duwayne Taylor is a krumper from the United Kingdom.
“I know a lot of outstanding dance architects, but these artists are exceptional thinkers,” Micaya said. “It’s another level, not just about their dance artistry but about what they have to say.”
Each artist in the premiere offers a personal take on the beauty and pain of 2020, with almost no intervention from Micaya beyond an initial introduction, a freedom the dancers ran with.
“The commission from this festival gave me a keen sense of freedom to pour my energy, whether negative or positive, into a project that I believed in,” Hackett said. “At a time when the world is going through a social estrangement from each other, it is so important that we stay creative. Creativity is the last tool in connection that we have to save humanity, after all.”
也许Micaya使一个持久的支点creativity because she saw early on the power of uninhibited expression. She grew up in Atlanta, the second child of “hippies with jobs,” and attended a performing arts high school. At 16, she got cast in a Tennessee Williams play with her best friend, RuPaul (yes, that RuPaul). He played a nursemaid, in drag — his first drag performance, she said — and Micaya did his makeup while learning from his example.
“Ru was like, ‘I’m different! Who cares!’ He was 16 and just unapologetically himself,” she recalled.
The two remain close friends, so it’s no surprise that RuPaul will make an appearance at this year’s festival.
In her mid-20s, finding Atlanta not as rich in dance culture as it is today, Micaya loaded her 5-year-old son into the car and drove west. In the early ’90s, she found her way from studying Senegalese and Haitian dance to teaching hip-hop, and she started producing showcases in San Francisco’s Mission District. Finally, she went to Theater Artaud, where Artistic Director Kim Cook listened to her vision and said, “It sounds like you want to create a festival.” And so Micaya did — the first non-competitive hip-hop festival in the world.
Now the festival has its own “wings,” she said. Fans reach out to tell her they’ve come to the festival for 10, 12, 15 years, and the dancers themselves tell her it’s a lifeline.
“It means a lot to me that Micaya is carrying on the festival despite the fact that times we’re living in right now are uncertain,” said Fayzo, founder of the legendary 1970s group of strutters known as Medea Sirkas. “We as a dance community need this great event to continue on no matter what, because dance brings happiness to the world.”
In Micaya’s view, the dance artists she presents bring happiness and also — in this year when so many Americans are opening their eyes to issues of systemic racism and inequity that the hip-hop community has long addressed — complexity of truth.
“There’s part of me seeing people say, ‘Everything’s on fire!’ and I’m like, ‘It’s always been on fire,’ ” she said. “But I’m excited by the passion. In the past, some people asked me, ‘Why does the work have to be political? Why can’t you just show entertaining things?’ I don’t apologize about that. The artists have to speak their minds.”
San Francisco International Hip Hop DanceFest:Live stream begins at noon Saturday, Nov. 21. $1-$50, sliding scale. For access details, go towww.sfhiphopdancefest.com.