Yerba Buena Gardens Festival

Five of San Francisco's top cultural destinations including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM), the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), Zeum, and Yerba Buena Gardens Festival welcome families with a full day of free admission, hands-on art making activities and spec...ial family-friendly performances. It's an unprecedented opportunity for kids and their caregivers to experience all that downtown San Francisco's Yerba Buena arts district has to offer, thanks to the generous support of Target.

For Target Family Day, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival presents three stages of high-energy performing arts programs for audiences of all ages!

Esplanade (Mission between 3rd and 4th Streets)
11am–3:15pm
A full day of circus performance featuring Circus Bella, The Unique Derique and Prescott Circus Theatre. Circus Bella’s acrobatics, juggling, slackwire, beatboxing, and aerial artistry (plus one giant blue bunny!) are set to the live musical sounds of the Bella All-Stars. The Unique Derique’s interactive performance is percussive, syncopated and dynamic, and leaves audiences smiling for the rest of the day. The Prescott Circus Theatre is a youth troupe that performs physical circus skills such as juggling, acrobatics, improvisation, balancing, unicycling, stilting, hip hop dance, and hambone body percussion.

Jessie Square (Next to the CJM & St. Patrick’s Church)
11am–3:30pm
Pi Physical Comedy Troupe, aka Pi Clowns, is a physical comedy troupe that examines life’s mysteries through a lens of wonder, using elements of mime, acrobatics, juggling, dance, live music and beat boxing, improvisation, puppetry and feats of incredible strength.

Children’s Garden, (Howard and 4th Streets)
Noon-3pm
Join the party, move your feet, sing-along, and join a Mardi Gras parade to celebrate the great city of New Orleans with Chelle! & Friends. Combining Indigenous-Venezuelan, West African and Spanish-European influences, the Venezuelan Music Project is a dynamic ensemble full of vibrancy, energy and magic that will have you dancing and clapping to the music.Read More

Legendary conguero Francisco Aguabella has delighted audiences around the globe with his masterful and powerful rhythms. Aguabella has performed with Katherine Dunham, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaría, Frank Sinatra, Eddie Palmieri, Cachao, Lalo Schifrin, Cal Tjader, Peggy Lee, Nancy Wilson, Poncho Sánche...z, Bebo Valdés, and numerous others. Francisco's love of music transcends genres as he has also performed and recorded with rock legends Carlos Santana, Three Dog Night, Paul Simon, and the Doors. He is a recipient of the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (among numerous other awards). Aguabella is featured in the documentary, "Sworn to the Drum" by filmmaker Les Blank, and is the subject of "Aguabella," currently in production, directed by actor/filmmaker Orestes Matacena. Besides leading his own Latin jazz ensemble, when the opportunity arises he performs as a guest with the Conga Kings. Aguabella teaches Afro-Cuban drumming at UCLA. Francisco Aguabella's passion and fire on the conga drums are absolutely contagious and not to be missed!Read More

With a vision to create a community that breaks cultural and religious boundaries, Non Stop Bhangra Collective brings together people from all walks of life to share its oneness through the gifts of music and dance. The Non Stop Bhangra Collective presents a brief Bhangra history, an interactive Bhangra dance lesson do...ne to the live drums, dance performances, live dhols, an emcee, talented DJ, and vocalists! High energy and colorful from beginning to end, the show features special guests on bass, violin and tabla!Read More

Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu, Patrick Makuakane’s dynamic Hawaiian dance company, presents a program of visually captivating hula. In its only full-length San Francisco performance this year, the company will feature a rich blend of traditional and contemporary forms of hula, showcasing a delightful combination of signature ...pieces and audience favorites in the hula kahiko, hula 'auana, and hula mua styles. Performances are given in a “talk-story” format, incorporating narration and dance to provide a rich cultural context.Read More

This Grammy-nominated, percussion-driven ensemble is world renowned for breathtaking performances and authentic African-American music rooted in the deep south and strongly connected to its West African and Caribbean origins. Delve deeply into the diverse traditions of call and response and the rhythms that drive this ...music and give it vitality, as the Cultural Heritage Choir teaches how to approach music with the ears, eyes and the heart. Read More