What's the Big Idea? Day presented by YBCA September 13, 2008

What’s the Big Idea? Day at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is a FREE all-day event where people can learn more about contemporary art during an open house festival of exciting events & exhibitions. The Big Idea on September 13 is Bay Area Now 5, YBCA’s multidisciplinary triennial event which celebrates established and emerging local artists. Enjoy visual art, music, performances, hands-on workshops, exhibition tours, film screenings and food & drink! Get an introduction to the diverse programming that YBCA offers everyday. We hope you’ll join us!

The programming includes:
• Meet the Artist, Selected BAN 5 Artists; Noon – 3 pm (YBCA’s Galleries)
Selected BAN 5 artists will be in YBCA’s Galleries to discuss their works with the public.
• Animated Films, Sally Cruikshank; 12:30 pm - 4:30 pm (YBCA’s Screening Room)
Best known for her Sesame Street animation, Cruikshank also made her own films. YBCA presents three surreal but family friendly cartoons: Make Me Psychic, Quasi at the Quackadero, Face Like a Frog (time: 30 min)
• Family Art Activities; Noon - 4 pm (YBCA’s Room for Big Ideas)
As part of YBCA’s What’s the Big Idea? Day, Red Poppy Art House offers family art activities in YBCA’s Room for Big Ideas (RBI), with painting and storytelling with La Malamaña.
• Printmaking Workshops; 1 pm - 5 pm (YBCA’s Grand Lobby)
YBCA’s Young Artists at Work will hold printmaking workshops and participants of all ages can create limited edition Bay Area Now 5 t-shirts and prints throughout the day.
• Praba Pilar—Church of Nano Bio Info Cogno; 1 pm - 2 pm (Gallery 2)
Wear your Sunday best and be born again through the Church of Nano Bio Info Cogno with Reverend Praba Pilar as she looks at the deployment of technologies around the world. The Church preaches a liturgy that drives nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive neuroscience into the neoteric millennium.
• Art Savvy; 1:30 pm – 3 pm and 3:30 pm - 5 pm (YBCA’s Large Conference Room)
Two workshops of Art Savvy, designed to deepen people’s connection with contemporary art, will happen from 1:30 pm – 3 pm and 3:30 pm - 5 pm. Tour Bay Area Now 5 and participate in a post-tour discussion, an overview of contemporary art and an introduction to Visual Thinking Strategies.
• Everything Is Better Now; 3 pm - 5 pm (YBCA Grand Lobby)
Jonn Herschend embraces absurdity on this bus tour of locations of public and private emotional crisis. Everything Is Better Now is part of Ground Scores, an interactive guest-curated project in Bay Area Now 5.
• Talk and Demonstration with Erika Shuch Performance Project; 3 pm – 4:30 pm (Multiple Locations at YBCA)
As a prelude to the evening performance of After All, Part 1, YBCA offers an open process talk with Erika Chong Shuch as well as dance and performance demonstrations with key collaborators.

Stay around in the evening as YBCA continues the fun with a series of ticketed films and performances.

• Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, Grrrl Rockers of the 1980s; 6 pm (YBCA’s Screening Room)
YBCA kicks off the Bay Area Now 5 film series with a triple feature from local programmer Jesse Hawthorne Ficks. $8 regular; $6 students, seniors, teachers & YBCA Members
• Evening Concert with Nefasha Ayer; 6 pm (YBCA’s Room for Big Ideas)
Drawing inspiration from jazz, blues, traditional Ethiopian melodies and rhythms, poetic texts and trans-cultural melodic scores, Nefasha Ayer joins the continents of Africa, South Asia and America to produce a uniquely San Franciscan form of music. 6 pm, Room for Big Ideas
• Erika Shuch Performance Project, After All, Part I; 8 pm (YBCA’s Forum) Bay Area choreographer Erika Chong Shuch returns to YBCA with After All, Part I a rapid-fire series of three-minute plays, songs, dances and “moments” based on perceptions of our future.

Where:
YBCA, 701 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103

Public Info:
415-978-2787 or ybca.org
What’s the Big Idea? Day: FREE from Noon – 5 pm
Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, Grrrl Rockers of the 1980s: $8 regular; $6 students, seniors, teachers & YBCA Members
Evening Concert with Nefasha Ayer: $15 regular / $10 YBCA Members
After All, Part I: $25 Regular/$20 YBCA Member/Student/Senior/Teacher

Funding
YBCA’s Community Engagement and Audience Development programs supported by a generous grant from The Wallace Foundation.

KQED is also sponsor for YBCA’s What’s the Big Idea? Day free open houses.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian is the What’s the Big Idea? Day media sponsor.

Official Website: http://www.ybca.org