Our 5th annual Canciones del Mar concert was a dream!

"THE SACRED RADIANCE OF THE SUN"

- King Lear

Our 5th annual Canciones del Mar concert was a dream. Thank you dancers, listeners, and stellar musicians! 

Photos: ACT OUT Photography, Jim Norrena

A standing ovation for the jaw-dropping sunset streaking resplendent colors across the sky, melting everything into liquid gold, and slipping off into violet clouds. 

Big thanks to our friends at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and to the warm wooden embrace of ferryboatEureka. We'll be back! 

Meantime, the songs of el pulpo (the octopus) y el calamar (the squid), of sailboats and canoes and the teasing love affair of the waves against the sand, murmur in our memories...

Photo: Lauren Matley

Mother Lear starts this weekend with private home performances in SF and San Anselmo!

On opening weekend you can find mama Lear on the roof of a dramatic SOMA warehouse, surrounded by the urban jungle, as well as amongst live oaks upon a golden hilltop. 

Be sure to catch We Players' trademark exterior open space performances of Mother Lear in the South Bay at Montalvo Arts Center, and in San Francisco at the beautifully expansiveMcLaren Park. Find unique intimate performances under The Sukkah at The Jewish Community Center East Bay, and at other spectacular private residences around the Bay Area.

Vessels for Improvisation aboard the ferryboat Eureka

When I was approached about programming concerts at SF Maritime as part of We Players’ cooperative agreement with the park, it didn’t take long to figure out what I wanted to do. 

One approach was to explore themes of the sea in latin american music, which we’ve been doing in our Canciones del Mar concerts.

The other approach that came to me was at the other end of the musical spectrum, so to speak. A more ‘pure’ exploration of sound in space, the basic idea was to let improvisers loose in the park to react and respond to the sounds of the pier. The bigger idea is that working with other artists in the familiar site of SF Maritime will help We Players company staff see the Park in new and inspiring ways.

A longtime fan of the ROVA sax quartet, they were the first ensemble I thought of approaching for this project. For an astounding 35 years, ROVA has been developing an improvisational rapport, making them an ideal group to step into almost any situation with open ears.  Larry and John came to scope out the pier and decided that the ferryboat Eureka was best suited to this endeavor, with ample space for both audience and performers to move freely during the concert.

I had initially conceived of Vessels for Improvisation as a solely musical event, but ROVA expressed interest in collaborating with dancer Shinichi Iova-Koga, which made perfect sense, as movement (of performers and audience alike) would be a major part of Vessels.  Now in it’s second year, I’m very much looking forward to what Vessels will reveal, featuring an expanded ensemble with the addition of John Bischoff on electronics, and Dana Iova-Koga and Dohee Lee from inkBoat joining ROVA and Shinichi.

– Charlie Gurke, Music Director

Travels with A Masked Man

Written and performed by John Hadden
ONE NIGHT ONLY – Friday, October 12 @ 8pm
Location – Passenger Deck of the Eureka
This event is by-invitation only. If you would like to be our guest, please Email Us

Haunted by unanswered questions about his childhood overseas, a man confronts his father—an ex-CIA officer who ruminates darkly on the American Empire, the human animal, and himself. Hadden, who plays both characters, evolved the play from many hours of conversations he taped with his father eight years ago. Alternately poignant and hilarious, the play evokes memories and responses about parents and children and growing up during the Cold War.

John Hadden is a longtime director and actor. He was a founding member of Shakespeare & Co in Lenox, MA and is currently the Artistic Director of The Theater Company at Hubbard Hall, Cambridge, NY.

Following the one-hour performance, desserts and tea accompany a discussion conducted by We Players’s managing director Lauren Chavez, with artistic director Ava Roy and John Hadden.

Vessels for Improvisation

Our site-integrated concerts explore the themes embedded in or suggested by a site and investigate the sonic properties of a space. Following the success of Canciones del Mar: Songs of the Sea in spring 2013, Music Director Charlie Gurke curates an evening of live music and dance improvisation aboard the historic ferryboat Eureka at Hyde Street Pier on November 2, 2013, featuring ROVA Saxophone Quartet and special guest Shinichi Iova-Koga from inkBoat.

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ROVA Saxophone Quartet

The ROVA Saxophone Quartet has been exploring the synthesis of composition and collective improvisation for over 35 years, creating exciting, genre-bending music that challenges and inspires.  The Penguin Guide to Jazz calls ROVA’s music “a teeming cosmos of saxophone sounds” created by “deliberately eschewing conventional notions about swing [and] prodding at the boundaries of sound and space…”

For Vessels for Improvisation, ROVA will be joined by dancer Shinichi Iova-Koga (pictured above), founder of SF based performance company inkBoat.

“Shinichi Iova-Koga’s work is grotesque, beautiful, and funny. As a dancer he is never less than mesmerizing — ephemeral like smoke, limpid like a vernal pool. He has developed a personal form of mixed-media dance theater that integrates contradictory impulses — the ancient and the technological, the chaotic and the formal, nature and nurture. He might be called a dancer at the edge.”  ~RITA FELCIANO

Join We Players and these renowned artists for an
unforgettable evening at Hyde Street Pier!