The People’s Palace
A new site-specific installation performance conceived and directed by Joanna Haigood
San Francisco City Hall
Thu-Fri, May 9-10 and Sun, May 12, 2024
Free Performance repeats every 30 minutes:
- 8:00 PM (7:50 entry)
- 8:30 PM (8:20 entry)
- 9:00 PM (8:50 entry)
- 9:30 PM (9:20 entry)
- 10:00 PM (9:50 entry)
Select date and time to attend
Each ticket has a timed entry 10 minutes before each performance cycle begins, allowing extra time for check-in and security. Once inside, you are invited to stay for multiple performances so you can experience the work from a new vantage point or see your favorite part again.
It is intended for the audience to move throughout the space during this immersive performance, however some seating (non-fixed, no arms) will be available for patrons with disabilities.
City Hall is an ADA-accessible venue.
Pre-show Haptic Access Tour and audio described performances available on Friday, May 10. More information at Bay Area Accessible Performances.
The People’s Palace is an artistic intervention with City Hall’s Beaux-Arts Roman and Greek iconography. Aerialists and performers will interact with the architecture and large scale projections, transforming these symbols into new, more inclusive narratives that more accurately reflect San Francisco’s diverse and dynamic cultures and community. Through performance, music, storytelling, and immersive technologies, The People’s Palace invites the audience to actively engage these new narratives, to see themselves within the broader context of the city, and to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives.
Conceived and directed by Joanna Haigood, this work is being developed in collaboration with composer Marcus Shelby, visual artist Mildred Howard, scenic designer Sean Riley, rigging designer David Freitag, design consultant and fabricator Wayne Campbell, lighting designer Krissy Kenny, projection designer Aron Altmark, costume designer Dana Kawano, indigenous culture bearers Gregg Castro and Jonathan Cordero, and performing artists Veronica Blair, Tristan Ching Hartman, Ciarra D’Onofrio, William Brewton Fowler, Jr., Jocelyn Reyes, Nina Sawant, Saharla Vetsch, and The Skywatchers Ensemble.
A co-presentation of Dancers’ Group and ZACCHO Dance Theatre.
Supported by a Hewlett 50 Arts Commission, with additional support from the California Arts Council, Grants for the Arts, Bernard Osher Foundation, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, and our generous community of individual donors.
PBS video: Revisit the history of San Francisco’s City Hall, which rose from the rubble of the 1906 earthquake to become a symbol of the resilient citizens.
Watch a past ONSITE project at SF City Hall: Love Everywhere was a series of site-specific installations bringing visibility to the ongoing struggle for marriage equality. It premiered Valentine’s weekend in San Francisco City Hall’s Rotunda, GLIDE Memorial Church, and public spaces in downtown San Francisco and featured 50 dancers, a chamber orchestra and two vocalists. Love Everywhere was an interactive celebration of the 6th anniversary of San Francisco’s issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Dancers’ Group and Joanna Haigood are a recipient of the Hewlett 50 Arts Commissions, launched in 2017 to celebrate the foundation’s 50th anniversary. It is a five-year, $8 million initiative supporting the creation and premiere of 50 new works from outstanding artists working in five performing arts disciplines. The largest commissioning effort of its kind in the country, the initiative is a symbol of the Hewlett Foundation’s longstanding commitment to supporting art that matters to the people and communities of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Hewlett Foundation has supported the arts in the region for more than 50 years, and currently makes grants of roughly $20 million per year to more than 200 nonprofit arts organizations, mostly in the form of long-term general operating support. More information about the Hewlett 50 Arts Commissions can be found at: hewlett.org/50Commissions.
Artist Information: Joanna Haigood/Zaccho Dance Theatre
