Comments (0) Best Free Arts Gala - 2007
Mission Arts & Performance Project
We know you find yourself continually making excuses for not seeing enough arts and performance events: "I don't have enough time," "It's too far away," and the perennial whiny favorite, "It's too expensive" (even though two or three drinks will easily pay for a ticket to some brilliant black-box theatre). Well, we have some news for you: The Mission Arts & Performance Project is in the city's most accessible neighborhood, it happens every two months on a Saturday night, and ... drum roll ... it's free! Put on by the Red Poppy Art House, MAPP is all about local creatives making good and giving back to the community — in the form of a multi-hour block party of visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, poets, and lookie-loos. A host of outposts in the 24th Street corridor — yoga studios, coffee shops, folks' garages, taquerias — transform into full-fledged venues. In a matter of hours, you get to see site-specific fire-eating performers on 24th and Treat, classic Middle Eastern music at the Red Poppy, and ear-splitting punk rock at Philz Coffee. And if you're lucky, you might even walk away with a diminutively priced piece of artwork from any of the venues after joining in on one of MAPP'S feted gallery crawls. If you're still puzzling over the free part, make sure you empty your pockets and make a deposit in the donation bowl.
