Seaport Village is host to a gaggle of outdoor entertainers, balloon artists, caricaturists and face painters, and will add to these regular festivities with a free concert series every weekend from July through September.
Visitors strolling through the seaside shopping district can dance along to the jazz, blues and rock music of Blue Rockit on July 1, Midnight Heat on July 4, Barbara Jamerson & Two Deep on July 8, North Park Rock ‘n’ Blues on July 15, Beatle Tracks on July 22 and the Catillacs on July 29.
These bands will perform repeatedly throughout the concert run along with the dance team Nova, local rock band West of 5 and jazz groups Nitelife and Breez’n.
In addition to its summer concert series, Seaport Village will witness weekend performances by traveling entertainers Kikilia’s Flowers of the Pacific and Mango and Dango, both winners of the Seaport Spring Busker Festival.
During the festival, held from May 12 to 13, Seaport Village invited visitors to watch and then vote for their favorite “buskers,” or street performers.
According to Terry Hall, general manager of Seaport Village, the May 12-13 festival was a “great venue to open up to street performers “¦ to give them a place to show off, and give the population a chance to see what they want to hear more frequently.”
More than 2,000 attendees voted at the festival, ultimately selecting Kikilia’s Flowers and Mango and Dango as returning entertainers through the summer months.
The acrobatics team Mango and Dango, made up of the Ocean Beach residents Megan Fontaine and Derrick Gilday, returns to San Diego after refining their juggling, Hula-Hooping and comedic busker acts in Central America and Europe.
“They are just fun and incredible to watch “¦ like Cirque du Soleil,” Hall said of the duo.
Mango and Dango are recognizable for their physical comedy routines, which Derek Gilday described as “a way of using gestures to create laughs, by tripping over your feet and getting people to come up [onstage] and do silly things.”
Kikilia’s Flowers, a Polynesian dance group, also tries to involve crowds with their interactive performances, even inviting audience members to learn some dance moves for themselves on stage, according to Hall.
All concerts will take place from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Seaport’s East Gazebo. Mango and Dango and Kikilia’s Flowers will also be performing from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday at Seaport. Seaport Village is located at West Harbor Drive and Pacific Highway, adjacent to Embarcadero Park North. For a full list of performances, visit www.seaport-village.com or call (619) 235 4014.