3-day festival celebrates eccentric 1960s San Francisco

In 1966, a time of radically creative, free-thinking expression in the Bay Area, post-modern dance pioneer Anna Halprin and her famous landscape architect husband, Lawrence (who designed Ghirardelli Square, the Stern Grove renovation and Sea Ranch), hosted the first of their cross-disciplinary workshops, designed to cultivate a new approach to environmental awareness based on the needs of the human body in a space with others — a core concept of both dance and architecture.

On the 50th anniversary of both the Halprins’ first workshop and the watershed Trips Festival (of “Can You Pass the Acid Test?” fame), the California Historical Society presents Experiments in Environment:

The Halprin Workshops, 1966-1971, an exhibition of the extensive original documentation (photos, scores, rosters, films) of the Halprins’ groundbreaking workshops, including never-before-seen items from their personal archive.

“Experiments in Environment,” created by Chicago’s Graham Foundation and seen now for the first time in San Francisco, is the centerpiece of “The 1960s Revisited: A 50th Anniversary Celebration,” a three-day festival commemorating the cultural impact of several 1966 happenings.

Other festival highlights include renowned 1960s scholars in conversation about “The Music, Technology & Significant of the Trips Festival” and “The Dawn of the Grateful Dead” (Friday, Jan. 22); a VIP symposium with Trips festival producer and Whole Earth Catalog editor Stewart Brand (Friday, Jan. 22); and Independent Psychedelic Film Festival public screenings of Eric Christensen’s “The Trips Festival Movie” and Alex Gibney’s Magic Trip:

“We very much wanted to recognize this incredibly important moment in the history of San Francisco, and the Halprins’ workshops are a great example of how dogmas and learned attitudes were being shed and artists were coming together across disciplines, not following traditional paths of rules,” said Adam Hirschfelder, director of strategic projects for the California Historical Society.

“We were using our own bodies and life experiences to work with the environment, which is very different from using it as a backdrop,” said 95-year-old Anna Halprin from her Kentfield home designed by Lawrence, which has a massive polygonal “dance deck” on which several of the workshops took place.

The 1960s Revisited: A 50th Anniversary Celebration:

Independent Psychedelic Film Festival: