This booklet was inspired by and written for participants in the Festival Encouragement Project (FEP), a program co-created in 2003 by the Center for Cultural Innovation and supported by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (LADCA). The goal of 2 the FEP is to build the strength and capacity of selected outdoor cultural celebrations produced in L.A. that serve residents and tourists. Book Photography: Aaron Paley Book Design: Peter Walberg Published by the Center for Cultural Innovation TABLE OF CONTENTS Artists shown on the following pages: INTRODUCTION Judith Luther Wilder Cover Dragonfly by Lili Noden’s Dragon Knights ONE Festivals: Their Meaning and Impact in the City of Angels Page 2 Titus Levi, PhD. Jason Samuels Smith, Anybody Can Get It TWO Page 4 A Brief Historical Overview of Selected Festivals in Los Angeles- 1890-2005 Nathan Stein Aaron Paley Page 6 THREE Tracy Lee Stum Madonnara, Street painter Why? An Introduction to Producing a Festival Hope Tschopik Schneider Page 7 Saaris African Foods FOUR Santa Monica Festival 2002 Choosing Place: What Makes a Good Festival Site? Page 9 Maya Gingery Procession, streamers by Celebration Arts Holiday Stroll in Palisades Park, FIVE Santa Monica Timelines & Workplans Page 11 Aaron Paley Body Tjak, created by I Wayan Dibia and Keith Terry SIX Santa Monica Festival 2002 The Business Side of Festivals Sumi Sevilla Haru Page 12 Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca on stage at POW WOW SEVEN Grand Avenue Party 2004 Public Relations Advice for Festival Producers Judith Luther Wilder and Margo Upham Page 18 Taiko Project with Leo Chelyapov on Klezmer clarinet, Yiddishkayt Family Festival 2004 EIGHT Don’t Let the Cops or Fire Department Close Down Your Festival! Page 30 Sumi Sevilla Haru Lili Noden’s Dragon Knights Celebrate LA, Natural History Museum 2003 NINE Community Relations, Government Relations and Common Sense Page 32 Judith Luther Wilder Viver Brasil Dance Company Contact Information for the Mayor’s Office and for every Page 35 Dragonfly by Lili Noden’s Dragon Knights Council Office in the City of Los Angeles POW WOW Conference, Grand Ave. 2004 TEN Pages 37 & 38 Festivals in Los Angeles Zenshuji Zendeko Japanese American National Museum Maya Gingery Courtyard Kids Family Concert 2004 Resources Back Cover Santa Monica Festival, 2004. Boards & Staff Titus Fotso’s West and Central African Dance Workshop conducted for the Debbie Allen 3 Studio. Photo by Aaron Paley 4 INTRODUCTION Judith Luther Wilder, Senior Program Consultant, Center for Cultural Innovation At the very least, festivals should be fun. If they’re The late Helen Young, the Founder of the Lotus Festival, educational, inspirational, good for commerce and the knew everything there was to know about community common good but are not fun, sponsors are wasting their organizing. She brought together the two factions in the sponsorship dollars. Chinese community, in the Vietnamese community, in the Ideally, a good festival leaves you breathless. It is inspiring Cambodian community, and in the Korean community. She enough to make you simultaneously laugh and cry, persuaded the Indian community to work with a group educational enough to give you insight into yourself and representing Pakistan, and ten other Asian and Pacific Island others, and seductive enough to bring you back again and communities to work with everybody. When it came to again to meet, greet and enjoy performances you may only see diplomacy, Henry Kissinger could have taken lessons from once a year at one of the best parties in town. At least and at Helen. She was everybody’s role model and nobody’s fool and most, a good festival always shows its audience a really, really today’s Lotus Festival is still run by people she trained, good time. shaped, and inspired. The experts who have written articles for “About Aaron Paley, with his working partner of 23 years Katie Festivals…” truly know a lot about producing festivals. They Bergin, created Community Arts Resources (CARS) in the late know how to celebrate, how to bring people together, how to 80s to perpetuate Los Angeles’ festival tradition. Since then, program performances that not only take your breath away but CARS has produced stellar events throughout the region. leave you weak in the knees. Some of them are old timers who They’ve created festivals for the Getty, Skirball and Japanese learned to produce on a wing and a prayer in the ‘70s. Most of American National Museums. They’ve produced the Santa them are visionaries who willed their events to happen while Monica Festival, the 1999 Sacred Music Festival, Wordplay, a Greek Chorus of naysayers chanted “It’s Impossible!” All of Yiddishkayt and dozens of other celebrations for dozens of them, then and now, are smart, savvy organizers who communities. understand the relationship of planning and publicity to CARS is arguably the best festival organizer in Los Angeles. positive results. That was true in 1987 when Aaron produced the Fringe New and /or young festival producers would be well- Festival and again in 1990 when CARS produced the Open advised to take any of the following authors or festival Festival for the Los Angeles Festival, the event Peter Sellars aristocrats out for a dinner seasoned heavily with wisdom. envisioned and I tried valiantly to manage. It’s still true today. Some of the contributors to “About Festivals…” may be a little There were bigger names to wave before the press in 1990 and out of the loop but in a coma, each could fill a library with Aaron and his partners at Community Arts Resources (Bergin, How To books on festival production. Jan Ellenstein, Linda Yudin and Aaron Slavin) probably never Warren Christensen didn’t invent the One Man Show but got the credit they deserved. Still, the folks in the festival for a brief moment in time, he owned the franchise. His Garden trenches all knew who put butts in the seats. Peter Sellars’ Theatre Festival (GTF) was the best party in town night after glorious vision shaped the Festival, Allison Sampson’s summer night for a full month each year between 1971 – 1976. relentless fund raising paid for it, Judy Mitoma and I put out Ask anyone who attended the free performances emceed by the fires, but CARS’ performances drew the audiences. CARS Paul Linke and the late Will Geer, or audience members who also saw to it that local artists got a piece of the pie. Hundreds met Father Guido Sarducci, Jackson Browne or the Mystic of Los Angeles artists participated in an amazing twice-in-a- Knights of the Oingo Boingo for the very first time. Talk to the lifetime event only because CARS had their backs. hundreds of volunteers who drove to Ventura to pick oranges Today CARS is the Last Man Standing from those halcyon so that every other audience member could drink free orange days of Festival Abundance. Helen Young passed away in the juice under the stars. They will all tell you they had the time 80s. Hope Schneider, Allison Sampson, Warren Christensen, of their life soaking up the GTF art and ambiance! Ask other Titus Levi and I are long retired from the festival scene. Judy audience members about their GTF experiences and you will Mitoma still produces The World Festival of Sacred Music and hear tales about seeing theater and dance companies they had James Burks is still the driving force behind the African never seen before. Or discovering poets or jazz groups that are Marketplace. But CARS is the only arts festival producer I now woven into the fabric of the City. know still energetic enough and crazy enough to carry the Those summer nights represented the best of times for many festival banner all over town. One month they produce an of the artists who appeared on Barnsdall Park’s outdoor stages. event at the Getty, the next they’re in Exposition Park, For many audience members, the experience was right up there Hollywood or Little Tokyo. with falling in love for the very first time. As a matter of fact, Aaron Paley…a man with taste and standards who never many artists and audience members did fall in love for the first met a Celebration he didn’t like. Whether or not they know it, time at the Garden Theatre Festival. The number of engagements, festival audiences and artists from the last two decades owe affairs and weddings that occurred during the GTF defies logic him a debt of gratitude. but according to rumor, good times were had by all. Sumi Haru and Titus Levi definitely represent two sides of the conventional Festival coin. Sumi is a detail person whose 5 assets include a profound understanding of the communities an audience of fifty people was considered a huge success. with whom she’s worked. For twelve years she produced Curiously, Titus Levi’s adult approach to festival festivals for the Cultural Affairs Department but for many production is reminiscent of the clear, practical, and analytical years prior to that she honed her considerable talents on events system Hope Tschopik Schneider brought to the Olympic Arts that typically drew over 50,000 attendees. With good reason, Festival. Hope, first among festival equals, managed a $20 Sumi identifies herself and her production company as The Iron million event in 1984 when a million dollars could buy more Lotus. Anyone who took exception to the ninety pound event than a two-bedroom fixer upper in a marginal community. organizer’s Work Plans or Timelines did so at his own peril. No Although money of that magnitude can guarantee the festival producer in the City has ever had better working participation of the world’s best artists, only the talents and relationships with regulatory agencies, the Police Department, intelligence of a producer like Hope can guarantee quality of the Fire Department or the Health Department.