Arts Festival to Feature Pacific Nations

The Cultural Foundation, organized to build two major arts centers in the San Fernando Valley, has announced that it will sponsor a Pacific Rim Arts Festival at Warner Park in Woodland Hills on May 25 and May 26.

The festival will include booths offering food, games, art works and handicrafts of many nations that border the Pacific Ocean, and appearances by singers, dancers and other performers, according to Luke Bandle, general manager of the foundation.

Admission to the festival grounds will be free, she said, but tickets to the performance tent will cost $1 for children and $2 for adults. Performances will continue from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., she said, and the tickets will be good all day.

‘Jewel of Pacific Rim’

The Pacific Rim is a name often used by economists and business analysts for the nations that border the Pacific, especially the Asian countries with growing economies and trade ties to the United States, such as Japan. It also includes countries on the west coast of South America, Australia and New Zealand.

“Everybody in business is talking about the Pacific Rim, and Los Angeles has been called the jewel of the Pacific Rim,” Bandle said. “Yet when you talk to people outside these business circles, they don’t know what you mean by Pacific Rim.

“This is an opportunity to show people that most of the 27 countries of the Pacific Rim are represented in Los Angeles.”

Introduction to Site

Groups scheduled to appear include the Aman folk dance troupe, the Ballet Folklorico Cuicscalli, the East Wind Youth Assn., The Native American Fine Arts Society and The Korean Classical Music and Dance Group, she said.

She called the festival a chance “to introduce people to the site,” where the Cultural Foundation hopes to build a complex of four theaters, concert and rehearsal halls. The foundation also hopes to build a multimillion-dollar arts park in the Sepulveda Basin.

The festival is expected to cost about $25,000 and is underwritten in part by a $9,000 grant from the Lockheed California Corp. and $9,500 from the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, she said.