FITZPATRICK MOVES INTO ‘NEW FBI’

It will be called Fitzpatrick Bookings International--FBI, for short.

“I wanted to do a little ‘send-up’ on myself--that’s British for a wry joke,” Robert J. Fitzpatrick, director of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, and of the 1987 arts festival (and perhaps more) to come, said of his new, for-profit booking agency. As its inaugural event, the new agency will present six performances by Sankaijuku, the Japanese modern dance troupe which drew popular acclaim along with some critical controversy at the festival last summer. The group will perform Oct. 1-5 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. That’s among the places it played last year. During a free show, they also hung from ropes from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Sankaijuku will do “Kinkan Shonen,”which Fitzpatrick calls its “signature piece, the one that really brought together all the things they were exploring. I saw it first at Edinburgh two years ago. It was a piece I had hoped to present (in 1984) but it didn’t work for them then . . . . “

For months, ever since Sankaijuku asked Fitzpatrick to handle the Los Angeles end of its massive United States tour this fall, Fitzpatrick, who is also president of CalArts in Valencia, had been contemplating forming some sort of booking agency. At first he thought about a nonprofit agency.

“Then I realized we really have a super abundance of nonprofit, with the same arts patrons being asked over and over to fund them,” Fitzpatrick said. “In conversations with several people and with arts patrons, the idea of a commercial presentation began to take place. Why not break out into the commercial sector which has only rehashed musicals, and try and do something with a group like Sankaijuku?” Next, he began searching for a title. There was talk of Fitzpatrick Festival Inc. “At that point I didn’t think there was going to be another festival,” Fitzpatrick noted. “And, once it was clear, there was going to be another, I wanted to avoid any ambiguity.” There was mention of a Robert Fitzpatrick Presents but that was apparently too dull. “I sort of liked the idea of running the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), or the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).”

FBI, its impresario said, will feature international artistic groups with “crossover” potential--groups that can make the transition from their “normally small, high-art audiences” into those that have “enormous public and popular appeal.”

Like Sankaijuku. In January, Fitzpatrick Bookings will be present another group “primarily out of the dance world,” which was not seen at the Olympic festival and will not be seen in 1987. “It is a group whose schedule does not work for 1987,” Fitzpatrick said. He will not disclose the name of the group, or where it originates, because they are “still in negotiations.”

Once Sankaijuku and Fitzpatrick got together, a sort of piggy-back arrangement was made. Japan America Theatre then “asked if Sankaijuku could do a single performance of a different work (at the theater). The group could only do that if I was going to bring it to town,” Fitzpatrick said. Thus, as part of its “Explorations” dance series, CalArts, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Japan America Theatre, the triumvirate of regular presenters, will open its third season Sept. 28 with Sankaijuku’s “Sholiba,” which Fitzpatrick described as “a single piece of several hours duration done outdoors.”

Fitzpatrick Bookings now has one staff person in addition to its founder. Fitzpatrick hired George Gerba, who he said had been one of the Olympic festival’s chief logistical and production employees. The agency operates “half out of his home and half out of mine,” Fitzpatrick said. Its publicity agent is Davidson & Choy, who also handled publicity for the Olympic Arts Festival.

Asked whether there was perhaps a potential conflict of interest in his working in his private life as head of a booking agency and in his public life as a festival director, Fitzpatrick replied that he thought he had everything in order.

“I will not do any kind of FBI activity during the time of the festival simply to avoid the appearance (of conflict). My primary commitment is to the public responsibilities. Certainly not during the time period itself,” he repeated, “and I doubt in the time period beforehand. Afterwards, I’ll probably be recovering from the festival.”

“One of the reasons for bringing back Sankaijuku,” Fitzpatrick continued, “is that all of the requests for 1987 coming out of the last festival--’I wish I had seen that’ or ‘I wish I had seen that again’--Pina Bausch, Sankaijuku and Le Theatre du Soleilhave been (most often) mentioned.”

Pina Bausch and Le Theatre du Soleil will make a return engagement for the 1987 festival, Fitzpatrick noted, but “Sankaijuku, because it wanted to do an American tour and was booked to do that tour, it made sense to present them in this context. I don’t want to bring back too many companies,” Fitzpatrick added. “I want to present substantially new work.”