L.A. FESTIVAL PROGRAM UNFURLED

With a blast by four trumpeters from a box tier at the Embassy Theatre Downtown, the new Los Angeles Festival officially raised the curtain Wednesday on its full lineup of programs for the international arts event here that will span almost the entire month of September.

Meanwhile, upstairs, festival officials were arranging the mailing of 400,000 brochures to those who bought tickets to the Olympic Arts Festival three years ago, and to regular subscribers of Los Angeles arts organizations. Instead of the sad clown of three years ago, the brochure’s cover this time depicts a haunting scene of dancers with outstretched arms from France’s Compagnie Maguy Marin, in a scene from its work “May B.”

“This is the first biennial celebration of the arts,” proclaimed Maureen Kindel, president of the city’s Board of Public Works and chairman of the festival, before an array of city, corporate and arts officials who sat onstage and in the audience. “We firmly believed that the major international festival in North America should take place in our city to complement the extraordinary vitality of the city’s cultural life.”

“Quite literally, this festival is a legacy of the Olympics,” she added, referring in part to the $2-million surplus from the Games is helping to fund the 1987 event, “a gift to the community. Welcome to the beginning of a new tradition.”

Mayor Tom Bradley called the $5.8 million-festival “a people kind of happening” that will give Southern Californians a chance to see performances that otherwise in life they never would be able to see.”

And Robert Fitzpatrick, director of the Los Angeles Festival as he had been of the 1984 Olympics event, asserted that the festival will provide “the opportunity to encounter new artists and new audiences, to bring in people who might not have felt welcome.” Fitzpatrick added that he hoped that as a result of the festival which opens Sept. 3 in a Little Tokyo parking lot with Canada’s Le Cirque du Soleil--a circus--people will see culture “not as medicine, not as a didactic, but with joy, pleasure and excitement.”

Altogether, 31 theater, dance and music performing arts organizations--or 352 artists, representing 11 nations: six European nations--Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, West Germany and Sweden--plus Japan, South Africa, Guatemala, Canada and the United States.

Los Angeles arts groups will be represented by Los Angeles Music Center Opera, the Mark Taper Forum, the Los Angeles Theatre Center and the Bella Lewitzky Dance Co. Their artistic directors--Peter Hemmings, Gordon Davidson, Bill Bushnell and Lewitzky--were in the audience.

The presenting organizations will give a total of 166 performances, including seven world premieres and nine U.S. premieres. There will also be three U.S. debuts of performing arts companies and nine West Coast debuts. Festival directors are anticipating an audience of 200,000--90% of it from Southern California.

About the only wrinkle in the celebratory announcement occasion came during a press conference question session when Davidson asserted that the presence of the festival “makes it difficult for local groups to work their dates around festival events.” Unruffled, Fitzpatrick suggested that with “ongoing festivals will work into the rhythm and life of the city.”

The 3 1/2-week festival, which runs until Sept. 27, is considerably scaled down from the $11.5 million- Olympic event that ran 10 weeks and brought 145 performing arts companies from 18 countries.

The festival’s funding is a blend of public and private sponsorship. Besides the $2 million from the Amateur Athletic Foundation, the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency gave $1 million. Business sponsors gave gifts from $125,000 to $500,000 contributed by Times Mirror. Already $4.2 million has been raised, and another $1.8 million is earned revenue is anticipated. Asked whether the funding was secure, Fitzpatrick replied, “Oh yes,” adding that he anticipated at least $250,000 as seed money for future festivals.

In his presentation of the September festival, Fitzpatrick spent more time talking about Peter Brook’s presentation of “The Mahabharata” than he did any other artistic attraction. He called the nine-hour epic based on Indian scriptures “an extraordinary piece,” saying “what it is really is the story of the human race.”

It is also the most expensive ticket in the festival--$90, to be seen on three consecutive evenings or in one marathon 12-hour event with two breaks for meals. Tickets for individual events range from $5 to $35.

He also spoke of Ingmar Bergman’s production of August Strindberg’s “Miss Julie” which will be performed by Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theatre, calling actor Peter Stormare “one of the strongest actors we will see in our lives.” And he added, speaking of Percy Mtwa’s “Bopha!” which will be presented by South Africa’s all-black Earth Players & the Market Theatre Company, that “if you want to see the destruction caused by apartheid, if you want to see the pain . . . “ then see “Bopha!”

There will be nine festival venues--seven downtown and two in Hollywood. Among the downtown sites will be the Embassy, the Japan America Theatre in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles Theatre Center on Spring Street, and the Mark Taper Forum. In Hollywood, the sites will be Raleigh Studios for “The Mahabharata” and the Doolittle for “Miss Julie” .

In dance, among other events as billed in the brochure, there will be the American premiere by Great Britain’s “new wave choreographic sensation,” Michael Clark & Co.; a world premiere by Canada’s “gravity-defying” La La La Human Steps; the West Coast debut of France’s Lyon Opera Ballet and France’s Compagnie Maguy Marin, and the world premiere of a work, with all-female dancers, based on the sculpture of the late Henry Moore by Los Angeles’ Lewitzky Dance Company.

The festival’s music component includes a week-long celebration of concerts, premieres and tributes, commemorating the 75th birthday of Los Angeles born composer John Cage. Also featured are three productions by Los Angeles Music Center Opera (“La Boheme,” “Fiery Angel” and “La Cenerentola”), the world premiere of “Hungers,” an electronic opera by Morton Subotnik, and “An Evening of Classic Jazz,” which traces the evolution of the American art form through the diverse sounds of Michael White’s Original Liberty Jazz Band, Dick Cathcart & Pete Kelly’s Big 7, Joe Liggins and His Honeydrippers and Guatemala’s Paco Gatsby Band.

Tickets for the festival are now available by mail. For a brochure with the full schedule of events and a ticket order form, write to the Los Angeles Festival, P.O. Box 5360, Los Angeles, Ca. 90055-0360, or phone (213) 622-3771. Deaf or hearing-impaired people may telephone (800) 342-5966. The festival’s box office, which will be located at the Embassy Theatre, opens in July.

As a companion to the festival, there will be a Fringe Festival, highlighting the participation of hundreds of artists and a wide array of art forms.