Art Festival Doubts

There are many who seem really excited over the idea of a Russian Art Festival for San Diego. It does sound, at first blush, like a good idea, but maybe we should stop and think for a moment about whether it’s a practical idea for San Diego at the present time.

The great Russian national music and dance companies are undoubtedly spectacular and exciting to see. But the expense is prohibitive, and the time lag makes them a long way off. The lesser companies are no better than--in some cases not as good as--what we are seeing in the city today, and not always in sold-out houses either.

Last spring I journeyed to Mexicali to see the Ballet of the Russian Republic, which had been touring Mexico. It was a young company, beautifully trained in the classic tradition, but they danced to tapes and did not have the maturity or assurance to execute the spectacular choreography that one expects from the Russians and that makes their classical dancing so exciting. The Dance Theatre of Harlem in San Diego recently was far superior and far more exciting.

It is highly likely that what we would get in San Diego would be Russian junior companies in virtually all fields. Are they worth the expense? Or, for that matter, is the Bolshoi itself worth the expense to the taxpayer that such a production would entail?

When a major art exhibit or theater event takes place in Los Angeles or San Francisco, the entire run of several weeks is usually sold out as people flock in from all over the western part of the United States to attend. The same could be true of San Diego if we could get an exclusive run of, let’s say, the Bolshoi Opera. But that would take years to arrange, if possible at all, and where would we have the theater space available for the two to four weeks necessary to even possibly pay the major part of the expense?

Why Russia? Why not Mexico, our close neighbor, or Great Britain, or Japan, or China, or any one of a dozen other smaller nations? All have as much to offer; some have even more. And I suspect most of us know less about, say, the glories of the Aztecs and Mayans than we do about Russia. After all, how often do we see specials on TV about Mexico? And I’d also be willing to wager that we’d get better contemporary art, pop as well as traditional from any one of a dozen countries than we would get from Russia.

I would like to see San Diego have an international art festival because I would like to enjoy it myself, but not at the expense of the taxpayers (even the tourists) and not the second best form anywhere! Let the mayor have her trip to Russia, but let’s get our art from somewhere else!

DOROTHY EILER

San Diego