L.A. Arts Promoter to Coordinate S.D.’s Soviet Festival

A Los Angeles man with experience as an international arts festival coordinator was selected Wednesday to be artistic director of San Diego’s upcoming Soviet arts festival.

Bruce Joseph, 36, was chosen “because of his vast experience, superior organizational skills and creative artistic vision,” said Bruce Herring, executive director of San Diego Festivals Inc., a nonprofit advisory board formed by Mayor Maureen O’Connor earlier this month to organize the festival.

Total Package Worth $94,250

Joseph will be paid $6,000 a month over the next year for his services, and will be reimbursed for housing, automobile mileage and other business-related expenses, for a total compensation package of $94,250. The sum also includes a $6,500 “incentive bonus” to be paid to Joseph upon the satisfactory completion of his duties.

The money for Joseph’s salary will come from a $6.25-million budget for the festival, which was approved by City Council on Nov. 14. The budget includes a $350,000 allocation for marketing and public relations.

Joseph will be responsible for the overall artistic coordination and management of the festival and will supervise the development and implementation of promotion, publicity and marketing. He will also assist in fund-raising efforts, including corporate underwriting.

Joseph first came to the attention of the San Diego festival board as the coordinator of the three-month “UK/LA: ‘88” festival. A celebration of British arts, the Los Angeles festival ran from February through April and consisted of more than 70 events, including classical and pop music performances, displays of art and contemporary design, opera, theater and film festivals.

Among the festival’s events was a retrospective of artist David Hockney’s work that drew more than 200,000 visitors and broke the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s attendance record for exhibits of contemporary artists. At the other end of the spectrum, the UK/LA festival also included a popular free reggae concert in Watts.

Solid Track Record Pointed Out

“The overwhelming success of Bruce’s most recent endeavor, UK/LA ‘88, is a testimonial to his artistic abilities and an indication of what San Diegans can expect for the upcoming San Diego Arts Festival,” Herring said.

An 11-year resident of Los Angeles, Joseph has already moved to San Diego. He will be sharing office space with Herring on the fifth floor of the Union Bank Building on B Street downtown.

Joseph said he has been informally involved in the planning of the festival during the past month and has attended some meetings with visiting Soviet arts officials.

He plans to develop a format for the festival that will have a heavy emphasis on children’s programming, and an extensive educational component.

“This is an exciting challenge and an incredible opportunity for the city of San Diego,” Joseph said. “I am looking forward to helping to realize the artistic vision for the festival.

“Given the warming of relations between the Soviet Union and our country and the greater artistic freedoms in the Soviet Union, I think we’ll be able to put together a festival that the entire community of San Diego will be proud of.”

In a written report given to the board of directors Monday, Herring recommended the selection of Joseph over several other applicants, and stressed that “the retention of a consultant with a proven track record as a festival artistic director is essential.”

Besides his work with the UK/LA festival, Joseph did marketing and promotion for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s performances of Nicholas Nickleby at the Ahmanson theater in Los Angeles in 1986. The previous year, he was administrative director of an 11-day Los Angeles festival of experimental music called “New Music America.”

In 1984, Joseph coordinated a performance art festival called “Carplays,” which purportedly explored the way in which people’s lives mesh with the automobile. He also produced 23 concerts for President Jimmy Carter’s “People’s Inauguration.”

Arizona Connection

Before his work in Los Angeles, Joseph was associated with artist Paolo Soleri in Arizona, where he established and directed the avant-garde Arcosanti Festival. Joseph also developed and coordinated the First International Conference of Sky Art for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies in 1981.

Besides appointing Joseph, the festival board of directors on Wednesday approved the hiring of a marketing firm to promote the festival. The Atlanta-based firm of Cohn & Wolfe was selected from three finalists and will be paid $100,000 to market the festival nationally.

The marketing firm will work alongside Joseph, the festival board, the Convention & Visitors Bureau and a local public-relations firm yet to be selected. Their joint goal, aside from promoting the festival itself, will be to “enhance San Diego’s image as a nationally recognized, emerging center for arts and culture,” according to Herring’s report to the board.

All Requirements Noted

Sal Giametta, the mayor’s assistant for arts and cultural affairs, said Cohn & Wolfe was picked because “the advisory panel that reviewed the (applicants) was most impressed with their proposal. . . . It was a very comprehensive proposal that addressed all the needs of the festival.”

The three-week event, officially titled “San Diego Arts Festival: Treasures of the Soviet Union,” is tentatively scheduled to begin Oct. 21, 1989. The exhibition of folk art, religious icons and other relics will include a display of the famous, bejeweled Faberge imperial eggs.

Performances by Soviet puppeteers, folk dancers, craftsmen, a chamber orchestra, a string quartet and a choir are also planned.