Director Denies L.A. Festival Is in Danger of Folding

Los Angeles Festival director Peter Sellars insisted Thursday that the 1990 arts festival will go on despite a published report that the event is in danger of being canceled because of funding shortfalls.

“There is no danger of not having a festival,” Sellars said, “and at the moment (our task) is to reshape the administrative and financial structure of the festival to match its new goals and its new approach to presenting the arts in (Los Angeles) communities.”

Unlike its predecessors--the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival and the 1986 Los Angeles Festival, which had a strong European presence--the arts festival in the fall of 1990 will concentrate on works from the Pacific Rim nations of Asia and Latin America. There will also be a substantial Los Angeles component, he said.

However Sellars did acknowledge that over Christmas he decided to scale back on the original $5.8-million festival’s $4 million in contributions to $3 million. “I did have to cut back just in order to be safe,” he said. He declined to project the overall cost of the festival.

Sellars said $1.5 million, or half of the projected contribution goal has been met.

Sellars also disclosed that the festival will do more collaborating with existing Los Angeles arts institutions.

“Virtually everything we do will be in collaboration with different institutions large and small and neighborhoods within the city,” Sellars said. “We’ll be bringing productions from around the Pacific Rim, and doing that in conjunction with existing institutions. We’re right in the middle of very complex negotiations.”

On Thursday Variety printed an excerpt from a letter by festival chairwoman Maureen Kindel to board members that stated: “Unless a funding solution can be found over the next 30 days, the board . . . will be forced to recommend to the mayor that the festival offices be closed and the 1990 Festival be canceled or indefinitely postponed.”

Sellars, who said he had not seen the article, maintained that that was an “old letter” that should have gone out at the beginning of January.

“In any case, funds have been received,” he added, “and the festival really is back on track. The main point now is that the festival is in transition, and much more oriented to the city.”

Of the $1.5 million raised, Sellars said, the key $250,000 contributions have come from Times Mirror and Occidental Petroleum. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency pledged 10% of contributed income or $300,000, he said.

Co-productions will be mounted, Sellars said, with UCLA, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.

Sellars was also asked about rumors in the arts community that suggest that a key reason for the festival’s fund-raising problems was its Pacific Rim theme for 1990 instead of a more-traditional European cast. That has not been a problem at all, Sellars said: “People’s response to our new focus has been tremendously positive.”