A Dancing Dukakis Joins S.D. Performing Arts Fun

Olympia Dukakis just couldn’t help herself when the Stephen Spencer Orchestra launched into a jazzy version of “42nd Street.” Staking a claim on a corner of the dance floor in the U.S. Grant Hotel Grand Ballroom, Dukakis squared off against her partner, lifted her feet and broke into a respectable tap dance.

Like the other 250 patrons of the San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts, the Academy Award-winning actress found herself dancing to a drummer different from the musicians who, earlier Friday evening at Symphony Hall, beat out earthy Japanese rhythms that reverberated briefly through the auditorium but at length through the audience’s consciousness.

The Foundation for the Performing Arts KODO Gala served a double purpose: It welcomed the remarkable Japanese drum troupe to San Diego and added significantly to the organization’s coffers. According to principals, the event also recognized the cultural interplay that is expected to become increasingly important as the nations and cities along the Pacific Rim develop ties.

Symphony Hall Reception

Elizabeth and Joseph Yamada and Junko and Larry Cushman shared the duties of chairing the event, which began with a formal reception at Symphony Hall and followed the performance with a late supper and dancing at the Grant. At the reception, Elizabeth Yamada explained that the essential purpose of the gala was to provide funds for the foundation, recently forced by financial difficulties to cancel two of the presentations that had been planned for its current schedule.

“We’re here for the Performing Arts Foundation tonight, and, since the gala is completely underwritten, everything we earn will go to pay the foundation’s debts,” Yamada said. “We kept expenses to a minimum, but what we’ve put together is stunning .” A foundation spokesman said that net gala proceeds would exceed $65,000.

Junko Cushman brought Japanese sensibilities to the Grant ballroom’s decor, choosing simple arrangements of anthuriums and orchids because they related to the drama of the performance. “Anthuriums are powerful flowers that echo the bold music of the drums,” Cushman said. The menu of duck in ginger sauce also had cultural resonance, she said, because a Japanese proverb identifies the duck as a symbol of one who is asked to volunteer in the furtherance of a difficult undertaking.

The patrons, many of whom stayed to dance past 1 a.m., seemed in a mood to celebrate. Among them were Rose and Patrick Patek, representatives of the Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation, the primary gala underwriter; their guests included not only Dukakis, but actress Salome Jens and Ted Mann, artistic director of New York’s Circle in the Square Theatre. Among other guests were Suzanne and John Koch, Maryka Fargo, Pauline and Stan Foster, Laura Abrams, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, Marcella Rabwin, Judith Harris with Robert Singer, Sally and John Thornton, Jean and Charles Hellerich, Susan and Harry Summers, Mary and George Cory, and Mary and Hal Sadler.

CORONADO--It may not be that the lion came to lie down with the lambs at the Hotel del Coronado Wednesday, but it is a fact that three former San Diego County congressmen put aside partisan considerations to caucus at a tribute sponsored by the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts at San Diego State University.

Lionel Van Deerlin, the Democratic congressman who variously represented (thanks to the state’s expanding population) California’s 37th, 41st and 42nd Congressional Districts between 1962 and 1980, peaceably subjected himself to a gentle roasting led by former Republican colleagues Clair Burgener and Bob Wilson.

Tribute coordinator Elena Mier y Teran said that unlike most events, this one was not a fund-raiser, but rather a simple show of gratitude to the journalist-turned-politician. Van Deerlin served five years as chairman of the House Communications subcommittee, and an endowed chair in communications at SDSU, currently held by former CBS News President Sig Mickelson (Mier y Teran’s husband), is named for him.

Burgener set the tone immediately by announcing that the proceedings would be conducted with “the skill, the finesse (and) the sensitivity of the pay raise vote,” a line followed by such speakers as Wilson, Mickelson and Union-Tribune executive Herb Klein. Van Deerlin responded to the ribbing by expressing amazement that the “new spirit of a kinder, gentler nation has overtaken us so quickly.”

He added that, when first approached about the tribute, he supposed that the committee “was getting up some kind of a trap shoot and needed a clay pigeon.”

The committee presented Van Deerlin a gift that seemed uniquely appropriate, a 1936 Lionel Lines Commodore Vanderbilt Streamliner model engine and railroad car. Paired with the handsomely cased train was a more whimsical gift, a board game entitled “Double Crossing: the Lionel Train Game.”

Old Van Deerlin cronies as well as political activists from both sides of the aisle turned out for the tribute. Mary Jo Van Deerlin headed a guest list that included Terry and Alice Churchill, Tom Carter, hotelier Larry Lawrence, San Diego City Councilmen Bob Filner and Wes Pratt, Mark Nelson, Mike and Jan Madigan, George and Alison Gildred, Hugh Friedman and Lynn Schenk, Si Casady, Murray and Elaine Galinson, and William Fogel.