3 Groups Seek to Produce ‘Freedom Festival’ During Soviet Event

Three organizations have submitted proposals to produce a “freedom festival” to run concurrently with the Treasures of the Soviet Union arts festival in San Diego.

The City Council earmarked $30,000 for a freedom festival last September as a response to critics’ complaints about worldwide victims of Soviet aggression. However, the city manager’s May request for proposals made no reference to victims.

The groups, which are competing for a city grant of up to $30,000, are Prophet World Beat Productions, organized originally several years ago to present “Third World shows” in San Diego; the Avenue of the Arts, which produces the arts and crafts street fair during downtown’s Artwalk and is sponsored by the Llan Lael Foundation, and Freedom Festival Inc., a nonprofit organization specifically formed to produce the festival. The proposals include a series of Japanese and African dance workshops and concerts, a fine art street fair of works by San Diego artists and a multi-ethnic cultural fest.

Freedom Festival Inc. plans a variety of folk concerts and arts and crafts displays featuring 16 ethnic groups, according to Debra Schettino, a spokeswoman for the group. Highlights of the proposed festival include an exhibit of 16th-Century Bezhad-style Persian paintings, 400 decorative Pysanky Easter eggs and a concert by Royal Thai dancers.

Also proposed are displays of Vietnamese miniature art and lacquer ware, Laotian paintings and silverwork, a Hmong needlework collection, Mexican serigraphs and watercolors and a concert by a local Ukrainian choir, Schettino said. The proposal calls for a three-week festival, budgeted at $56,000, located primarily in Balboa Park and running concurrently with the festival of Soviet arts.

“We’ve asked all segments of society to participate,” Schettino said. “We didn’t go just for the heavy political freedom things. We want to impact the art community of San Diego as well.” Freedom Inc. also plans education programs, videos, lectures, and arts and crafts workshops, she said.

Schettino, who proposed a Freedom Arts Festival at a City Council meeting last year, has been one of the chief critics of the Soviet arts festival. Responding to Schettino’s proposal and criticisms by her and others, the City Council in September earmarked $30,000--1% of the $3 million awarded to the San Diego Arts Festival by the council--for an alternative “freedom festival.”

Freedom Inc. plans to raise $26,000 through donations and earned income to meet the city’s stated preference that an arts group raise at least $15,000 if it is to receive the $30,000 grant.

Prophet World Beat Productions has proposed an International Dance Music Festival featuring artists from Ghana and Japan. The proposal is built around the visit of nine members of Japan’s Mariko Dance Troupe and a 12-member performance group from Ghana, featuring master drummer Obo Addy.

“Our main language is music, as well as dance,” said Ruben Seja, of Prophet World Beat Productions. “It’s free. Our aim is to get the inner city kids to open their eyes to the variety of music and dance available.”

Prophet World Beat Productions was founded about seven years ago by Marianne Makeda Cheatom, originally to present the arts of Africa and Jamaica. Since then the organization has produced arts events from a number of countries.

The Mariko Dance Troupe was chosen because it mixes traditional and modern Japanese dance, Seja said. World Beat’s proposal calls for a week of concerts and workshops. The dance concerts, which will involve local dancers along with the Ghanians, will be in the Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park. Seja plans to present a series of dance workshops at recreational centers in north and south county communities.

World Beat has lined up about $20,000 in grants from two Japanese companies, Seja said. The total budget for its proposal is $44,000.

The Avenue of the Arts’ budget, in contrast the budgets for the other two groups, totals just $18,200, said Lynne Walker, the group’s spokeswoman. Walker said the plan requires a four-block street closing, at a location to be announced, on Nov. 11 and 12, the final weekend of the Soviet arts festival.

“We would have up to 120 booths for San Diego County artists to show, demonstrate or sell, at no cost to the artists,” Walker said. “We’ll have one and a half blocks of ethnic food booths and one block of hands-on activities for kids, like mask making, working in clay and painting.”

The Avenue of the Arts plan calls for a juried art exhibit. Walker also plans to use a jury-like panel to screen booth applicants to obtain “higher quality work. We’re hoping to have more fine arts and not T-shirt booths,” she said.

Walker is requesting only $14,000 in a city subsidy, she said. The remaining $4,200 will be raised from participation fees for the food booths and through the estimated purchases of canopies, which all booths must have.

Walker and Carol Dunn, who founded and operated the Avenue of the Arts the past three years during Artwalk, view their proposed event as a bridge between the last weekend of the Soviet Arts Festival and National Arts Week, which begins the following week.

“We plan to have a mini-Artwalk” in which artists’ studios and galleries are open to the public, Walker said.

The three proposals will be reviewed by a panel of city staff members and members of the Commission for Arts and Culture. The panel will make a recommendation later this summer to the full commission, which will award the grant.