Cultural Connections: Out of Africa : James Burks invests his enthusiasm and vision in L.A.’s African Market Place and Faire

Every summer for the last four years the African Market Place and Cultural Faire has provided the arena for the black and multicultural arts scene of Los Angeles to stage a rare celebration of its creativity.

To newcomers, the beat heard is familiar--but mysterious and disorienting. The drums reverberate reggae, the flutes jazz. Or is it gospel? Or the blues? Or folklorico?

Then there’s the poetry readings, children’s song workshops, pottery vendors, and lavish ritual musical enactments. All kinds of multiethnic families dance to the rhythms. Some dancers execute ritual Aboriginal movements, while others try out something more Ethiopian. Teens in torn designer jeans dance robot style. Are they from Whittier, Hollywood, South Central-- or Belize?

“Why do you care where they’re from?” jokes festival founder James Burks, 39, in an interview before this year’s fair opened on Saturday. And then, almost impishly: “If they were white, would you ask?”

The fair continues today and next Saturday and Sunday, at West Adams Park, at the intersection of Fairfax Avenue and La Cienega Boulevard.

Besides heading up the festival, Burks is the executive director of the William Grant Still Arts Center, situated in the West Adams area and operated by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

Burks founded the African Market Place in 1985 to showcase and unite the various African rituals, cuisines, performance traditions, dance forms and musical expressions that have spread throughout the world.

“In the American arts and media, the African contribution is both profound and unacknowledged,” Burks declares. “Reclaiming our legacy not only benefits the kids who aimlessly roam the streets but it touches any individual not fully attuned to the way African myth and music color his or her life.”

There’s a term for both the spread of Africans throughout the world on one hand and the truncation of African cultural and spiritual continuity on the other. The phenomenon’s called the diaspora .

“We’re not saying that black is better than another expression,” he adds. “We’re saying it’s time to recognize how culturally connected we are to each other as Americans--and how central the Afro-American experience is to the way we all see ourselves.”

But why celebrate the Afro-American heritage in a fair, especially one that seems as commercial as it is artistic? What about a movie, as in Spike Lee’s case, or in Burks’--a gallery opening?

“The notion here is to resurrect the sense of public gathering, especially in L.A., without having to shy away from financial realities,” he answers. “White people have Disneyland, but what do blacks have?”

“Don’t you dare print that,” he adds, laughing. “What I mean is that even speaking commercially, various ethnic groups have centers that serve and represent their communities financially and culturally. The Chinese have Chinatown. The Jewish community has Fairfax.”

“There’s Alpine Village, Olvera Street, Polynesian Village, Little Saigon. But there’s no place for a tourist to go that represents the culturally rich and evolving black community. That bothers me. And that’s what we’re hoping to begin to remedy with the Market Place.”

Sound ambitious? Not as far as Burks is concerned.

He believes that Los Angeles is entering “a golden cultural moment” where “fast evolutions” are possible and imminent. “With the recent appointment of Al Nodal as general manager of Cultural Affairs, the entire ball game changed,” Burks explains.

“It’s not just that we finally have a $20-million (municipal) arts endowment.

“The point here is that Al has gotten people to talk to each other--for white performance artists, black dancers, gay poets, Latino visual artists and American Indian sculptors to see each other’s different critical and financial perspectives.

“Al doesn’t use the term multiculturalism carelessly. He’s a person of color. And those of us who screamed about how each cultural group must be viewed more sensitively now have a friend in City Hall.”

Burks adds that he’s not simply interested in creating “yet another festival.” His goal is to create a venue for the best of other festivals, an awareness he says is based on Kouman Kele , an African word for “one voice.”

“Like any ethnic group, the black community can be fractured,” he says.

“But I have seen people rally around the Marketplace--people who are tired of the media’s negative stereotypes about South-Central.”

“Why don’t people see that there are a thousand different kinds of black people in America and many more different kinds around the world? I wonder: Would this knowledge help dissolve the barrier of covert American racism we face?”

These are fair questions.

But then Burks--whose modest office three blocks from La Brea and Adams is overrun by neighborhood kids, indefatigable volunteers, politicians, office workers--seems the epitome of fairness.

He repeatedly interrupts an interview to advise neighborhood volunteers and builders on how to build sets and stages.

He escorts politicians from California state Sen. Diane Watson’s office to their meeting rooms; he doesn’t hesitate to answer questions posed by the endless stream of artists who offer free classes to youths at William Grant Still.

He assists volunteer Jeanne Taylor in confirming that these artists will appear along with 200 others: reggae singer Al Campbell, blue stars Harmonica Fats, Jimmy Witherspoon and Carl Anderson, as well as Afro-Cuban percussionist Francisco Aquabella.

How does he do it with a small staff and a budget of $162,000--one of the smallest of the city’s arts centers?

Cheryle Grace, African Marketplace coordinator, sees Burks as “the black community’s version of Peter Sellars,” a comparison that Nodal, of the Cultural Affairs Department, also makes. Sellars is the architect of the 1990 Los Angeles Festival.

“It is a thrill to work around James,” she says very quietly. “He is one of the great visionaries in this city. He wants to see L.A. enter into its own cultural renaissance.”

Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, who was scheduled to participate in the opening of this year’s festival on Saturday, adds: “James Burks has been invaluable in stressing the powerful role culture plays in the lives of the black community, and the arts community as a whole.”

Says Lula Washington, executive director of the financially strapped Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theatre, one of L.A.’s black dance companies: “Few of us would be where we are today if it weren’t for James’ support and vision.”

But the praise only seems to make Burks uneasy. He says he’s had his share of backlash, and admits that “behind every word of praise or detraction is one hidden agenda or another--even if that agenda is toward the highest good.”

In his case, this kind of detachment seems wise. While Nodal feels that “James is one of the few leaders in L.A. who is able to think of both his community and the larger arts scene in L.A. simultaneously,” various detractors in the art world see Burks as an advocate who moves too fast and who places “results” over grass-roots organizing in his own community.

One of those critics is C. Bernard Jackson, the executive director of the Inner City Cultural Center. In 1974 Burks began work as the director of the Inner City Institute for the Performing and Visual Arts. One of his duties was to run the popular Ira Aldridge Acting Competitions. “I have always respected James,” says Jackson. “We just do things differently.”

Burks says that he left his post at Inner City in 1985 “under good terms” to become executive director of the William Grants Still Arts Center, where he continued to run the burgeoning acting competitions.

But Burks adds that in ‘86, he and Jackson had “a falling-out,” which resulted in Burks being asked to end his involvement in the competitions.

According to Jackson, “James was getting too carried away by a vision. We have different management styles. I can be self-effacing; he can be too ambitious. In our community, both are useful.”

Under Burks’ tenure, the competition grew from a small talent show to a national event, with tours to New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Orange County. There was talk of deals with cable stations.

Black performance artist Keith Antar Mason says: “The African Market Place is one of the great unifying events in our community, especially among artists who are more oriented towards a nationalistic agenda and those of us who are younger and prefer addressing specific issues like the gang problem. But he (Burks) has a tendency to work toward success at the expense of some people. “

Burks admits that he has two traits that have made him a controversial figure. He’s impatient with bureaucracy and he “refuses to get bogged down by racism.”

“If you spend your entire day screaming about racism,” he says, “you can’t get anything done. We all know we live in a racist society. Enough. Now let’s get to work. The possibilities are endless.”

Born in Watts, Burks graduated from Compton High School as a star athlete with some of the highest grades in his class.

And at Los Angeles South West College, Burks was one of the few blacks on the track team and one of the only blacks in student government. In 1974, he became assistant director of community services. After graduation he worked as project director for the 10th District Senior Citizen’s Service Center, sponsored by the city’s department of aging.

He became director of the William Grant Still when it had been without a leader for two years. Immediately, he curated shows that encouraged emerging black, Latino, Asian and white artists to work together.

While Burks predicts that 10 years from now he may no longer be involved in the arts, he feels that he will always be involved in some facet of multiculturalism.

“I see a kind of storming of the Bastille by energized artists. The days of art apartheid are drawing to a close.”

The African Market Place and Cultural Faire continues today and next Saturday and Sunday, at West Adams (James H. Whitworth) Park, at the intersection of Fairfax and La Cienega, 3 blocks south of the Santa Monica Freeway. Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call: (213) 734-1164.