Festival ’90 : THE OPEN FESTIVAL: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED : Some 600 events throughout the Southland complement, add balance and contrast to the curated Festival

For those who don’t find activities of interest in the curated Los Angeles Festival, a whole other body of events--about 600 of them, in fact--is being presented through the affiliated Open Festival.

“Our hats should go off to the community; there are some tremendous events they’ve put together,” said Open Festival coordinator Aaron Paley, who also organized the precursor to the Open Festival, the 1987 Fringe Festival. Like the Fringe Festival, the non-curated Open Festival was open to all artists and groups who wanted to participate. All participants are required to produce and fund their own events.

Paley said that the main idea behind the creation of the Open Festival was to complement the curated festival, and that while it was not done intentionally, he believes his events may fill gaps in the curated festival’s programming. Whereas some critics have said that the dance-heavy L.A. Festival is short on traditional theater and classical music, for instance, Paley noted that the Open Festival contains 110 music events and 143 theater programs, balancing the programs to more clearly reflect the Southland arts scene.

Paley noted that the Open Festival does follow the L.A. Festival’s philosophy in many respects, however. About 250 of the events are free of charge, and those with tickets are generally inexpensive, with the average ticket price being $7.50.

In addition, events are being held at about 400 different venues throughout the Southland, ranging from usual arts sites such as the L.A. Theatre Center, Hollywood Bowl and Southwest Museum, to more unexpected locales such as Culver City’s Old Helms Bakery Building, the Beverly Hills Car Wash and an abandoned mortar shell bunker at Angels Gate Park.

Also, Paley noted, many Open Festival groups created programming to follow the curated festival’s Pacific theme. Included, for instance, are Korean, Polynesian and Vietnamese dance events; visual arts programs such as a show by East L.A. muralists and a photography exhibit by Indonesian children; and family events including a Mexican “fandango” music and dance party and performances by the Shanghai Acrobats and the Imperial Warriors of the Peking Opera.

But, Paley said, the best theme for the free-for-all of events in the Open Festival would merely be “Los Angeles,” since the majority of works focus on other themes, such as racial discrimination, gay/lesbian issues, AIDS and materialism.

Programs tackling some of these more weighty issues include Michael Kearns and Dale Raoul’s “Forget Me Not,” in which the artists read letters written by persons with AIDS; Strange Canvas’ play, “The Death of Elizabeth,” in which comparisons to the current National Endowment for the Arts crisis are illustrated through an artist’s decision to save the purity of her work by destroying it; and the Celebration Theatre’s “In the Mouths of the Cannibals,” which describes growing up as a gay minority.

Within the Open Festival, clusters of works are grouped into mini-festivals. One is the nearly 20-event Green Festival, featuring environmentally themed works such as the Planet Players’ “Local Global Comedy Revue,” the Griffith Park performance piece, “ . . . Out of the River, She . . . “ and Otis/Parsons Art Institute’s “The Ecology Poem: A Street Action.”

Another mini-festival has been comprised from about 10 spirituality-based events including a multilocation visual art show by artists known as “Shamanart,” Michele Bri’en’s “Woman Mystic Art: Spiritual Space,” and Ramya Harishankar and Arpana Dance Company’s “Dance of the Divinities.”

Yet another mini-fest is Open Windows, in which windows of about 25 stores, businesses and galleries--ranging from Colonia Drugs in Los Feliz to Annabelle’s Southern Kitchen in Inglewood--will be decorated by visual artists such as Karl Benjamin and Hilary Baker.

In addition to traditional performances and exhibitions, the Open Festival features a number of events encouraging audience participation. Included is the Keith Antar Mason-directed performance dialogue, “Dissections: Anatomy of Rage,” in which the audience is engaged in discussions about rape, AIDS and incest; the Highland Grounds Coffeehouse’s audience-originated play, “Film at 11”; and the Arroyo Arts Collective’s “ArtGolf Exhibition,” which features a fully functional, artist-designed miniature golf course.

Because of the large number of events grouped under the Open Festival umbrella, Paley noted that selecting which programs to attend might be a difficult decision for many people. To help give people “a taste of the different things going on,” Paley plans to run what he is calling “99 Hours of Art,” in which tour buses will travel to a variety of sites and events on the weekends during the festival.

For more information on “99 Hours of Art,” or for a complete schedule of Open Festival events, call the Open Festival office at (213) 315-9444. In addition, the L.A. Festival’s telephone hot line, (213) 688-ARTS, gives a recorded message listing all festival programs, including those in the Open Festival, by both date and discipline. *