Holiday Weekend Activities Go Far Beyond the Traditional Barbecue

A dash of art, a pinch of culture, courtesy of the Los Angeles Festival, may be just the ingredients this year for Westsiders wanting to add some spice to the traditional Labor Day picnic or back yard barbecue.

Although centered at Angels Gate and Point Fermin parks in San Pedro on its opening weekend, the festival, a countywide celebration of Asian, Pacific and Latino art and culture, will hold a few events today and Monday around the Westside.

Chefs can leave their aprons and spatulas at home and head over to the festival’s African Marketplace, where they can feast on ethnic foods, watch parades of lavishly costumed drummers, dancers and storytellers, and listen to groups playing everything from jazz to gospel to salsa.

The marketplace, which will also feature ethnic handicrafts, will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and Monday in James H. Whitworth Park, at Fairfax Avenue and La Cienega Boulevard.

Entertainment at the marketplace will be highlighted Sunday by a 2 p.m. performance by Polynesian dancers from Wallis and Fatuna islands, and at the same time Monday by Woomera Mornington Island Culture Team from Queensland, Australia, which will perform aboriginal songs and dances. Admission is free.

Fans of East Indian culture can take in a performance of “Mahabharata,” a 2,000-year-old epic that will be brought to life by a Los Angeles-based dance group at Wadsworth Theater on the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration grounds. Performances, which will cost $10-$30, will be at noon today and 8 p.m. Monday.

Lovers of art from this side of the Pacific are invited to the free opening of “Aqui y Alla,” an exhibit at Barnsdall Park Arts Center, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., in Hollywood, featuring works by 14 contemporary Mexican and Mexican-American artists. The 2 p.m. opening will also feature performance artists, musicians and dancers.

Not part of the festival, but no less enriching, will be a Los Angeles County-sponsored chamber music concert by Marston Smith and the California Quartet today at 2 p.m. in Burton Chace Park, 13650 Mindanao Way in Marina del Rey.

But if family tradition demands a picnic at the park or beach, lifeguards and park officials agree: Get there early.

“On a typical weekend day, we get from 2,000 to 3,000 people coming through” Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, the popular county park on La Cienega Boulevard in the Baldwin Hills, said Sam Jones, assistant director of the county Department of Parks and Recreation.

Jones, who said an even larger crowd is expected on Labor Day, suggests getting to the park around 9 a.m. He said staff may close the parking lot as early as 11 a.m. if all 450 spaces are filled.

Similarly, county Chief Lifeguard Don Rohrer said he expects beach parking lots to be full by the afternoon today and Monday and is prepared to add to the 300 working lifeguards if hot weather lures a bigger than average crowd to the ocean.

The beach will be particularly jammed just south of the Santa Monica Pier, where Santa Monica is sponsoring its 30th Annual Gymfest, an amateur gymnastics competition that will hold its finals at noon on Monday, he said.

Of course, all government offices, courts, banks, post offices, stock and commodity exchanges, libraries and many businesses will be closed Monday.