Color This Year’s Arts Festival Diverse : UK / LA Festival 1994

Just as Los Angeles is a different city than it was in 1988, so will the second UK/LA Festival present a different United Kingdom than was shown in the first UK/LA festival in 1988.

UK/LA 1994, a citywide arts fest, will be officially announced today by Prince Andrew, Duke of York, at a reception at the Hancock Park home of British Consul Merrick Baker-Bates.

Scheduled to begin Sept. 7 and run through November, the festival has not been finalized, but some of the confirmed offerings include a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Monty Python; the West Coast debut of the urban percussion group Stomp; a tribute to the British film industry; the Halle Orchestra of Manchester; the United States premiere by the Royal National Theatre of David Hare’s play “Racing Demon” and the Royal Shakespeare Company in “Henry VI, Part 3.” The Los Angeles Opera will present Handel’s “Xerxes” and Long Beach Opera will present a double bill of works by Vaughn Williams and Henry Purcell.

Visual arts presentations will range from the first retrospective of contemporary artist R. B. Kitaj at the Los Angeles County Museum and an exhibition of William Blake’s illustrations and books at the Huntington Library.

While the 1988 festival focused mostly on mainstream presentations, festival executive director Bruce Joseph said that the 1994 festival will also attempt to update the perception of British arts by blending cutting-edge British artists with more traditional offerings, reflecting a heightened awareness of the growing multiethnic character of the United Kingdom, which they believe parallels that of Los Angeles. For example, the British women’s a cappella group “Black Voices,” will be featured, as well as community outreach and educational programs, such as an exchange between East L.A.’s Self-Help Graphics and young artists of Glasgow.

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Baker-Bates said that early discussions about bringing UK/LA back to Los Angeles in 1994 were held with then-Mayor Tom Bradley not long after the Los Angeles riots. He said that the city’s post-riot awareness of ethnic issues and urban concerns reflected those of Prince Charles, who will visit Los Angeles during the festival.

“When I was a child, Britain was a purely white society; over the last 30 years, our society has been transformed, very, very fast, into a multiethnic society,” Baker-Bates said in an interview earlier this week. “We felt very strongly that what we wanted to show was the multiethnic nature of Britain.”

Baker-Bates added that, “One of the things I want people to feel here is, this is a bit of a tonic for Los Angeles--that someone is interested in the place, that it isn’t all gloom and doom.”

Baker-Bates acknowledged that the festival will reflect not only a social interest, but also an economic interest in Los Angeles as well. “There is a great deal of Southern California investment in the United Kingdom . . . and equally, there is a lot of British investment in this part of the world--$9 billion of it,” he said.

“There is also a tremendous artistic link between the two countries as well. We have literally thousands of British people working in Hollywood.”

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The $7.2-million 1988 festival was three months long; the 1994 festival will be two months long, with a scaled-down budget of approximately $5 million. Like the 1988 festival, the 1994 fest represents a blend of British arts events already planned and financed by various arts organizations around town, as well as productions sponsored and co-sponsored by UK/LA.

Michael Blachly, director of the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts--which will host Stomp--said that Stomp’s performances were planned in advance of UK/LA, but the festival will co-sponsor other performances at UCLA.

The 1988 festival was highlighted by a David Hockney retrospective at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art (LACMA)--an already-scheduled event that conveniently fit under the UK/LA banner.

LACMA spokeswoman Jessica O’Dwyer said that the museum is pleased to have previously-scheduled events such as the Kitaj exhibit fall under the festival’s auspices.

“To tell you the truth, it helps us to get the word out,” she said.