Bringing Down the Wall : Removal of the structure comes just in time for the NoHo Performing and Visual Arts Festival.

They danced and partied all night when the Berlin Wall fell.

Now that the Lankershim Wall has fallen, there’s going to be a different kind of party.

On May 17, less than three weeks before the second annual NoHo Performing and Visual Arts Festival (Saturday and Sunday at the Academy Plaza), the solid wooden wall that had blocked off a vacant lot bordering Lankershim Boulevard and adjacent to the plaza area was finally brought down. Not surprisingly, festival organizers are exultant that the wall is gone just in time for the eclectic weekend events.

“That thing was ugly. Everybody is really happy that it’s gone,” said festival coordinator John McCrae. Universal City-North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jim Mahfet said commercial businesses on Lankershim “are delighted. We always believed that that wall was a visual obstacle. It was ominous. With it gone, this increases the look of the area 100%. Now people will actually be able to see the festival if they’re at the corner of Magnolia and Lankershim.”

The elimination of the wall, and its replacement with a black-painted chain-link fence, is especially welcome, since efforts to get rid of the wall before the 1993 festival were thwarted at the last minute. Only recently, the various interested parties, including the chamber, the television academy and the Community Redevelopment Agency (which currently owns the vacant lot), could agree on a deadline and method to replace the wall. City liability laws require that vacant lots be fenced.

Like the first edition, the ’94 festival aims to pack as much variety as possible into 48 hours. But though the event is designed to show off the fledgling NoHo arts district (still awaiting official designation by Los Angeles city officials), many of the acts holding forth on the tent-covered stage--as well as the vendors selling artwork, crafts and food--are not actually based in North Hollywood.

Most of the festival’s vendors, according to McCrae, operate on the road, moving weekly from festival to festival in California and through the West. Festival funding depends on the sale of vendor sites, but of the 130 possible sites, at the beginning of the week only 70 had been sold, McCrae said.

The Jan. 17 Northridge quake dislodged Actors Alley Repertory Theatre from its damaged home at El Portal Theatre. But the theater is making its temporary home in the plaza area, with this weekend as a kind of kickoff. Company actors will perform scenes from four previous productions (“Broadway,” “Cantorial,” “La Ronde de Lunch” and “Most Secret War”), but it’s only a teaser for the upcoming season of plays, slated to begin July 17.

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The only other theater group on the plaza performance stage is Art of the Dance, which itself is providing a space on its nearby Weddington Street property for a second tented performing stage.

Festival stage coordinator Susan Cheyno pointed to this additional festival space as a sign that the festival is growing, and Valley Theatre League spokesman David Cox said the stage was needed because “we have so many performances, and we want to make it even more festive.”

Unlike the main plaza stage, the second stage is reserved exclusively for theater groups during the day, including Lankershim-based Actors Workout, Burbank’s Alliance Repertory Theatre and Los Angeles-based Immediate Acting Company.

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Most main stage acts are newcomers; only the Art of the Dance company, Mike Latour’s On Stage dance troupe and leader Paul Tavenner’s jazz group, Man Alive, are returning from 1993.

With emcee (and Avaz International Dance Ensemble director) Boualem Boufseloub as guide, the audience can expect a wide range of music, including baritone soloist John Lombardi, baroque instrumentalists Donna and Mark Foster, recorder player John Sherman, singer-songwriter Rachel Pashall, Celtic musicians Pam Munro and Sean Walsh and jazzers Suburban Alphabet.

Dance will receive equal time, with dancer Joe Tremaine, Ballet Folkloric Mexico Azteca, the Perfumes of Arabe belly dancing group led by Mary Ann Cappa, and Kids on Stage dance troupe. Other children’s acts will include Bob Mills’ participatory “Crayon Sky” show and The Little People, a reputedly spunky clan of characters roaming the festival site.

If you tire of following The Little People, jump on a free, 44-seat shuttle headed for eight NoHo arts district theaters presenting scenes from current shows, from the Odessa Theatre and Group Repertory Theatre on the east, to Chandler Studio Theatre on the west. The maximum wait for the shuttle, 15 minutes, will be considerably shorter than the wait for the Lankershim Wall to come down.

WHERE AND WHEN

What: The second annual NoHo Performing and Visual Arts Festival.

Location: Academy Plaza, Lankershim and Magnolia boulevards, North Hollywood.

Hours: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday; 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Price: Free.

Call: (818) 508-5155.