LEIMERT PARK : Festival Features Cameroon Culture

Leimert Park, the unofficial center of African and African American arts in Los Angeles, got a cultural boost last week from a faraway source: Cameroon.

Nearly 150 Cameroonian artists have set up camp in a miniature African village in Leimert Park for a week of exhibits, music and dance performances. Although the festival is being held in conjunction with World Cup soccer, which includes the Cameroonian team, the Indomitable Lions, organizers say their larger goal is raising awareness about this Central African nation and its traditions.

“We see this as a great opportunity for a cultural exchange,” said Nana Maynard of Los Angeles, one of the organizers of the festival, officially dubbed Cameroon for USA ’94. “We don’t need governments or any other excuse to come together.”

The festival kicked off Friday after event volunteers constructed a tent-like village on the grassy expanse of Leimert Park at Crenshaw Boulevard and 43rd Place. Art exhibits, performances by the dance troupe Ballet Moderne and singer Coco Ateba will continue daily through Friday.

Maynard calls the project a “miracle in motion” because the event gelled in a matter of weeks on a shoestring budget. Officials at Jemea, a Cameroonian cultural promotion outfit, are footing most of the bill for the trip, about $150,000, and most of the accommodations for artists have been arranged at USC and at private homes.

Jemea began scouting for Los Angeles residents to help produce the event two months ago, after director Henri Manga fell in love with the idea of bringing a little bit of Africa to America, using the World Cup as a backdrop.

“You could say we were sort of commandeered into it,” publicist Ginger Campbell said with a laugh. “But it was such an exciting thing, you could hardly say no.”

Jemea, which means “will” or “determination” in the Cameroonian language of Duola, pulled together a team of about 20 producers here to organize the Los Angeles aspects of the event.

Producer Sequoia Mercier was named Jemea representative in California, a role the Crenshaw resident said has engulfed her life for the past several months but one she says has been worth the effort.

“What really captured me was the fact they wanted to bring so many artists here at once,” said Mercier, a nurse. “They wanted to introduce the whole world to Cameroon . . . so I said I would play matchmaker.”

Said architect Manga Duolla-Bell, a Jemea employee from Cameroon who designed the village and oversaw construction: “I chose Leimert Park because of its artistic personality and its African feel. It seemed the perfect place to bring both the African and American cultures together.”

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