It’s a Casual Fiesta--but Vital in Bringing Arts to Needy Schoolkids

“It started out as an excuse to have a good time,” said Linda Myerson Dean as she surveyed the crowd at Paramount Studios on Saturday night at Noche de Encanto, a fund-raiser for Inner-City Arts. What was a modest enterprise has evolved into a great example of grass-roots fund-raising in Los Angeles.

Dean, vice president of Wine Warehouse, a wine and beer distributor, said it began several years back when she and some friends decided to sponsor a yearly party for a good cause. “We arranged wine-tastings or theater parties for 100 or so--always fun, always casual,” she said. “When we ran out of charities about nine years ago, I investigated organizations that would use every dime of our hard-earned money. And that’s how I discovered Inner-City Arts,” she said.

Inner-City Arts is a 16,000-square-foot complex near skid row that offers arts instruction to public school students. It was founded in 1989 in response to arts education funding cutbacks.

More than 1,500 people turned out for the alfresco fiesta on the studio’s back lot, where they watched Brazilian dancers perform to the Latin funk sounds of 5 Degrees of Separation and sampled spicy cuisine from local Latino eateries.

“This year we wanted to celebrate the entire Latin culture because 85% of the youngsters served by Inner-City Arts are Latino.” Dean said. “It’s not a high-ticket affair. We’ve built our base because we keep it affordable for younger people.” (Tickets are $100 per couple--a bargain on today’s benefit circuit.)

Lively fifth-graders in bright yellow T-shirts from Esperanza School were on hand to demonstrate some of the things they’ve learned in Megan McChesney’s architecture class; and ICA resource coordinator Gerry De la Rosa proudly presided over an assortment of Rouault-ish self-portraits created by the third-grade class at Sierra Park School.

“The L.A. Unified School District buses the children twice a week during their regular school day for an eight- to 12-week session in one art form,” said Inner-City Arts executive director Cynthia Harnisch.

She said the center serves 8,000 students each year, most of them living in economically depressed conditions.

“There are thousands of children and 66 shelters and soup kitchens located in our half-mile corner of the city. . . . Our next step is making a bridge to the teenage years.”

Who knows? Among them may be a future Robert Graham or David Hockney.

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The Center Theatre Group’s musical adaptation of James Joyce’s “The Dead” is to die for. I admit my weakness for Hibernian hyperbole (it drives editors daft), but this version of Joyce’s story about a Christmas party in Dublin at the Ahmanson is a flawless little emerald. It’s only 100 minutes long with no intermission to break the spell. I loved it, and I’m still humming “Naughty Girls.”

After a standing ovation on opening night Wednesday, the hooley continued in the moonlight on the Performing Arts Center’s plaza. There, the stars joined Center Theatre Group supporters for a wee drop, Christmas turkey and hot fudge sundaes.