Grand Avenue Festival

It's been such a crazy week - more on that later - that I haven't been able to post about last Sunday's Grand Avenue Festival. The Grand Avenue Festival is by far our favorite LA festival (not that there are many to choose from). It's held every year on the first Sunday of autumn in the Grand Avenue Arts District (note: I just made up that name) - from the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), past Disney Hall (with RedCat - the CalARTS theater in Downtown), the Music Center (the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the newly renovated Mark Taper Forum & the Ahmanson Theater) & down Temple to the Cathedral Plaza. All of these venues offer free shows for the public all day long. There's also a tent on Grand Ave. for a drum circle & recitals, mariachi at the Cathedral (I'm so sorry we missed that this year) & arts & crafts for kids on the Music Center Plaza.

Zap, Zapita & I met up with one of Zapita's classmates & her father for an afternoon of arts & crafts, pizza & a few shows. On the way to lunch we listened to the Oaxacan Youth Band & watched the folklorico dancers again. After lunch we attended a special effects demonstration that Herbert Siguenza of Culture Clash ably hosted at the Mark Taper Forum, which looks much better after the two-year renovation. Here's one of the characters that was cruising the festival, encouraging people to attend the demonstration:


After the demonstration we headed over to RedCat to hear the CalARTS Latin Jazz Band perform. Everyone in the band is a current student at CalARTS (except the piano player - their teacher). They were amazing -- especially considering the fact that they first started playing together two weeks ago. Although Zap & I weren't as impressed by the vocalists, Zapita loved the woman on the left who sang one of Celia Cruz's standards.


After the Latin Jazz Band it was time to go home, but on the way out of RedCat we found a bunch of CalARTS students had made pastel pictures on the sidewalk between Grand & Hope. Bloody Mary was my favorite & is now my profile pic on Facebook.


In all it was a really fun day. I often leave the festival wondering why LA doesn't have more festivals like this each year. One thing I loved about living in SF was each district had a street festival every summer, so pretty much every weekend you could attend a festival. Also, those were especially fun because each festival reflected the culture within that district. Now that Downtown LA has experienced a renaissance there's a fantastic arts culture there, although the Grand Avenue Festival really only represents the establishment arts complex in the area. I often hear about art walks and other events in Downtown, but I'd love to see the galleries in the area organize a street festival to showcase other elements of the area. And we need a festival here in the Melrose District too.