Bruce Joseph

It's just three weeks before the start of San Diego's Soviet Arts Festival, the much-ballyhooed and much-maligned $6-million, three-week celebration of art in the age of glasnost , but artistic coordinator Bruce Joseph is amazingly calm. According to Joseph, all is going well: ticket sales, visas for the performers, all the myriad logistics of presenting "Treasures of the Soviet Union," which runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 11. If Joseph is feeling any pressure, he's not showing it.

The "Festival of Britain Orange County--1990," a countywide retail promotion and cultural event scheduled for Oct. 12 through 28, has hired an executive director and has announced 21 local arts and entertainment organizations that will participate. The festival is being co-sponsored by Costa Mesa's South Coast Plaza mall and the British consulate in Los Angeles. The executive director is Bruce Joseph, who coordinated "UK/LA '88--A Celebration of British Culture," a 12-week, $7.2-million gala that included presentations by Los Angeles and British arts organizations.

The "Festival of Britain Orange County--1990," a countywide retail promotion and cultural event scheduled for Oct. 12 through 28, has hired an executive director and has announced 21 local arts and entertainment organizations that will participate. The festival is being co-sponsored by Costa Mesa's South Coast Plaza mall and the British consulate in Los Angeles. The executive director is Bruce Joseph, who coordinated "UK/LA '88--A Celebration of British Culture," a 12-week, $7.2-million gala that included presentations by Los Angeles and British arts organizations.

It's just three weeks before the start of San Diego's Soviet Arts Festival, the much-ballyhooed and much-maligned $6-million, three-week celebration of art in the age of glasnost , but artistic coordinator Bruce Joseph is amazingly calm. According to Joseph, all is going well: ticket sales, visas for the performers, all the myriad logistics of presenting "Treasures of the Soviet Union," which runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 11. If Joseph is feeling any pressure, he's not showing it.

U.S. military officials identified the Navy pilot killed in a crash Friday as Lt. Bruce Joseph Donald of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Donald was the pilot of the F/A-18C Hornet strike fighter, a single-seater that crashed into the Persian Gulf, said a Navy spokesman. The jet lost contact with the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln during a routine test.

Is there another country in all the world that could have spread before the citizens of Los Angeles the artistic feast that the United Kingdom has spread in the two dazzling months of the UK/LA arts festival? There surely is none whose artistic treasures, thanks to the bond of culture and language, are so immediately accessible. Artists like Lynn Redgrave, Neville Mariner, David Hockney (who designed the poster for the festival) and the Monty Python comedians are Los Angeles household words.

Organizers of the Soviet arts festival announced Tuesday the inclusion of a movie festival and symposium featuring four Georgian film directors, the addition of three more eggs to the exhibit of Faberge eggs, and the creation of extensive festival-related educational programs for children. Arrangements were also solidified for the B St.

Irina Mikheyeva, the official representing Soviet cultural exchange programs with the United States, wrapped up a whirlwind four days of talks with San Diego arts leaders Tuesday, but she was unable to confirm the specific attractions and performers for the San Diego Soviet Arts Festival proposed for October, 1989. A spokesman for Mayor Maureen O'Connor and some of the arts leaders said they were nevertheless encouraged by Mikheyeva's visit and expect to have details worked out by Christmas.

The San Diego Unified Port District agreed Tuesday to spend $1.2 million to help underwrite Mayor Maureen O'Connor's Soviet Arts Festival. The money includes $500,000 as an outright grant and an additional $700,000 for the construction of a 7,000-square-foot exhibition hall on the B Street Pier. The exhibit space will house ancient Russian icons. The Board of Port Commissioners will also set aside more pier space for a large showing of folk art during and after the festival next October.

A Los Angeles man with experience as an international arts festival coordinator was selected Wednesday to be artistic director of San Diego's upcoming Soviet arts festival. Bruce Joseph, 36, was chosen "because of his vast experience, superior organizational skills and creative artistic vision," said Bruce Herring, executive director of San Diego Festivals Inc., a nonprofit advisory board formed by Mayor Maureen O'Connor earlier this month to organize the festival.

Organizers of "UK/LA: '88--A Celebration of British Arts," which ended Sunday, say their festival was a success. But some prominent local participants aren't so sure. "Our purpose was to do a collaboration between L.A. and the United Kingdom, and to heighten the profile of British arts and culture in the Southland," said festival coordinator Bruce Joseph. "That was achieved very admirably."

When Donald Ballentyne saw how much interest the Los Angeles community seemed to have in Great Britain and how enthusiastically the city responded to the Los Angeles Festival, his decision two years ago to coordinate a British arts event was made much easier.