Festivals Los Angeles County

Emily Eder and Natalie Kenly, both dressed in silk-screened robes, looked like Japanese geishas as they performed a traditional dance Friday at a multicultural festival at Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies. The 13-year-olds were among some 500 sixth- and seventh-graders taking part in the fourth annual Multicultural Medieval Faire at the LAUSD magnet school. The older students hosted the event to promote cultural awareness among the younger students.

The West Coast movie premiere of a newly revamped concert film, "Elvis: That's the Way It Is (Special Edition)," headlines the sixth annual WideScreen Film Festival on Friday evening at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach.

The movies have been good to cowboys. Buckaroos like John Wayne never lied, cheated or stole--and loved their country to boot. The movies have been good to Santa Clarita too. This city's spare canyons have provided the lonesomely scenic backdrop to many a western shoot'em-up. The community named a park and high school after movie legend William S. Hart, who lived in Newhall from 1928 to 1946.

In this age of computer music, of punk and rap and acid jazz, they came by the thousands Sunday to a hootenanny. They came to hear hobo songs and square dance, to catch cowboy poets and duelin' banjos. And when they came across a man playing a saw, they stopped and watched and clapped. Many came with their own instruments.

Last month's city-sponsored cowboy poetry festival spurred the local economy by more than $244,000, Santa Clarita's top economic development official has announced. Based on a survey of 200 festival-goers--one-tenth the number believed to have bought tickets--nearly $250,000 was spent on Santa Clarita Valley hotels, restaurants and entertainment sites by festival patrons during the three-day event, according to Mike Haviland, economic development coordinator.

About 30 area artisans will exhibit and sell their wares Saturday and Sunday at the Nature Center in Topanga State Park in an effort to raise funds and help support the park's volunteer program. In the first Santa Monica Mountains Gathering of Arts festival, fine arts and crafts--including paintings of California parks, pottery and ceramic sculptures, handmade porcelain tiles, decorative tile tables, photographs, jewelry and rustic handmade furniture--will be available for purchase between 10 a.

Oklahomans who fled a Depression-era drought for California's farm belt were remembered Sunday during the Okie Fest, a celebration of food, music and history. Sponsored by the Okie Girl restaurant, the festival attracted hundreds of people Sunday morning, many of them the offspring of the impoverished farmers memorialized in John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath."

Sounds like your basic county fair: carnival rides, horse racing, ice cream melting in the sweltering temperatures of a September in Pomona. And then there's the virtual reality dinosaur ride. Ah, well, even traditions as great as the Los Angeles County Fair, which began its 68th run Friday, have to change with the times. The nation's largest county fair was born in a beet and barley field in 1922 and has continued every year since, except for a hiatus during World War II.