Neal Ludevig, J.J. El-Far and Chelsea Goding stand at the newly refurbished amphitheater. Photo by Milos Balac/Northattan.
As the DJ suddenly cut out the ’80s dance music on a recent Wednesday night, a group of about 30 patrons hushed to a quiet. The crowd at Harlem’s Nectar Wine Bar listened as a 20-something brunette with a shock of red lipstick and a glint in her eyes picked up the microphone.
“This is not just an event,” said the woman, J.J. El-Far. “This is not just something we’re putting on in the park. This is a movement.”
“This” is the Harlem Arts Festival, which its organizers describe as Harlem’s first all-encompassing celebration of dance, theater, music and visual art by artists who are either based in Harlem or produce work focused on Harlem. El-Far is its creative director and, if everything goes according to plan, the recently renovated Richard Rodgers Amphitheatre in Marcus Garvey Park will host a two-day festival in late June.
On Nov. 30, El-Far, along with Neal Ludevig, 24, the organization’s executive director, and Chelsea Goding, 25, the development director, hosted a fundraiser at Nectar, raising just short of $300.
“We’re trying to start something creative and educational,” says Ludevig.
The idea for the festival came about in 2008, when El-Far, a theater producer, director and playwright who had just moved to East Harlem, started running through Marcus Garvey Park, where she says, the construction site at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheatre intrigued her.
“When I moved to Harlem I didn’t know anything about it except that I could afford it,” says El-Far. “To find out there was an amphitheater literally in my backyard, I was instantly like, ‘Who do I need to talk to?’”
El-Far says she was also struck by her new neighborhood’s rich art scene, which she said went unrecognized by other parts of the city.
“I noticed that the arts programming that happened in Harlem was of a fantastic quality. But there wasn’t an attempt to really make Harlem a destination for a show.”
El-Far came up with the idea for a multidisciplinary arts festival that would not only put the freshly redone amphitheater, which reopened to the public in June 2011, to good use, but also draw large audiences to see the artwork that existed in Harlem.
“We have a space. We have a wealth of artistry. Let’s put on a festival. We’re just connecting the dots that are already there.”
Last year, El-Far explained her plan to Ludevig, a friend from Brandeis University who moved to Harlem in 2010 and who works as a music agent in the New York jazz scene. Ludevig brought in Goding, a childhood friend and dance devotee, who was also living in Harlem and working in the education department at New York City Center.
In a few short months, they have been able to rally community support for their project, start recruiting a roster of participating artists and begin raising funds for production expenses and promotional materials, as well as park permits, which cost around $20,000.
Joyce Hanly, owner of the Harlem Jazz and Gospel Getaway, a brownstone inn located just off of Marcus Garvey Park, donated her space to the trio for a fundraiser in October.
“The issue with Harlem is that it’s very difficult to get people to come up there,” says Hanly. “Everyone downtown says, ‘Oh, all the way up there? Go to Harlem?’ Anybody that has connections with downtown people that can bring new people up to Harlem is doing a great service to the community.”
Proposed Festival Map. Photo courtesy of Harlem Arts Festival.
While the Harlem Arts Festival aims to bring new audiences to Harlem, it also wants to cater to longtime residents. Using their connections in the theater, music and dance industries, the group has reached out to some of Harlem’s biggest names – the Apollo Theatre, Harlem Stage, Rotary International, the Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association – for guidance, both creative and financial. The trio formed an artistic selection committee, as well as a festival steering committee, chaired by professionals from the local arts scene, to help guide them.
“We are open to the needs and wants of the community,” says Goding. “We want to present what they want to see.”
Simone Eccleston, programming manager at the Harlem Stage performing arts center, who is on the festival’s artistic selection committee, says that the Harlem Arts Festival fits perfectly in the local art scene.
“There are so many organizations that present work in Harlem, that the scene is thriving,” says Eccleston. “This festival just helps to complement and open it. It increases awareness and generates more participation in Harlem.”
Eccleston says that Harlem Stage will encourage artists that it works with to apply to the festival.
Global Tech Prep, a middle school in East Harlem, will provide the rehearsal space for the festival artists. Global Tech’s community coordinator, Homer Cook, who is on the festival steering committee, is developing an 11-week poetry apprenticeship for Global Tech students to work with local poets, and the students will present their work at the festival.
“Youth are not exposed to enough cultural and arts events today,” says Cook.
In Harlem, a community known for its historic importance to the African-American community, the youthful trio, consisting of Ludevig, whose heritage is Polish and Russian, El-Far, who is Palestinian, and Goding, who has a black mother and white father, says that some people don’t take them seriously because of their skin color.
“It’s a superficial hurdle,” says El-Far. “People that don’t know us can say, ‘they’re not black, they’re not Harlem, we don’t want anything to do with them.’ But we’re really persistent,” she laughs.
Pending its own tax-exempt status, the group has been collecting donations through Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit that raises funds on other organizations’ behalf.
“Many people are put off when you ask them to make a check out to you but tell them to write Fractured Atlas on the line,” says Goding.
The three friends also maintain full-time jobs, making it difficult to find time to devote to the project. But they use Google’s chat and document features to talk during the work day. Ludevig says he prioritizes his efforts for the Harlem Arts Festival over his other obligations.
Despite these hurdles, the three are confident that come June, Harlem will be home to a new creative extravaganza. All three say that if the festival takes off, it will become their fulltime job and they will commit themselves to making the festival an annual mainstay in the Harlem community.
“This will happen. Otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it,” says El-Far. “The worst possible case scenario is that we would have to take out a loan and finance the rest ourselves and pay it back. But this festival is going to happen.”
