Uptown Downtown Artown a month long with endless variety

Scott Sonner

Friday, June 18, 1999 | 6:05 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - From the artwork of Miles Davis, John Lennon and Jerry Garcia, to dance troupes, a Cuban jazz band and anonymous authors who will "write for food," a town better known for slot machines and craps is gearing up for a monthlong arts festival.

A variety of cities around the world boast the largest opera festivals, blues festivals, ballet festivals, film festivals, theater festivals, folk festivals, etc.

But on the banks of the Truckee River, in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada, Reno's fourth annual Uptown Downtown Artown festival is trying to stake a claim as the one that offers a taste of it all - each and every day for the month of July.

Where else can you find on the same program the Diablo Ballet of San Francisco, the North American Basque Convention, Chautauqua-style storytelling and the work of Beso Kazaishvili, a 13-year-old Soviet boy who survived Soviet Georgia's bloody civil war to become a child prodigy painter for peace?

Not to mention blues singer Zakiya Hooker, daughter of guitar great John Lee Hooker, and the first major American exhibition since 1921 of the work of Czech designer Alphonse Mucha, one of the top decorative artists of turn-of-the-century Paris.

"It's a Lollapalooza of a festival," said Annie Blanchley, a publicist for the festival.

"You can find free art virtually every morning, afternoon and evening every day of July."

Uptown Downtown Artown started four years ago as an attempt to fill a tourism gap between the Reno Rodeo in June and the Hot August Nights car rally.

But it's turning into a promising part of civic leaders' efforts to revive the Biggest Little City In the World and restore its sense of community.

"One of the things we are trying to do downtown is create an attractive safe place for Reno families," Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin said.

"If we do that, they will have a reason to come back downtown and that will spill over into our tourism base."

Karen Craig, the festival's executive director, said there was a lot of skepticism when area arts and business leaders first hatched the idea for the event.

"It used to be that people would say no one would come to Reno for the arts," Craig said.

A few local casino operators and other corporate executives reluctantly agreed to be sponsors "more as a community service," she said.

"But now they are talking about its marketing potential. Now the casinos say it is an image they want. It paints a picture of quality and sophistication that Reno would love to have out there," she said.

The festival roams around town, from the downtown casino district that flourished in the 1940s and 1950s, to the University of Nevada campus and old neighborhoods dating to the turn of the century.

It's based along the Truckee River, a cold, mountain river that races from Lake Tahoe 30 miles away, down the eastern front of the Sierra Nevada and through the middle of town.

Craig got her start at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

"It's sort of an avante garde version of the Lincoln Center in a rancid section of Brooklyn," Craig said.

Craig arrived from Colorado, where she gained experience in arts in a tourist-based economy at the Telluride Institute.

The "boom and bust" economy of the Colorado ski town taught her about the need for arts to help serve as a backbone to a community, Craig said.

In most resort areas, there is little sense of community, she said. And she recognized the same thing when she arrived in Reno.

"From what you read, locals don't go downtown. They don't want to live downtown. They certainly don't take their kids downtown," Craig said.

"In general, locals don't speak highly about the place where they live. It's like it's not their home town. Reno is somebody else's vacation."

And yet, Reno is bustling with the arts, she said. A good share of the local community doesn't know that Reno boasts its own art museum, opera company, ballet, symphony and chamber orchestra.

"Most huge urban areas can't support all of those. They might have two of those. Yet Reno has supported most of them for 30 years. The ballet has been around 15 years," Craig said.

Blachley said the local support has helped the festival survive at a time federal and state spending on the arts continues to decline.

Blachley formerly worked as an organizer of the Ojai arts festival in Southern California. She was born and raised in Manhattan, frequently visiting Greenwich Village.

"Art was everywhere. I loved the spontaneity. This festival does the same thing," she said. She's especially fond of the impromptu street ballet that pops up on Reno street corners in July.

"I just love what the arts can do for a community. It puts a smile on your face," she said.

Uptown Downtown Artown would cost about $1.1 million if any single group were to sponsor it. Instead, 50 non-profit groups have teamed up to provide and promote the performances.

"We spread the risk. No single entity covers more than 8 percent of the cost," Craig said.

About 30,000 people attended the first year, about 71,000 last year.

As the festival becomes more popular, local charities have tried to find new ways to fit in.

The Food Bank of Northern Nevada sponsors a Wednesday night series of world music, from Hawaiian and reggae to jazz and the dance band from Havanna Cuba. Sponsors ask a $2 donation or a can of food for admission.

In addition, the local Unnamed Writers group will offer the spontaneous prose for food contributions to the bank.

"They'll role a die and then write for you for anywhere from one minute to six minutes about whatever word you choose. They might write about 'rutabaga,"' Blachley said.