Downtown Nocturne

I became part of an "accidental audience" Thursday night.

I finished work about six thirty and crossed the few hundred feet of California Plaza that separate the Bunker Hill office tower where I work from the Omni Hotel across the way. I noticed a crowd gathering around the Watercourt. I presumed they were gathering in anticipation of one of the summer concerts that frequently play there, but didn’t dawdle – I had signed up to attend a professional education session at the Omni and would be late if I didn’t hurry.

I made it to the meeting in time and sat through a lively discussion of the potential impact of blogs (of all things) on public relations practice. The consensus of the presenters seemed to be that my profession would soon be obsolete.

(I listened and shrugged. Speakers at events like these like hyperbole – it’s good for business.)

The meeting broke up shortly after eight. My intention was to stop back at my office to check e-mails one last time, but I never made it. As I stepped out of the Omni into the warm night air, I was greeted by enchanting and otherworldly music. There were gliding and plucking and clashing sounds and the melodies had a distinctly Chinese lilt.

As my steps took me further from the hotel, I realized that the crowd in the Watercourt was huge. Without too much effort, however, I found a spot overlooking the fountain (now converted into a stage) and watched the show.

In occidental terms, it was a variety show. There was music, both instrumental and vocal, plus acrobatics and demonstrations of martial arts. It was all delivered with vivid color and dash under the dark blue dome of a warm downtown Los Angeles night. I was transfixed.

The Chinese bring a special panache and verve to acrobatics. The stars of the show were two twelve year-old twin boys whose exploits had the audience roaring with delight, and a young woman whose balancing skill defies words and must be seen to be believed.

The show climaxed with a martial arts demonstration by a troupe of Shaolin monks from Henan province. No one actually became airborne in the manner of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers, but they frequently seemed on the brink. The audience was delighted. I certainly was.

Thursday night’s performance was another presentation of Grand Performances, a non-profit agency created by a Los Angeles municipal entity, the Community Development Agency (CRA), and funded to a significant extent by many of the corporations that own or inhabit the high-rise plazas along Grand Avenue on top of Bunker Hill.

Grand Performances has been at it for 18 years. What began as a handful of lunchtime presentations now includes as many as 30 lunch hour concerts and 35 evening shows every summer, all free to the public.

The Watercourt venue is dramatic. Perched at the top of Angel's Flight (the turn-of-the-century funicular railway that is still closed, unfortunately, but slated to reopen later this year), the Watercourt is a 1.5 acre public space. The jewel of the space is one of the largest and most splendid fountains in Southern California -- a water feature that can be quickly transformed into a performance stage with a waterfall and water jet backdroop. Built-in and temporary seating, plus ample standing room, can accommodate crowds of 6,500 or more.

As the Grand Performances staff likes to put it, the setting is ideal for the "accidental audience" experience:

Accidental Audiences [sic] are an important component at California Plaza... Whether as tourists coming to explore Downtown or for purposes of conducting business in Downtown's corporate office buildings, hundreds of people each week stumble on the rehearsals and performances taking place on the Plaza.

That's how it was for me Thursday night -- I stumbled onto something delightful.

As I made my way home, it dawned on me that I had been out and about at night in downtown Los Angeles three times in little more than a week. Tuesday night the week before, I walked down the Bunker Hill Steps to the Riordan Central Library to hear Ana Marie Cox, editor of the "Wonkette" blog that skewers George Bush's Washington with outrageous humor.

Then, last Tuesday night, I walked a couple of blocks up Grand Avenue to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center, to hear a panel discussion with the last four governors of California (Jerry Brown, by the way, was livelier, funnier and far more intellectually vital than the other three ex-governors in attendance, George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis).

And, finally, my Thursday night stumble into the troupe from Henan.

The rap on downtown used to be that it was deserted after eight o'clock, bereft of any nightlife worthy of the name.

That probably stopped being true some time ago. The last two weeks have certainly changed my sense of things, when it comes to downtown at night.

Downtown's renaissance has been in the works for some time. The low point, I'm sure, was 1992, in the wake of riot and recession. By the end of the decade, however, you could sense things changing. Staples Center started the ball rolling for downtown generally. On Grand Avenue, MOCA, the new Cathedral, the Colburn School and the Walt Disney Concert Hall have made a huge difference. So, too, has the loft movement and the increase in residential development in the central city.

I'm glad to see it. Downtown has always had a feel and a character that made it far superior to any other place in Los Angeles I've ever worked, including Century City, that ersatz downtown erected south of Beverly Hills in the '60s. I worked there in the early '90s and hated it. I still dislike going there. No wonder then, that I couldn't resist a smile when I picked up the Los Angeles Times yesterday and read a Martha Groves story about Century City's current woes, including the following observation over new plans to build condos nearby:

"I'm quite surprised they'd be putting up condos, because it's a business district, not a living district," said Dana Bauer, who has worked in Century City for 18 years. "This is not downtown…. It shuts down at 8 o'clock.[Italics mine.]"