On summer nights on downtown Los Angeles's Bunker Hill, Grand
Performances presents free public concerts for the people of the city. A
hip hop orchestra, a mariachi musician, an Afropop singer, and a Chinese
modern dance company are just a few examples of the eclectic range of
artists employed to reflect the diversity of LA itself. At these
concerts, shared experiences of listening and dancing to the music
become sites for the recognition of some of the general aspirations for
the performances, for Los Angeles, and for contemporary public life.
In Sound, Space, and the City, Marina Peterson explores the
processes--from urban renewal to the performance of ethnicity and the
experiences of audiences--through which civic space is created at
downtown performances. Along with archival materials on urban planning
and policy, Peterson draws extensively on her own participation with
Grand Performances, ranging from working in an information booth
answering questions about the artists and the venue, to observing
concerts and concert-goers as an audience member, to performing onstage
herself as a cellist with the daKAH Hip Hop orchestra. The book offers
an exploration of intersecting concerns of urban residents and scholars
today that include social relations and diversity, public space and
civic life, privatization and suburbanization and economic and cultural
globalization.
At a moment when cities around the world are undertaking similar efforts
to revitalize their centers, Sound, Space, and the City conveys the
underlying tensions of such projects and their relevance for
understanding urban futures.
