By Louis Medina

Alan Spirit Hawk Salazar, a Chumash storyteller and educator, will be a guest at the Center of the World Festival and amateur playwright competition in Pine Mountain Club August 14-16. Photo courtesy of Lee Dunnavant, Center of the World Festival

PINE MOUNTAIN CLUB –  At the base of skyscraping Mount Pinos, in what mobile phone carriers would call a dead zone – uncannily echoing the Chumash name Iwihinmu for “mysterious place” or “place nobody knows where” – a colorful, multifaceted festival is about to take place.

From August 14 – 16, the Pine Mountain Village Gazebo will provide the main stage for the first annual Center of the World Festival. Taking its name from the Chumash, who also call Mount Pinos Liyikshup, or “Center of the World,” the festival will

Joe Ladin is one of the amateur actors from Free Speech Zone Theater who will be performing reader's theatre style at the Center of the World Festival.

combine Chumash storytelling, prayers and other traditions, music, a fundraiser for the Kern Chapter of the American Red Cross, and the festival’s centerpiece event: an amateur playwright competition whose theme is peaceful conflict resolution.

Keeping the Balance: Peace of Mind Plays

“The theme itself is based upon the Chumash concept of maintaining balance with the universe and mankind,” said festival organizer Dr. Shelia Clark, a semi-retired clinical psychologist and Red Cross volunteer who is also an amateur playwright/director. “We have received submissions to this competition from all over the country and one even from Canada,” she said. Ten short plays were selected and will be performed in reader’s theater fashion, with actors reading from their scripts expressively while standing behind microphones. The actors are all local volunteers, many from Pine Mountain Club’s own amateur Free Speech Zone Theatre.

For Joe Ladin, 48, participating in the festival is a family affair. He is on the event planning committee, a master of ceremonies and one of the actors; his wife, Bobbie, is also an actor/playwright/director; their son, Trenton, 18, is a director and handles lights, props and sound backstage. Ladin sees the festival as having great value for people “who haven’t had their work performed to see what it’s like when another person reads the words and puts some expression into it.”

There are plays about God and Satan, college students in a dorm arguing over toilet paper, the human conflict unleashed by the winds and waters of Hurricane Katrina, men waiting for the women in their lives, and immigrants in California – hailing from Oklahoma 70 years ago and Latin America today. The plays will be performed in two competition rounds at 1 and 8 p.m. August 15, and the audience will get to vote for their favorite piece. The winning playwright will receive $500 in an award ceremony on August 16. A community songfest and picnic amid the lush mountain greenery will end the festivities.

Chumash culture

During the festival’s opening ceremony at 7 p.m. Aug. 14, a special honor will be bestowed upon Pete Crowheart Zavalla, a 64-year-old Comanche who married into the Chumash tribe and works as a tribal liaison for the Los Padres National Forest. He will be recognized for his efforts in protecting the residents of Pine Mountain Club from the 2006 Day Fire, while safeguarding Chumash sacred sites on Mount Pinos that could otherwise have been desecrated by firebreak-cutting bulldozers. Zavalla said he did this by convening tribal elders and enlisting the help of American Indian volunteer fire crews from all over the country.

Zavalla’s friend, Alan Spirit Hawk Salazar, 58, a Chumash and Pine Mountain Club resident, said Zavalla has worked “tirelessly” to protect the Chumash culture. A storyteller and educator, Salazar will present Zavalla with gifts from the community after entertaining the audience with stories and songs about Bear, Eagle, Coyote, Dolphin and other creatures admired or revered by the Chumash.

Helping the local Red Cross

All festival events are free, but the audience will be asked to donate to the Red Cross to support the Kern Chapter’s first Mental Health Disaster Response Team, which Clark and other volunteers formed this year to provide emergency counseling and “psychological first aid” following a natural or manmade crisis.

“I actually didn’t know it was a benefit for the Red Cross…and that makes it all the better,” said Lonon Smith, a semi-retired writer whose play, “Waiting for Women,” is competing in the festival. The 64-year-old Sacramento resident used to live in Pine Mountain Club until 2003, when a propane explosion burned down his 3,000-square-foot home in half an hour. He and his now late wife got out alive with literally “just the clothes on our backs,” he said.

While they were staying at a motel after the fire, a Red Cross volunteer gave them money to buy clothes. “It wasn’t that it was a lot of money, it was that it was money at a time when we needed to be helped,” he said. “I try to give back to them. I don’t have a lot of money now, so I give blood.”

“We’re in a bad economy,” Smith said, “and we need to support those organizations that underpin us in hard times.”

Louis Medina is one of the playwrights whose 10-minute play, “Common Denominators,” will be featured at the Center of the World Festival with nine other competing plays.

More information:

The First Annual Center of the World Festival, featuring a competition of 10 short amateur “Keeping the Balance: Peace of Mind Plays” on peaceful conflict resolution, will take place

Aug. 14-16 at the Gazebo in the Pine Mountain Village as follows:

• 7 p.m. Aug. 14: Chumash ceremonial prayers, storytelling, playwright introductions, dramatic and musical entertainment
• 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. Aug. 15: Two competition rounds of 10 plays presented in “reader’s theater” style, with voting from the audience
• 1 p.m. Aug. 16: Awards ceremony ($500 Grand Prize for the winning playwright) followed by a community “JamFest” and picnic.

How to get there: From Bakersfield, Take Highway 99 south to Interstate 5 toward Los Angeles. Exit at Frazier Mountain Road/Frazier Park (Exit 205) and go west on Mt. Pinos Way (the road will change names to Cuddy Valley Road). After about 12 miles, look for the Forest Service sign on the right. Soon after that, you will come to a fork in the road. Take the right fork, Mil Potrero Highway, and drive for 6 miles into the center of Pine Mountain Club. Look for the golf course on the right and Pine Mountain Fuel Station on the left. Watch for the parking signs. The gazebo is up the hill from the fuel station.

Admission: Requested freewill monetary donations to the Kern County Red Cross, to support the formation of its first ever local Mental Health Disaster Response Team

Contact: www.cowfestival.org or P.O. Box 1929 Frazier Park, CA 93225-1929