Beautiful art, music, weather, and sport made for a great time yesterday at Vista Hermosa Natural Park just west of downtown Los Angeles.
The First Annual Outpost Cup featured a soccer tournament organized by urbanist Jeremy Rosenberg and music and artistic performances curated by Carolyn Castano.
Twenty-four teams competed in three categories: competitive, casual, and family. Interest was so strong organizers closed registration and had a list of alternates.
Proceeds will benefit the Outpost for Contemporary Art and its plan to bring six artists from South America to Southern California.
Many teams included artists and others from the creative world.
LA's Museum of Contemporary Art was represented by the "Big Wheelers," named for the team's captain, who restored Chris Burden's 1979 work ""The Big Wheel." The team played in the Casual series of games held in the afternoon.
The Competitive group kicked off play in the morning with twelve teams from as a far away as San Francisco. They took play very seriously. Burbank Red Machine defeated Romero and Associates to win the Copa Cup, a trophy handmade by artists Carolyn Castano and Reanne Estrada.
In mid-afternoon the group "Homeless" from Mexico City took over one of the two fields for a performance/soccer match between squads named "guerrillas" and "dictators." Meantime, The Egg wandered the sidelines as a DJ from Dublab played 1980s Argentinian pop.
Other highlights included Karen Anzoategui's solo piece about Argentinian soccer star Diego Maradona and a pay-what-you-will lemonade and pie stand by Delicious Beverages.
UCLA's John Ramey, Jennifer Doyle of UC Riverside and the blog From A Left Wing (http://fromaleftwing.blogspot.com/), and I shared MC duties.
Other event co-organizers were Julie Deamer and Leticia Ivins.
More about the Outpost for Contemporary Art, at www.southamerica.outpost-art.org.
More about Vista Hermosa Natural Park at lamountains.com/parks.asp?parkid=672.
