Kristy Edmunds named director of UCLA Live performance series
Los Angeles Times
April 5, 2011
There's a long tradition of beauty pageant winners coming to Los Angeles to make their way in the creative world, but not by the route taken by Kristy Edmunds, who will be announced Tuesday as the next artistic and executive director of the financially struggling UCLA Live performance series.
Edmunds, who has been hired to program three seasons starting with 2012-13, made her name in Portland, Ore., as a builder of new contemporary arts programs. Her four years as artistic director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival in Australia extended her reputation as an impresario with impressive contacts and a flair for the adventurous and the offbeat.
She begins May 1; during her first year or so at UCLA she will continue to serve as consulting artistic director for a new performance program at New York City's Park Avenue Armory.
A filmmaker, choreographer, printmaker and installation artist in her own right, Edmunds, 45, spent her formative years in Washington state, Idaho (where she was a Miss Coeur d'Alene at the age of 16) and Montana, then made her name as a driving force in shaping the contemporary arts scene in Portland. In Melbourne she became a lightning rod, with each annual festival rekindling debate over whether she'd gone overboard with her penchant for presenting avant-garde work and unfamiliar artists.
