Visa Red Tape Is Tying Up Arts Venues

An epidemic of canceled appearances by foreign performers unable to secure visas to enter the United States because of stepped-up post-Sept. 11 security checks has brought growing frustration and a mounting threat of economic losses for performing arts presenters.

The cancellations have been considerable in Southern California alone over the past two weeks, affecting artists from the Middle East, Cuba and Japan. The roster includes the Whirling Dervishes of Damascus, who had been scheduled this weekend at the World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles; the Toronto-based Persian pop singer Googoosh, who was to have performed Saturday at Staples Center; and the Afro-Cuban All-Stars, who have canceled their entire 20-date U.S. tour, including a Nov. 14 show at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

Also failing to secure visas in time were the members of Hanayui, an all-female folk music and dance ensemble from Japan that was to have performed Saturday at the Aratani Japan America Theatre in Los Angeles.

The cancellations started cropping up this summer, ranging from Iranian theater performers unable to appear at New York’s Lincoln Center to a Welsh harpist and Russian concert pianists who had been booked by classical music festivals.

While government officials maintain they are taking steps to rectify the situation, members of the arts community remain dubious and are organizing a campaign urging Congress to focus on the problem.

“The goalposts are being constantly moved” when it comes to the time required to secure artists visas, complained David Sefton, director of UCLA’s heavily international performing arts program. “There is a sense that it is completely unpredictable.”

Others are pointing to more philosophical concerns.

“Art is not terrorism, art is the antidote to terrorism and hate,” said Mickey Hart, former drummer of the Grateful Dead and a leading figure in world music circles, who said he intended to start raising the issue publicly with his performance at Sunday’s closing ceremony for the World Festival of Sacred Music at the Greek Theatre. “The idea is to expose this travesty to the American people.”

Sefton estimated that each cancellation costs his program $5,000 to $30,000 in advertising and promotional costs absorbed and profits forgone, which becomes multiplied as arts presenters nationwide absorb the losses.

“If 10 tours go down in a year, you’re talking about millions of dollars in hits across the country,” he said. “We’re looking at huge losses none of us are in a position to sustain.”

The Afro-Cuban All-Stars, an offshoot of the popular Buena Vista Social Club, have previously traveled the U.S. and were scheduled to return with a 17-city tour, beginning Nov. 1 in Madison, Wis. Many of the shows were planned for large universities that, in many instances, serve as primary presenter of cultural programming in their regions.

The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act, enacted in the spring, places Cuba on a list of seven nations considered to be “state sponsors of terrorism.” The other nations are Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and North Korea. The law requires that visa applicants from those countries undergo extra background checks, which can prolong the process.

Another post-Sept. 11 measure requires a 20-day waiting period and heightened security checks for would-be travelers from 26 other countries; the U.S. State Department will not say which are on the list, but arts presenters say they appear to be predominantly Islamic countries in Asia and North Africa.

The long-standing visa process for artists involves two steps: First, the Immigration and Naturalization Service must determine that a performer is highly distinguished or culturally unique--and therefore not snatching work from Americans who could do it just as well. Then the performer must get clearance from an overseas U.S. Consulate.

New, more stringent security checks are being applied at both steps along the way to determine whether applicants are on watch-lists compiled by intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon acknowledged last week that the system was clogged at first but said things should improve because of “better processing procedures” installed in recent weeks.

“The system previously wasn’t designed to handle the new security measures,” she said. “It took some time to put them in place, but we’re able to move them through now without compromising security.”

But many arts presenters already have lost confidence in the system and fear more problems. Four members of a loose-knit consortium of world music presenters and behind-the-scenes operatives say they will start a campaign this week to raise public awareness of the bureaucratic logjams that are preventing or calling into question many scheduled performances.

“We are organizing at a national level to try to offer reasonable alternatives that accommodate national security but avoid the trauma and hardships” resulting from the unpredictable visa process, said Bill Martinez, a San Francisco immigration lawyer.

Martinez has started a committee with Isabel Soffer of the World Music Institute, a leading traditional music and dance producer in New York City, along with Phyllis Barney, executive director of the Folk Alliance, a nonprofit service organization in Maryland for folk arts presenters, and Alison Loerke, a Seattle-based agent for world music acts.

They plan to propose new regulations granting special visa-expediting consideration for foreign artists who have proven track records of successful, law-abiding touring in the United States, especially when they are being booked by well-established presenters.

“Artists who have been here 15 times and been written up in every major paper--to all of a sudden start questioning their backgrounds is a little backward,” Soffer said. “I think having a separate category for artists is a practical step.”

Many of the artists who have had to cancel shows recently because of visa problems have performed here before, including Cuban singer-songwriter Pablo Milanes and the popular dance band from the same country, Los Van Van. The expatriate Iranian singer Googoosh performed at a sold-out Great Western Forum in 2000.

Jan Denton of the American Arts Alliance, a lobby for performing arts presenters, said her group is proposing legislation to help small nonprofit presenters who can’t afford the $1,000 fee that the INS has required for speeded-up visa processing since June 2001. If the INS did not act on their visa applications within a month, Denton said, the nonprofit presenters automatically would get the faster 15-day “premium” treatment for free.

Sam Chapman, chief of staff for Sen. Barbara Boxer, said congressional staffs have intervened in the past for arts presenters with visa problems. But he said there is nothing they can do now when an applicant is hung up in security clearance checks.

“We get calls like this regularly,” he said Friday. “We’ve seen so much of it that it’s worth raising at a higher level” within the State Department, to see what might be changed to improve the process.

Sefton, the UCLA performing arts director, said that visa woes have been a time drain as well: He and three of his staff members spent the better part of a week recently trying to get the visa process unstuck for some European performers in his international theater festival. “They’re all coming now, but all normal work grinds to a halt.”

Normal decision-making on what acts to book is going out the window too. Sefton said an agent called him last week hoping he would book artists from the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music for next season.

“It’s from Morocco, and I think, ‘We won’t get them in,’ ” Sefton said. “It makes me think about not booking certain major, respected artists. I think if nothing changes and I’ve lost five or six tours this season, when I come to confirm things for next year, I’ll have to make drop-dead financial choices on whether I can take the risk. That’s a despicable position to be put in.”

One area presenter has received some good news. Dean Corey, director of the annual Eclectic Orange Festival in Costa Mesa, said that Friday was “a lucky day”--it appeared that visa problems had been solved for three Moroccan horse riders and a Cuban dancer whose absence probably would have jeopardized the performances of Theatre Zingaro, the international equestrian troupe that is the festival’s cornerstone event, with a 20-show engagement starting Oct. 12.