Ed Fuentes

This warehouse will serve as a temporary Arts District community arts center.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The Arts District will hold two evenings of art and music on Saturday and Sunday, May 1-2, the second in a set of demonstration projects intended to bring attention to the ongoing effort to develop a community arts center for the enclave east of Alameda.

"Our first effort was Padua Playwrights' 'A Thousand Words' at Art Share LA," says Arts District May Day co-organizer Tim Keating, who has led the arts center campaign. "The idea is a series of events that mirror the community and its theater artists, musicians, and media producers. We would do this every weekend if One Sante Fe ever breaks ground."

The developer of the 429-unit residential project promised 5,000 square feet to the arts community in 2007, but economic changes have thus far kept the project from breaking ground.

Not that Arts District veterans ever needed permanent space to hold an event. This weekend, the ad hoc venue will be two majestic, adjoining former warehouses that have been a popular film location in recent years. Construction noise from the widening of the First Street bridge has interrupted filming, leaving the spaces available for use.

The one-weekend community arts center will have Saturday and Sunday night feature workshop scenes from Padua Playwrights' "Hotel Barbot," digital projections by Padua, Debora Deibler and LA Artstream, and screenings of "The Furies: A Triptych," compiled from experimental experimental footage.

Posi-Tone Records, an Arts District-based international jazz label, will host "Jazz on Mayday" with Bagg/Ferber Project and the Vinnie Golia Sextet on May 1, John Nau Quintet and Joe Gaeta Trio on May 2.

Arts District May Day / 120 and 100 N. Santa Fe (Just north of the First Street Bridge)/ May 1 and May 2 / 7pm to Midnight / Weiland's Brewery-hosted beer & wine cash bar / Sponsored by LADADSPACE and LARABA Admission is Free