FESTIVAL BACK AFTER 'REST' EMPIRE STATE BLACK ARTS FEST RETURNS WITH NEW VIGOR IN JULY.(Living Today)

Byline: Judy Shepard Staff writer

After seven years, the folks behind the Empire State Black Arts and Cultural Festival took a break last year. This year, they are back - with a vengeance.

"We were not dead!" said Diana Ritter, president of the festival committee. "We were out there, planning. At this point, we have 106 people actively working on it."

The festival will return to the Empire State Plaza on Sunday, July 22, from noon to 7 p.m.

As always, it will serve as a showcase for the history, art and cultural heritage of African Americans.

But Ritter took care to stress that this year's festival will have its serious side.

The Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Center will hold a health clinic, giving free screening and referral for sickle cell anemia and blood pressure.

The day before the festival, 12 community forums will bring experts in the fields of black families, the black church, AIDS, minority business, local history and more, face-to-face with area residents in discussion and question-and-answer sessions.

The group meetings are free.

The last festival, held in 1988 under the direction of Ruth Carter, drew about 50,000 people to the plaza.

Ritter, an Arbor Hill resident and an associate budget examiner for the state Division of the Budget, handled the children's events that year.

Last year, the festival organizers decided they needed a break.

"The festival had been runnning for seven years, and those years had exhausted the people," Ritter explained. "What they did, they said, 'time out' to reassess, recruit new people and get new energy."

Things got started again last fall with a mass community mailing that created a large bank of volunteers.

Now the steering committee is working on developing corporate sponsorship.

"One of the things that happened was the state, which had helped us a lot, had financial difficulties, as it does this year," Ritter explained.

"OGS (the Office of General Servies) is still supporting us, but we decided not to rely on the state to the extent we had, and to tap into corporate sponsorship instead."

The committee is approaching area businesses with a "menu" of items corporations can put their names on.

In 1988, Eastman Kodak of Rochester brought a Disney Productions show. But small businesses can choose less ambitious options, such as sponsoring an exhibit or paying a speaker's fee.

Ritter is working with a steering committee made up of Judy Burgess at OGS; Andre Dawkins, director, and his assistant Flonzina Haizlip, at the Governor's Office of Black Affairs and Douglas Place of the Albany League of Arts.

Persons interested in contributing to this year's effort can contact the festival at P.O. Box 2292, Albany, N.Y. 12220.

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO - TIMES UNION PHOTO BY PAUL D. KNISKERN SR.

NEW VIGOR - Diana Ritter, president of the Empire State Black Arts and Cultural Festival committee, says it will showcase the history, art and cultural heritage of African-Americans.