Photo by Larry Rippel Flux No. 9, in April 2003, took place in three Oakland locations. The roving art party returns this year, for the first time in Braddock.

Almost seven years ago, a group of artists and activists put on the city's first Flux event, a one-night celebration of local art and music in a neighborhood poised for a comeback. They threw the party in a vacant car dealership in Friendship, which now houses the thriving Pittsburgh Glass Center.

		Flux Where: Braddock Avenue and Library Street, downtown Braddock. When: 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday. Admissions: $10; $8 students; beer and water will cost extra; www.artsfestival.net.

There were 11 more Flux parties -- among them one at the later Market -- before the event went on hiatus in 2004. With Flux returning this year, organizers thought about going back to the East End, but there was a problem: The neighborhood has become so built up that there were no vacant spaces big enough to hold them.

Organizers instead decided on holding the comeback in Braddock, which they think is poised to become a hip, art-infused community just like some other past Flux sites.

Flux is going to Braddock, said founder Traci Jackson, in part because of Braddock Mayor John Fetterman -- "what he's doing there and what his visions are."

The mayor "sees artists and young urban pioneers as real partners in redeveloping that community and bringing it back. He believes in adaptive re-use and saving the beautiful bones of that town and realizes the potential in those, and that's exactly what this event is about celebrating.

"Braddock is Penn Avenue seven years ago," Jackson said.

In some ways the Flux formula of holding parties in rebounding communities was too successful -- other nonprofits began holding similar events, and Flux lost some of its initial verve. Before coming back, organizers made changes, the biggest among them joining with the Three Rivers Arts Festival.

As part of the festival, Flux will hold three parties per year: one in Braddock, another Downtown around festival time and another in the fall at a location to be determined later. The deal, which goes through 2009, will help Flux with funding and staffing needs and help the Downtown-based festival deepen its connections with local artists and neighborhoods and give it a year-round presence.

Flux is also changing the way it works with artists. In the past, party organizers more or less just asked their friends to perform and present visual art at the events. Going forward, artists will be picked by artist coordinators, working within their areas of expertise.

It should result in a much deeper look at the diverse Pittsburgh arts scene, said Omar Abdul, a Flux artistic director, music promoter and outreach director at the Pittsburgh League of Young Voters. The artists he is bringing include hip-hop groups Lucid Music and Hands Down (DJ Huggy and Charon Don), and singer Joy Ike, a regular at Shadow Lounge.

"It's an artistic variety and artistic quality that represents the whole integrity of what Flux is supposed to be about -- on a newer level, to represent a new year and a new Flux," Abdul said.

More than 15 performances are scheduled by artists and DJs including Attack Theatre, Centipede E'est, JMalls, Nate the Phat Barber and Pandemic, and nearly 20 visual works by Beano, Tony Buba, Tim Kaulen, Mule Kicked Visions, Jennifer Lee and others.

Events will be held at the corner of Braddock Avenue and Library Street in downtown Braddock at sites including the A.J. Silberman Building, the Carnegie Library, the Braddock Elks Lodge and an art gallery, Dorothy 6, in the first floor of Mayor Fetterman's home.

As it has previously, Flux splits the money it makes at the door among its participating artists.

Like a hotel elevator that doesn't have a 13th floor, the event is being called "Flux 14" even though this is actually the 13th Pittsburgh Flux. "We were just being silly," Jackson explained.