COUNTY SELECTED TO JOIN ’86 ‘IMAGINATION’ FESTIVAL

Orange County will be one of 19 sites in the nationwide children’s arts festival “Imagination Celebration” to be held in March under the auspices of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The Kennedy Center in Washington has pledged $12,000 to help launch the fund-raising drive for the Orange County program, scheduled for March 8-15. The county program will be the only California locale for the 1986 “Imagination Celebration.”

The Kennedy Center’s director of education, Jack Kukuk, will meet with Orange County organizers Thursday evening in Newport Beach. Representatives from the event’s co-sponsors--the California Alliance for Arts Education, Orange County Performing Arts Center and Orange County Department of Education--are expected to attend the session.

The nationwide festival will focus on public and private community programs in the children’s art fields, including those for the disabled.

In Orange County, the program will include exhibits by children at the Brea and Mission Viejo shopping malls. Performances at the South Coast Repertory Theatre March 8 in Costa Mesa will feature singer-actor Burl Ives. Workshops and other exhibits are to be given throughout the county.

The 1986 event won’t be the first time the Kennedy Center has picked Orange County for a major festival. In 1981, the Kennedy Center-affiliated National Committee/Arts for the Handicapped co-sponsored “A Very Special Arts Festival” in Anaheim.