National Student Festival : Imagination Celebration Lets Children Get Up Close and Personal With Arts

Starting Saturday, your pint-sized Picassos and Pavarottis will be able to explore their creative impulses in nine days of workshops, performances and exhibits across Orange County.

It’s all part of the 1988 Imagination Celebration, a national student arts festival designed by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to inspire a greater appreciation of the arts among young people.

This year’s celebration, the third annual, will involve more than 40 Orange County arts and education groups and is expected to reach more than 250,000 children of all ages. Sponsored locally by the California Alliance for Arts Education, the Orange County Department of Education and the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the county’s Imagination Celebration is one of 18 this year in the United States and abroad.

Although the celebration officially begins this weekend, several warm-up events have already been held, including a benefit concert by Grammy Award-winner Toni Tennille at the Orange County Performing Arts Center and an all-day arts carnival at the La Habra Children’s Museum. Coming up Friday at 8 p.m. is a free Young Soloists Concert at Chapman College featuring local musicians ages 8 to 16 performing with the Orange County Philharmonic Orchestra. (Call (714) 642-8232 for more information.)

In addition to the events listed below, programs will be held every weekday in elementary, junior high and high schools from Brea to San Clemente, ranging from traveling exhibits from the Laguna Art and Bowers museums to chamber concerts presented by the Orange County Philharmonic Society. Here is a schedule of the public events:

Saturday

MainPlace

2800 N. Main St., Santa Ana

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“Fantastic Voyage,” the Very Special Arts Festival at MainPlace, will showcase the artistic accomplishments of Orange County’s disabled students. Performers will include the Very Special Arts Honor Choir, the El Encanto Echoes (presenting popular songs in American Sign Language) and hand bell choirs from Costa Mesa’s Fairview Development Center and Santa Ana’s Carl Harvey School, as well as solo performers from schools and centers countywide. Workshop topics will range from basic arts and crafts to hands-on exploration of computers, and more than 1,000 pieces of visual art by special education students will be displayed throughout the mall.

All performances will be held on the mall’s main level near Nordstrom; workshops will take place on the second level near Bullocks. A complete schedule of events will be available at the information and registration booth in the central court.

Bowers Museum

2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana

10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Bowers Museum Imagination Celebration Carnival will feature a dozen performances and audience-participation shows, presented on the museum’s courtyard stage by such groups as the Relampago del Cielo folklorico dance troupe and the Gloria Newman Dance Company. Children and adults can take part in outdoor workshops in print and puppet-making, pottery, pinatas and more, and can reserve space in more intensive classes, from Japanese floral arranging to oil painting, in the museum’s education wing. (Call (714) 972-1382 for reservations.)

Paul Apodaca, the museum’s folk art curator, will spin traditional tales in the museum’s Native American Gallery at 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m., and a music workshop will be presented by “Strings of Glass” in the Irvine Gallery hourly between 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. Museum docents will lead special “Imagination Tours” through the museum on the hour. International food will be available throughout the day at courtyard concession stands.

Mission Viejo Mall

27000 Crown Valley Parkway, Mission Viejo

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Anaheim Plaza

500 N. Euclid St., Anaheim

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Westminster Mall

195 Westminster Mall, Westminster

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Mission Viejo Mall, Anaheim Plaza and Westminster Mall will host shows, exhibits and workshops for children of all ages. Workshops will cover mask-making, folk dancing, face painting, calligraphy and cartooning, and students from schools, cultural centers and children’s theater groups countywide will perform. Complete schedules will be available at each location.

Laguna Art Museum

307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach

Workshop: 3 p.m.

Concert: 7:30 p.m.

Music in the Museum, a continuing series offered by the Laguna Art Museum, introduces children to the relationship between music and visual arts. On Saturday, cellist Melissa Hasin will demonstrate the range and diversity of the cello in a hands-on workshop; that evening, Hasin and the Classic Action fusion group will present a concert for the entire family. Tickets, $5 to $7, will be sold at the door. The workshop is free, but reservations are requested. Call (714) 494-6531.

Sunday

Laguna Niguel Regional Park

La Paz Road (between Crown Valley and Aliso Creek), Laguna Niguel

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

An all-day festival at Laguna Niguel Regional Park will include sand castle building, storytelling and mime workshops as well as drawing classes and fine art exhibits. Festivities also will include a look at local wildlife and performances by roving clowns and dance and musical groups.

Wednesday

Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center

600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

4:30 and 7:30 p.m.

The KanKouran West African Dance Company will add a global perspective with two free performances in the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Founders Hall. The official touring company of the national Imagination Celebration, the troupe will present the colorful folklore of Senegal and other African cultures through music and dance with authentic instruments and costumes. Seating is limited; tickets can be reserved in advance through the Arts Center box office, (714) 556-ARTS.

April 30

South Coast Plaza Village Mercantile Building

3840 S. Plaza Drive, Santa Ana

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Creativity will be king in The Imaginarium at South Coast Plaza Village when a diverse group of performing and visual artists perform under one roof for a full day of fun.

Whether it’s the grace and beauty of ballet or the wackiness of improvisational theater, the Imaginarium’s menu should include a performance to suit every taste. Among the performers will be the Black Actors Theater Dance Workshop for Youth, South Coast Repertory’s Young Conservatory Players, the Pandemonium Word Ballet and Literary Circus, St. Joseph’s Ballet, Super Shakespeare and the Newport/Mesa Honor Choir. Samplings of Japanese Koto music, mime and Chinese martial arts also will be featured.

Workshops will include face painting, presented by the Orange County Children’s Museum, and a three-dimensional art show for the blind (or blindfolded) by Artists Helping Artists. Children also will have a chance to try poetry writing, photography, mural painting, improvisational music and clay modeling. The Orange County Philharmonic Society’s Music Mobile and the Bowers Museum Mobile Arts Museum also will be on hand.

Segerstrom Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center

600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

Starting at noon

High school and college choral groups from throughout the county will gather for the Second Annual Choral Festival, to be presented by the Pacific Chorale at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Student performances and an open rehearsal will begin at noon. The event will culminate at 7:30 p.m. with a full concert by the college choirs and a presentation of Perischetti’s setting of the Te Deum by the Pacific Chorale and eight student singers. The public is invited to come and go throughout the day. Tickets range from $2.50 to $7. For details, call the center at (714) 556-ARTS or the Pacific Chorale at (714) 542-1790.

Laguna Art Museum

307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach

Workshop: 3 p.m.

Concert: 7:30 p.m.

New Age jazz artist Jesse Allen Cooper will explore the relationship between sound and visual art as the Music in the Museum series continues. Tickets to the concert are $5 to $7; the workshop will be free.

May 1

Segerstrom Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center

600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

3 p.m.

Imagination Celebration Internationale will be a program of songs and dances from many cultures. The AMAN Folk Ensemble, a Los Angeles troupe that appeared in the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics, will perform. Free tickets can be picked up in advance at the Arts Center box office. (No phone reservations.)

In addition to the one-day events, a number of displays and tours will take place throughout the Imagination Celebration at area museums, libraries and schools. These will include displays of student art at the Children’s Museum of La Habra (through April 30) and at all Orange County public libraries (Saturday through May 1). The docents of the Bowers Museum will offer special Imagination Tours daily at 1 p.m. throughout the celebration, except Monday.

For details on any part of the 1988 Imagination Celebration, call the festival’s 24-hour hot line: (714) 556-ARTS.