Talented Youngsters Get Chance to Improve Skills : Second Season of Statewide Summer Schools for Arts Ends Today at Loyola Marymount

It’s as if you had walked onto the set of the TV series “Fame.” Young, aspiring vocalists, some with purple hair and nose rings, are singing African chants in the halls. Sweat-ridden dancers are leaping in front of mirrors. Cafeteria tables are stacked in the water fountain like sculptures. Classical music hums in the background.

All the while, for a select group of California students, intensive classes--in art, drama, music, dance, creative writing and film and video--have been in full swing five to six hours a day, six days a week.

“You can’t even describe what it’s like here. It’s like a different community,” said 16-year-old Valerie Chang of Palos Verdes High School, a visual artist at the second annual California State Summer School for the Arts, held this year at Loyola Marymount University. “I don’t want to go home!”

Chang, along with 324 other selected teen-agers, has spent four weeks improving her talents at California’s only joint publicly and privately sponsored arts training program for high school students, which wraps up today.

Created by the state Legislature in 1985, the program’s stated intent is to provide artistically gifted teen-agers with “intensive pre-professional training and experiences.” It costs the state about $400,000, and that amount is matched by donations from corporations, foundations, the entertainment industry and other private businesses.

Joan Newberg, executive director of the foundation that runs the summer school, believes the primary rationale for the state’s backing of the program was that “the arts and entertainment industry ranks third in terms of the economy of California and there was a need to ensure the perpetuity of that industry.”

This year, about 600 young people applied from 1,028 California school districts and other private secondary schools.

Applicants are required to submit samples of their work--either through portfolios or auditions--and teacher recommendations. They must be high school students or graduating from high school immediately preceding the summer school session.

In the one-month session, students are encouraged to expand their talents and explore new ones by a faculty of 75 professional artists and arts educators, which this summer included novelist Todd Walton, soprano Evelyn de la Rosa, modern dancer Loretta Livingston and violinist Mischa Lefkowitz.

Guest lecturers included “L.A. Law” producer Steven Bochco, composer William Goldstein and actors Edward Olmos and Charles Haid.

“What makes this school unusual, unique and important in the state is that it’s the first time in the history of the California educational system that someone has said to kids with artistic talent, ‘If you cut the mustard, you can get the training,’ ” said Robert Jaffe, deputy director of the summer school.

“Here the atmosphere is so incredible, coming from a small town like me,” said Isak Goldschneider, a 16-year-old composer from Nevada City near Sacramento. “Maybe it’s because we’re all outcasts back at school, but when you get 400 really weird people together and put them in their own element, it’s exciting. But unlike ‘Fame,’ ” he added, referring to the movie and TV series based on the New York School of Performing Arts, “the emphasis here is not on competition but on cooperation.”

Goldschneider, a classical/minimalist pianist, wrote a string quintet that helped his fellow schoolmate and vocalist, Maggie Gergg, get into the program.

“They give you so much freedom . . . and the amazing thing is no one takes it for granted,” Gergg said. “It’s like the world is competitive and we can have our own little separate corner where we can perfect our talents.”

Robert Mersola, a second-year theater student from Redondo Union High, said, “In the theater department we don’t have any performances because that’s not what we’re concentrating on. It’s all technique. We have no end result except self-growth.”

Carrie Paff, a would-be actress from San Luis Obispo High, said, “It’s just so wonderful. We learn a lot of specifics about establishing objectives and motivations . . . but a lot of it is just more of a general thing. I feel so confident. The teachers are so inspiring.”

Second-year visual artist-turned-sculptor Jimmy Raskin said he gained a whole new perspective from this year’s program. “I had these expectations of what kind of art I was going to be doing and that wasn’t really beneficial to my evolvement of art,” he said. “So I went off and did a sculpture out of bamboo which is something I probably never would have done. . . . They encourage that.”

Raskin’s colorful African bamboo and wooden sculptures were the talk of the students as they walked through the campus gallery.

“I think a lot of what this school’s about is everyone has their own area that they’re interested in and what the teacher does is make you do things that you’re not good at, that will scare you,” said Matt Monahan of Los Olivos, another visual artist.

Mitzie Cox, a 15-year-old dancer from Quincy in Northern California, said the school taught her the most important aspect of making it in the entertainment business: how to get an agent. “It’s the best part. They give you contacts,” she said.