Kids Get in Act With Joffrey, Harlem Troupe

Blue skies and sunshine--it was a weekday and a great day to be missing school. Fifth-grader Rudy Saenz of Longfellow Elementary in Pasadena, had been to a theater: “I liked when they were playing cards and when they shot each other,” he said.

No, Rudy’s not a truant relishing a clandestine trip to the movies.

He’s one of about 23,000 fifth-grade participants in the Blue Ribbon Children’s Festival, who, 3,000 at a time, from last week to today, will have seen the Joffrey Ballet perform “Billy the Kid” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Meanwhile, at the Shrine on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, under the direction of Arthur Mitchell, entertained 3,700 minority students at an “Arts Exposure” lecture-demonstration. (Due to the Los Angeles Unified School District strike, about 5,000 other students were unable to attend.)

Both events are aimed at giving children a live arts-performance experience, but have been affected by the teachers’ strike. The Music Center festival usually serves more than 32,000 children.

Mitchell, who founded Dance Theatre in a Harlem garage expressly for the purpose of bringing ballet to those who couldn’t afford it, called “Arts Exposure” a “wonderful introduction for someone who’s never been to see ballet or theater.” He said he hadn’t lost any of the original enthusiasm that made him start his “Arts Exposure” outreach 17 years ago, adding, “To see these young people change before your eyes, that’s exciting.”

After the Music Center ballet, all 3,000 children streamed out onto the Music Center Plaza, formed circles, joined hands and danced to an Appalachian folk tune.

“Clap-2-3-4-5-6!”; Ladies in; Boys clap!” sounded over the loudspeakers. Adult onlookers were moved at the sight, enthusiasm abounded and dancers closest to the fountain jets reveled in the added pleasure of getting wet.

Then, with a line of orange buses waiting to whisk them back to the classroom, several participants, many of whom had never seen a ballet before, offered critiques of their Joffrey experience.

Rudy’s classmate Shannin Davis said, “I thought it was good, but it was kind of short. I saw a movie about Billy the Kid and I hoped the ballet would tell more of the story.”

Shannon Jones of Ramona School in Hawthorne said, “I thought it was really exciting. My favorite part was when Billy’s sweetheart (Beatriz Rodriguez) came on and he picked her up. I took ballet for a while,” she adds, “but now I’m taking jazz.”

For Viet Tran, 11, a stocky boy with a toothy grin, it was a day of discovery. “I loved it,” he said. “I was thinking ballet was for wimps and girls, but then I saw that Billy (Jarel Hilding) had to be strong and jump really high. I’d like to go again; it was interesting to see people dance out the words to a story.”

Joffrey artistic director Gerald Arpino was impressed by the fifth-graders’ own buoyant performance. “It shows the universality of children,” he enthused. “We’re often seen around the world as mishandling and mistreating our children. I’d like to take a video (of the day’s events) to China and Russia when we go.”

At the Shrine’s “Arts Exposure,” the schoolchildren, brought from three districts and two county youth agencies, are brought up on stage and given a chance to dance to a rock ‘n’ roll song. Then a master of ceremonies takes the youngsters through a few ballet steps to show them that popular dancing and ballet are in many respects similar.

“It (Arts Exposure) is a combination of developing a new audience as well as letting young people see that ballet is not an unattainable, hard-to-understand art form,” said Lowell Thomas, a member of the Harlem troupe. “In a funny way, it’s a way of exposing people just to dance. It’s good for adolescents because they get to that place in their lives where they say they don’t need the arts.”

Joan Boyett, head of the Music Center Educational Division which co-sponsors the Blue Ribbon festival, said: “We’re not trying to turn kids into artists. We just want to give a child the opportunity to experience what goes into the creative process, to show them a broader view of the world.”

Frank Fisher contributed to this article.