SEAL BEACH : Kids Bring Art to Life, Life to Art

At some schools, artistic masterpieces remain between book covers, but at McGaugh Elementary School, students re-create them on stage.

Each year, the school presents Pageant of the Arts, an event patterned after the Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters, with costumed students freezing in front of backdrops to create tableaux vivants, or re-creations of famous paintings by live performers who pose silently, usually without moving.

But unlike participants in the Laguna event, the McGaugh students deviate from tradition by breaking into dance. They have been learning and practicing the dance steps after school since December.

The whole school gets involved in the annual event, scheduled for April 4 this year.

Back in September, students began studying artists and tried copying their styles. More than 500 students helped re-create an 8-by-16-foot replica of “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” a Depression-era Harlem street scene by Phillip Evergood.

The show will feature six paintings. Repeats of past school performances will include “The Wedding Dance,” by Pieter Bruegel, and “Music--Pink and Blue II,” by Georgia O’Keefe.

New this year will be a live rendering of Evergood’s work in which the students roller-blade, jump rope, skip and dance across the stage in front of a brightly colored backdrop.

“I painted the garbage can and outlined some of the games and worked on the ambulance and the graffiti,” said Mariko Wilson, 11, a jazz dancer in the number.

Teachers say the program helps students understand art and become enthusiastic about it.

Though the students grumble a bit about doing research projects, they are fountains of knowledge when it comes to artists’ styles and backgrounds.

McGaugh has been recognized for its arts program, receiving a prestigious Golden Bell Award from the California School Boards Assn. in December.

“The pageant is the culmination of our program,” said Principal John Blaydes.

The pageant was started 11 years ago at Weaver Elementary School by media-center teacher Lois Cohn, art teacher Shirley Johns and Blaydes. When Weaver closed because of declining enrollment, the three came to McGaugh, and the program came with them.

Initially, the pageant was limited silent, stationary performances, but dances were added eight years ago.

The style of dance varies from jazz steps to flowing movements, with most of the numbers set to original music composed by Cohn’s son, Matt Reid, a former member of the rock group Berlin.

The organizers are already looking toward next year’s pageant.

“We think maybe we’ll add a work by a Mexican painter,” Cohn said. “We just bounce ideas off each other.”