Countywide : Festival to Draw Youths to Arts

Like the beaming Mexican dancers who swirled and stomped Thursday, hundreds of arts groups will let their performances shine for the 10th annual Imagination Celebration, a countywide youth arts festival running April 22 to May 7.

Dance, theater, music, visual art, storytelling and other events will enliven more than 25 sites, from shopping malls to museums to parks. Most activities will be free. Top admission is $6.

The festival, which includes in-school performances and arts workshops for students and educators, “is having a tremendous impact on our schools,” said John F. Dean, Orange County superintendent of schools, at a news conference Thursday in Costa Mesa. “It can reach all learning styles and all abilities.”

Highlights of the event’s “Let It Shine” 10th anniversary edition will include a May 3 performance of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” by the Theatre Sans Fil, an award-winning Montreal troupe known for its life-size and larger puppets. Cirque Eloize, a modern circus from Quebec, will present acrobatics, juggling, bicycle tricks and clowns for a May 7 finale. The 4-year-old, seven-member troupe, which will be on its first U.S. tour, was founded by former members of the popular Cirque du Soleil.

More than 1 million people have taken part in past Imagination Celebration festivals. The event is presented by the Orange County Performing Arts Center and the Orange County Department of Education in cooperation with 50 arts and educational organizations.

Danza Floricanto, which performed Thursday, South Coast Repertory theater, the Children’s Museum at La Habra and the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art are among groups and institutions participating this year.