Tuning In to a Different Beat

The Ventura County Children’s Festival, a series of monthly concerts this winter and continuing into the spring, kicks off Saturday afternoon at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza with a show by children’s music maestro Norman Foote. He will be joined by the Ojai Valley Children’s Chorus, under the direction of Lisa Gordon.

If the Canadian entertainer’s Sony CD albums “Shake a Leg” and “Pictures on the Fridge” and his concert last month in Orange County are any indication, Ventura County kids are in for a good time at the 3 p.m. event.

Foote likes to perform his own material rather than the expected--and often bland--children’s songs.

So get ready for some numbers about spiders that are picky eaters (“Spider Dan”), about lower extremities (“Smelly Feet” and “Brand New Shoes”), and a kid artist given to drawing bearded babies and mustached ladies (“Oodles of Doodles’).

As a nod in the direction of tradition (he’s an Al Jolson fan), he does a “Bye Bye Blackbird” number, but in a reggae version.

Foote dramatizes this sort of edgy material by using props related to his songs--”props with an attitude,” he calls them.

Lest parents worry that Foote is some sort of musical terrorist (kids love this kind of stuff), let it be said that he’s been praised by various parenting magazines.

The umbrella organization of that field, Parenting Publications of America, bestowed its 1996 “Parents Choice of Gold” award on Foote’s “Shake a Leg” album. And that one included “Smelly Feet.”

The Ventura County Children’s Festival, a subscription series in its 12th year, continues next month at the same theater with the Cashore Marionettes on Nov. 22.

These engineering marvels, some with as many as 36 strings, will astonish adults, who were raised on shows with much simpler puppets. Kids, who seem to require such marvels nowadays, will be delighted, too.

The Henson Foundation (yes, named for the Muppet master) recently awarded Cashore a grant to support the development of these marionettes. Some take six months to make.

The festival series, after a December hiatus, plans a January show based on the well-known kids’ book, “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.” The February show will be a kids’ version of “The Phantom of the Opera” that closely follows the original Gaston Leroux novel. The production is by TheatreWorks/USA, which previously turned the books “Curious George” and “The Secret Garden” into children’s theater productions.

In March, “The Velveteen Rabbit” will be presented by the Oberlin Dance Company. In April, singer Red Grammer appears, and the festival series concludes in May with a theater-plus-circus production, “Impossible Balance,” with actor-clown Jim Jackson.

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Surf’s Up Tonight: Surfer dudes of all ages should check out the scene at the Ventura County Museum of History & Art tonight at 7. Surfing historian Jim Heimann will be talking about the history of surfing along the California coast from Santa Monica to Santa Barbara. Admission is free for kids under 16, adults $3; call (805) 653-0323.

BE THERE

Ventura County Children’s Festival opens Saturday at 3 p.m. with family entertainer Norman Foote and the Ojai Valley Children’s Chorus, Forum Theatre, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100, E. Thousand Oaks Blvd. $10-$12. For season tickets, call (805) 449-2275. Single tickets, (805) 650-9688. Festival information, (805) 646-8907.