Schoolkids Get Trip to the Ball

Vinessa Tellez took dance lessons when she was 3, but until Tuesday the Oxnard sixth-grader had never been to a real ballet.

Her eyes widened with anticipation as she waited outside the Fred Kavli Theatre at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. Vinessa and her classmates at Charles Blackstock Junior High School and hundreds of other students from the Oxnard and Hueneme elementary districts were about to see a dance production of “Cinderella.”

Their tickets and transportation were courtesy of the new Kids in the Arts outreach program, which this spring is giving 2,000 children from economically strapped communities in Ventura County access to various performances at the Civic Arts Plaza.

The program was created through a $23,352 donation to the Alliance for the Arts from an anonymous benefactor. Organizers for the alliance, the plaza’s fund-raising arm, say the donor wrote the check in the exact amount they estimated would be needed to serve 2,000 children and is now tapping her friends and associates for contributions in the hopes of expanding the outreach effort.

The alliance has raised $16.5 million since 1993. Its largest gift was $2.5 million, which came from local entrepreneur Fred Kavli in 1998. Funds raised help support operations, subsidize performances and provide grants to local production companies.

Before each of two “Cinderella” performances Tuesday, girls and boys buzzed with anticipation. Most said it was their first time attending a ballet. Many weren’t sure what to expect, because their siblings and parents hadn’t seen one either.

Local educators, arts patrons and parents said the program is useful in many ways. They cited national surveys that suggest a link between exposure to the arts and higher test scores, better self-esteem and improved behavior.

“I think it broadens their thoughts and visions to see things that normally families don’t come out to see,” said Vinessa’s mother, Olivia Tellez, who helped chaperon the trip. “Maybe they’ll get a better idea of what is out there.”

Without this private funding, educators said, a trip to the ballet would be difficult for schools in these two districts, in which more than 70% of students qualify for subsidized lunches.

“This is just a wonderful thing,” said Annabelle Baker, a second-grade teacher at Fred Williams Elementary School in Oxnard, who prepared her class of 19 for the performance by bringing a tutu, toe shoes and a ballet school video to class and having students write about their expectations of the performance.

From little ones to preteens, students at the 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. performances weren’t talking about essays, test scores or whether the trip would expand their minds. They were simply looking forward to a good show.

Inside, they applauded the dancers’ leaps and twirls and ooh-ed at the introductions of new scenes and costumes.

Rocio Garcia, 9, a third-grader at Norman Brekke Elementary School in Oxnard, was impressed most by the size of the production. “I thought it would be more small,” she said after the first performance. “Then I saw this big theater.”

Vinessa was most looking forward to the part in which Cinderella would try on the glass slipper and it would fit. Then the prince would realize the girl in rags was the woman he loved and dance her away from her troubles: “She will finally get to have a good life with someone who actually loves her.”

Classmate Edward Jackson, 12, said he found ballet to be “exciting and interesting.” But he’d still rather see a basketball game.

“If I had my own money, I wouldn’t spend it here,” he said. But if he was older and had a girlfriend, he added, “I’d take her here.”