The Carpenter Performing Arts Center is working to involve the entire Long Beach community in local art and theatre through its new program, Arts for Life.
Arts for Life aims to educate the community through multiple events with little to no cost to patrons, Carpenter Center Executive Director Michele Roberge said. The program’s events vary, but all maintain a similar goal to assimilate the art community into the everyday lives of Long Beach citizens.
According to the Carpenter Center’s website, the program is split into three categories: classroom connections, campus connections and community connections.
Classroom connections provide a rare chance for children attending local elementary schools to learn about and interact with artists, according to Roberge.
Roberge and Amanda Meek, Educational Coordinator for Arts for Life, said that the classroom connections work in a three-step process, in which students learn about an artist, meet the artist, receive a lesson about the artist’s work and then watch the artist in action.
The formula, Roberge says, is a success.
“Ninety-five percent of the 15 schools we went to had positive feedback,” she said.
Meek, an alumna of Cal State Long Beach, said she believes that the program is creating a special opportunity for the CSULB community as well.
“There were not programs like this when I went here,” she said. “It was hard to know anything outside of your department.”
The community connections, on the other hand, engage the greater Long Beach population, Meek and Roberge said. The first of these events is scheduled for Sept. 28, when the L.A. Philharmonic will perform a free concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall to celebrate the building’s 10th anniversary.
The program’s campus connection events, such as a live theater performance of “Shakespeare Aloud,” aim to provide participants an extended outlook on forms of well-known entertainment, Roberge said. Other campus connection events include lectures and seminars.
For more information about the program and a full calendar of events, visit carpenterarts.org/artsforlife.
