FESTIVAL WILL MOBILIZE ‘IMAGINATION’ IN COUNTY

“This is going to be a first-time event for us. We’ve waited a long time to be chosen, and we feel we’re more than ready,” said Lis Dungan, coordinator of the Orange County “Imagination Celebration,” which starts Saturday for a two-week run.

The event, showcasing Orange County’s efforts in education in the visual and performing arts, will be one of 26 such regional festivals sponsored this year by the National Alliance for Arts Education, an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts in Washington.

According to Dungan and other Orange County organizers, the “Imagination Celebration” is the biggest cultural mobilization of its kind in county history.

The festival, backed by more than 25 organizations, will involve 250,000 children, 5,000 teachers and hundreds of artists and performers. It will feature scores of concerts, exhibitions and workshops, plus an arts “Imaginarium” fair created especially for this celebration.

Singer-actor Burl Ives, national spokesman for the Kennedy Center arts education programs, will appear at a concert devoted to multicultural songs and dances March 19 at the Santa Ana High School Auditorium.

“The Orange County celebration is the latest in a line of truly marvelous showcases,” Ives said in a telephone interview from his home in Santa Barbara. “What better opportunities to demonstrate a community’s (arts) resources and our belief that the arts are essential to a child’s education?”

Also sponsoring the Orange County celebration are the Kennedy Center-affiliated California Alliance for Arts Education, the Orange County Department of Education and the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Local organizers are hoping to hold the “Imagination Celebration” annually at the Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, beginning in 1987. But Center officials, still in the midst of booking negotiations for the 1986-87 season, have said any consideration of the 1987 “Imagination Celebration” proposal at this time would be premature.

Nevertheless, the Center, set to open in the fall, is providing managerial and technical assistance to this year’s celebration--and also the use of the Center’s seven-story Grand Portal as a backdrop for the festival’s opening ceremonies Saturday at 8:30 a.m.

Among those who will appear in the ceremonies are the Orange County Youth Choir (singing the “Imagination Celebration” theme composed by Jim Christensen and Ginger Schafer), the Disneyland Band and the park’s cartoon figures, and the Saddleback and La Habra high school bands.

“We couldn’t ask for a more dramatic setting or a more appropriate symbol of the arts growth in this county,” said Dungan, an Irvine resident and a California Alliance official.

The Orange County “Imagination Celebration” will include programs developed especially for the local festival as well as activities already scheduled to be held in March as part of National Youth Art Month.

The major locales:

- South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa. At 9:30 and 11 a.m. Saturday, “Imagine That!,” this year’s SCR Educational Touring Production, will be staged at the SCR Mainstage in Costa Mesa. (Seating is free but must be reserved; call (714) 957-2602.)

- South Coast Plaza Village Mercantile Building, Costa Mesa. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, the “Imaginarium” will offer performances or exhibits pertaining to opera, jazz, ballet, printmaking, calligraphy, puppetry, clay sculpture and other fields. Works by local artists will be on display, and disabled people will conduct arts demonstrations.

- Brea Mall and Mission Viejo Mall. A progam of dance, opera and choral performances and arts workshops, plus a special exhibit of works by disabled artists, will be featured from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday in the Brea shopping center. A similar program will be featured March 15, during the same hours, at the Mission Viejo shopping center.

- Various sites. Student artwork from the 1986 “Color It Orange” competition will be displayed from Saturday to March 16 at the Mission Viejo Mall, Brea Mall, in the Orange County Department of Education offices and in several Orange County Public Library branches.

- Melodyland, Anaheim. Concerts by the Orange County Youth Symphony will be presented to schoolchildren Monday and Tuesday under the auspices of the Orange County Philharmonic Society.

- Irvine Fine Arts Center. Workshops, demonstrations, dance and mime will be presented from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 22 at the city facility in Heritage Park, Walnut and Yale avenues.

There will be more events taking place at various school campuses during March. These include projects by the Bowers Museum, Laguna Art Museum and Newport Harbor Art Museum, and performances by the New American Jazz Ensemble and the Orange County Opera touring troupe.

Since the first national “Imagination Celebration” was held in 1977 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the National Alliance for Arts Education has sponsored celebrations in 30 areas in 12 states. The Orange County “Imagination Celebration” is the first in Southern California.

Orange County was selected as a 1986 site, said David Humphrey, National Alliance director, because of the high level of support for arts education here and also because there is the prospect of making the Orange County Performing Arts Center the local “Imagination Celebration” home.

The cost of staging the Orange County celebration is about $140,000, said coordinator Dungan. The largest donation is a $12,000 grant from the Kennedy Center. The remaining funds are being donated by corporations, individuals and community organizations in the county.