 Students build valuable skills and develop their own creative voices. Growing research shows that students who participate in the arts are more motivated and engaged in the classroom and consistently outperform their non-arts peers on standardized tests and in social interaction. The Kaleidoscope Mission
Our Mission at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts is to engage the artist within each of us and apply the principles of aesthetic education. In the Kaleidoscope programs, children and teens are taught by professional teaching artists who incorporate artistic training with fun and rigorous skill-building exercises and creative experiences. | |  Afterschool Classes
Engage your after-school learners in Creative Drama, Acting Workshops, Dance, Playmaking and more as they explore the arts and build valuable communication, teamwork and self-expression life skills. Classes can be custom-designed to meet the needs of your school community. | | CREATIVE DRAMA
Creative Drama builds upon the universal human desire to understand our world by imitating and reenacting. Exploring theater in its most playful sense, students make theater that is a natural extension of their physical, intellectual and emotional lives. Using improvisation, ensemble building activities and games emphasizing creativity and self-expression, Creative Drama allows students to explore an art form, socialize and learn imaginatively. While it culminates in a final class "Windows on the Work" share for family and friends, the focus of the class is on process rather than performance.
ACTING WORKSHOP
The Acting Workshop provides a thorough exploration into theater arts. Learn theater terms and the tools actors use when tackling script work. As a group, we will explore improvisation, focus, partner and ensemble work and how to make creative choices onstage. This class deeply explores the world of the theater artist in a fun and supportive atmosphere, helping students to grow as both artists and as people.
| | CREATIVE DANCE
Students will have a ball as we move in space, play musical instruments, improvise, delve into stories and songs and communicate with our bodies and imaginations. Creative Dance is a fun way for children to develop movement skills, learn fundamental dance concepts, build gross motor coordination and strengthen their bodies.
PLAYMAKING
Working as an ensemble, students create an original piece of theater, scripted and performed by the group. We will develop the piece through improvisation, character development, character relationships and creation of a narrative world. The group will also build the set and create the lighting and sound design, completely immersing themselves in the process of taking a piece of theater from page to stage.
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 Residencies
Our Teaching-Artists-in-the-schools residencies provide students of all backgrounds and learning styles with dynamic and fun arts experiences in drama, dance, music and playwriting. Residencies enhance subject units and build core learning skills while providing students working at many different levels the opportunity to express their unique artistic voice. Each residency program is developed in partnership with the classroom teacher and tailored to their curriculum goals. | | PRE-SCHOOL
Residencies feature developmentally appropriate integrated-arts units. Students explore story and character through visual art, music, creative movement and creative drama. Activities enhance physical skills and learning capacity while stimulating imagination, self-expression and creative choice.
THEATER ARTS
Theatre Arts residencies can be tailored to explore curriculum units in History-Social Science, Math, Science, English and more through fun and engaging theater games designed to reinforce new concepts, target student attention and maximize learning capacity in the classroom.
| | CREATIVE MOVEMENT
Creative Movement residencies use the power of bodies in motion to build self-esteem, develop physical skills, build tolerance and community in the classroom, and help reach curriculum goals. Programs may be designed to introduce children to music and dance forms from around the world, or provide a way to link the creative abilities of students to important curriculum content goals. How about a student-choreographed molecule dance for a chemistry unit or a movement piece exploring Native Californian history?
SPECIAL EDUCATION
Residencies work with students with a wide range of physical, emotional and learning challenges to develop communication, coordination, friendship and teamwork skills. Teachers may target a specific classroom goal through arts-based learning, or enhance the classroom community through on-going creative participation with the resident artist.
Residencies may also be designed to enhance an English as a Second Language curriculum, address a social or tolerance issue at a school and weave the arts into the fabric of the whole school community. Fees are tailored to the needs and resources of each school. |
Kaleidoscope at Large METHODOLOGY | | The methodology of the Kaleidoscope at Large program is deeply rooted in the philosophy of aesthetic education as taught in our Institute which is affiliated with the Lincoln Center Institute for Art in Education (LCI). Central to our practice is the premise that each individual–whether child or adult–has the capacity to respond to a work of art in ways that can challenge preconceived notions, stimulate fresh insights and encourage deeper understandings. Without the limitations imposed by "right" and "wrong" answers, the process of responding to art (which includes creating art) develops each student's ability to think in fundamental and powerful ways.
| | Key benchmarks of the LCI methodology are woven throughout the Kaleidoscope at Large teaching practices and are evident in our inquiry-based activities, our pursuit of open-ended questions that invite a multitude of responses and suggest many pathways into the arts, and our value of the reflection process as central to creating and refining artistic expression. | |
