We started off this season with residencies, classes, performances, and projects at Barrett, Liggett, 1st Street, Oakwood, Palms, and Lockwood Avenue Elementary, with Charles Kim, Loyola Village Arts Magnate, and Pacoima Arts Magnate busing in to our November Dance At the Stone House performances at the Sun Valley Youth Arts Center. Students from Charles Kim ES become part of the dance in the above photo.

In mid December the LAUSD froze all the Arts Community Partnership Network (ACPN) contracts as well as the newer funding for professional staff development, which also got caught in the Arts Ed budget freeze. More than 1,200 of you (and us) signed the petition to restore the funding, and to date the district is waiting for California to finalize its budget to lift the freeze. With more than a dozen schools with "binding contracts" still to do for this district, plus another group of requests for the staff development programs, this is a VERY TOUGH TIME for us as well as the other groups in the partnership. If you haven't signed the petition yet please do, and there is another is now to save the Arts Education Division. Acknowledged as one of the best in the country, all the arts education work of the last 9 years may be closed down in one swoop. It looks like the more than 85,000 letters we sent  to our reps about the stimulus plan have helped keep 50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts and the arts still available for other funds that had looked doubtful, but if you haven't started letting your local, state, and national representatives know that you value the arts, DO IT NOW, PLEASE. We artists, who do pay taxes and create business for the economy as well as create art, do not like the feeling of being second class citizens!

In the last three years we have worked with more than 50,000 at 65 schools in the LAUSD alone.  For more about our Arts Community Partnership packages and for our new Professional Development packages under SB1131 follow the links.

In January four of our dancers traveled to the International Performing Arts Festival for Youth conference in Cleveland with Louise for a spotlight of "The Patchwork Girl of Oz". They include Anaja Holloway, Steven Nielsen, and Jackie Speas pictured here plus Batyah Freedman. Jackie is seen with her special make-up in the dressing room for the Tri-Art Festival last September. The other two are from a performance in the Dance At Brand Art Center several years ago portraying different characters. Some of the performers have as many as 4 roles in the piece.

Coming up on Tuesday April 7, 2009, is a new work for the family "The Better to Bite You With" This free  performance at the Jazz Bakery in Culver City.will be made possible in part by the Culver City Performing Arts Grant Program with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment. Then on Sunday April 19, 2009, at 4:00 pm as part of the Jazz Bakery series we present "The Reality Series" and a premiere .

"Celtic Suite" shown here with "The Lark" featuring Alfred Desio and Louise Reichlin will be with videos of Alfred Desio (pictured above) on  his  new video site.  Check out YouTube for more videos later this month by Louise Reichlin.

This photo is from Reichlin's "Grounding".