Arts Event Keeps Little Hands Busy

At the Imagination Celebration, the performances often get all the press, but it’s the hands-on opportunities that constitute the real heart of this annual arts festival for children and families.

This year’s nine-day celebration opens Saturday with events at nine locations throughout the county, including the Koll Center in Anaheim (see Page 8); the Children’s Museum at La Habra, where there will be a kite-making workshop; Garden Grove’s Gem Theatre and Festival Amphitheatre, where there will be backstage tours; and several malls where there will be workshops and other activities.

The active approach to the arts will continue Sunday at the Discovery Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana, where children will make Victorian-style scrapbooks, and at the Irvine Fine Arts Center, the Laguna Art Museum’s South Coast Plaza satellite in Costa Mesa, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana and the Newport Harbor Art Museum in Newport Beach, all playing host to crafts workshops.

Imaginarium, a two-day event in the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s back parking lot May 1 and 2, will wrap up the festival with performances and still more hands-on activities, including a percussion workshop with the Latin tropical band Bochinche.

Other performances will include Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” played by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra on Saturday at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim; the KanKouran West African Dance Co. at the Performing Arts Center Wednesday; a musical version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” presented by South Coast Repertory’s Young Conservatory Players in the Performing Arts Center’s Founders Hall on April 29; and “The Geek,” an opera performed by and for children April 29 and April 30 at the Gem Theatre. In all, events are being sponsored by 30 arts and education organizations.