Arrive early. Leave inspired
Theresa Willis Peters calls her job a “joy machine.” As CAP UCLA's performing arts Education Program Coordinator, she — along with Meryl Friedman, Director of Education and Special Initiatives — creates space for touring artists from around the world and kids from L.A. public schools to discover and learn from each other. “These interactions create memories that people carry with them for a lifetime,” Willis Peters told UCLA Newsroom this summer. “For the artists, students and staff, it never gets old.”
That's a good way to understand what happens around a CAP UCLA performance long before the lights go down. Through Design for Sharing, our free K–12 arts education program, Theresa and Meryl show up in our residency partner classrooms with rolling carts of supplies, spending weeks on art and writing with students — all anchored by a free matinee where the artists stay to share how they made the work, and let kids know them “as a human being, not just a performer.” The joy machine keeps running this season: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, Sō Percussion, Jennifer Koh and Vijay Iyer, Kronos Quartet, Varijashree Venugopal and Caleb Teicher and Nic Gareiss will all spend time with K–12 students.
You can feel the same spirit in our lobbies, and it takes many shapes. Before Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company's Still/Here, DJ Narasimha — a UCLA alum and former Student Committee member — spun West African rhythms and forward-thinking house late into the night. Other nights it's quieter: pop-up libraries and media stations in the lobby, where you can browse the books, films and interviews that shaped a work — the resources behind Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol's Centroamérica, an interactive poetry corner for Tiago Rodrigues' By Heart, or a post-show meet and greet with Aditya Prakash after ROOM-i-Nation.
We'll have even more Art in Action moments before and after our shows this coming season, and we'll always keep you updated on the details. However you like to arrive — curious, early, ready to make something — there's a place for you before the show.
Art in Action: Always free. Always fun.
Read the full conversation with Theresa Willis Peters in UCLA Newsroom.