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# CalArts Anniversary Weekend Celebrates 50 Years of Experimentation in Visual and Performing Arts
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/calarts-anniversary-weekend-celebrates-50-years-experimentation-visual-performing-arts/
- Published: 2023-04-18T18:06:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:05:20.000Z
- Description: Join the party in Valencia, California, for three days of open studios, concerts, exhibitions, performances, and more from April 28 to 30.
- Author: California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
- Tags: Announcement, California, Event Announcement, Sponsored, Valencia, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:29 (2023, 2024, part 1)

Founded half a century ago by Walt and Roy Disney as a multidisciplinary “community of the arts,” [California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)](https://bit.ly/3zZHwr2?ref=hyperallergic.com) has attracted generations of artists who have set the leading edge of contemporary practice across the performing and visual arts.

To celebrate its first 50 years — and to launch the next — CalArts invites the public to join the party with [three days of art, music, theater, dance, performance, food, and festivities](https://bit.ly/405JPDj?ref=hyperallergic.com). The Valencia, California, campus will be transformed into a theme park of artistic exploration and experimentation with multiple simultaneous exhibitions, concerts, performances, and *Happenings* unfolding throughout the campus from Friday, April 28 through Sunday, April 30.

**To view the full schedule and purchase tickets, visit** [**celebrate.calarts.edu**](https://bit.ly/3zZZNo0?ref=hyperallergic.com)**.**

## Event Highlights

**School of Art Graduate Open Studios**  
Meet the artists and get a behind-the-scenes look into the studio practice of MFA students in CalArts’s Art, Photo & Media, Art & Technology, Integrated Media, and Graphic Design programs. Dozens of artists open their workspaces, offering a glimpse into the evolving practices of emerging new voices in contemporary art.

**Bookends: A Conversation With Bobby John, Carey, and Ravi**  
Join CalArts’s second president, Robert J. Fitzpatrick; current president, Ravi Rajan; and alum Carey Lovelace (Music BFA ’75) for a spirited conversation looking back at the institution’s first half-century — and forward to its next.

**World Music Festival**  
The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts presents its annual festival of musical traditions from around the globe, featuring student and faculty ensembles performing music from Iran, Bali and Java (Indonesia), India, Ghana (West Africa), and Japan, plus cross-cultural fusion.

***Happenings***  
More than 75 durational, experiential, and immersive art installations and performances unfold across campus, showcasing works in performance, dance, theater, fine art, film and video, spoken word, animation, and more.

**Spring Dance Concert**  
A selection of works presented by students, faculty, and alumni of The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance.

***Here Be Sirens* by Kate Soper**  
An experimental opera set on a Mediterranean island in the pre-archaic Greek past and the post-apocalyptic US future.

**Everybody**  
A retelling of the anonymous 15th-century drama *Everyman*, this comedic adaptation — with a surrealist staging and a cast who reshuffles their roles each performance — encapsulates the erratic and deceptive nature of life on Earth.

**CalArts Alumnx Reunion**  
Alums from throughout CalArts’s history gather in a custom immersive environment with alum- and student-designed lighting and sound displays to dine, dance, reunite, and experience CalArts throughout the weekend.