Arts

COSTA MESA — Get ready for a journey to explore the Japanese and Japanese American cultures through a medium that can connect all people: the arts. The JapanOC festival opens Saturday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, and various Southern California artistic venues, where the diversity of the Japanese culture and arts will take center stage through April. An opening ceremony took place Thursday at South Coast Plaza, one of JapanOC's presenting sponsors.

Jeff Benson The Newport-Mesa school board expected to place a greater emphasis on the visual and performing arts when its members drafted its five-year strategic plan in November. But at least one of its schools doesn't have to wait five years to ensure that's a reality. Costa Mesa's Sonora Elementary School and St. John the Baptist Catholic School are among five Orange County schools chosen earlier this month for the Orange County Performing Arts Center's five-year ArtsConnect program.

An amazing turnout of 2,900 guests filled Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in support of the Orange County High School of the Arts. It was the "Season Finale" on stage showcasing the talents of more than 300 students. "Season Finale" is in its 16th year, a much anticipated annual event that brings resounding applause for hard earned success representing work from nine conservatories of particular artistic discipline that make up the local performing arts academy.

Lolita Harper Industry insiders have a wish -- that young adults would just do it and make cultural arts the choice of a new generation. Still, with so many companies vying for the attention and spending power of young adults, area arts venues find themselves struggling to attract that high-demand market. Brian Langston, spokesman for the Orange County Museum of Art, said the museum has geared many of its displays toward the under-35 crowd, but it is hard to compete with companies such as Nike, Pepsi and MTV, which have more resources to attract that age group.

People who stumble across Tina Hoffman’s closet-size storefront on the Balboa Fun Zone sometimes mistake her for the palm reader a few doors down. Like Hoffman, the walls of Menagerie Castle, 705 Edgewater Ave., are draped in yards of colored lace, bits of vintage costume jewelry and ribbons. “It’s kind of like a meeting place for people to talk about the community and the arts,” Hoffman said. She has dubbed Menagerie Castle an “inspirational waterfront creative arts community hospitality studio office play space gallery,” but it’s hard to fit all of that on a business card, she said.

She may not have had a hat for every day of the year, but local arts philanthropist Vesta Curry definitely had a few for every week. In three decades as a patron of the Costa Mesa arts community, Curry accumulated a collection of more than 100 colorful, feathery, gem-studded and generally flamboyant head coverings. She wore them during her frequent trips to the Orange County Performing Arts Center for everything from volunteer work to catching an evening show. “She was quite a legend,” said center President Terry Dwyer.

B.W. COOK They are one of the most aggressive fundraising chapters of the guilds in support of the Orange County Performing Arts Center -- women who know how to "work the room." The Sound of Music Guild, celebrating 25 years of service to the center, raised more than $300,000 at its spring gala "License to Thrill: James Bond Meets Austin Powers," reaching the high-water mark by pulling out all the stops. None of the women has "no" in their vocabulary, and they spend money to make money.

Deirdre Newman After she left the Daily Pilot, former Features Editor Jennifer K Mahal's passion for the arts never waned. Next month, she will be reunited with her love for the arts as the new publicist for the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Mahal will replace Angela Dickson, who had a baby in November. Mahal has been working at Envision Group, an Internet marketing and consulting firm in Torrance, for more than a year. Her experience as features editor for more than two years will be valuable in her new position, she said.

Summer school may be cut given the state’s financial disaster, but it is alive and well at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Students from the Nicholas Academic Centers in downtown Santa Ana and from the campus at Valley High School in Santa Ana are spending their summer being exposed to the performing arts as the result of a special partnership between the two organizations. The Henry T. Nicholas III Foundation has donated nearly $4 million to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, opening the door to enrichment programs for urban children otherwise not exposed to the classic performing arts, including theater, dance and orchestral music.

Next month, Dan Cameron - the new chief curator at the Orange County Museum of Art - will board a flight to Europe, where he hopes to gather ideas from some of the world's most innovative international art exhibitions. "I'm going abroad in June to see what a few of my friends and colleagues have done with the international platform," he said in an interview. "We'll see what I can poach. " What he captures, he'll bring back to OCMA in preparation for the museum's first international contemporary art survey, the 2013 California-Pacific Triennial.

TUESDAY: The Philharmonic Society of Orange County presents the New York Philharmonic, featuring conductor Alan Gilbert. The 8 p.m. concert is at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets start at $50. For more information, visit http://www.philharmonicsociety.org.

Newport Elementary School's principal stood in the hallway as the bell rang and students filed out of their classrooms to lunch. Principal Amy Nagy received hellos, waves and hugs - and some news they excitedly had to share. "I've done really good at writing," shouted a kindergartner. She congratulated him. Next was a sheepish first-grader, who showed Nagy his paper about bees. He walked away with a smile and the promise of a "super student" pencil as a writer's reward.

Bob Bassett , dean of the Lawrence and Kristina Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University, welcomed the arts community in Orange County to the 13th annual Women in Focus conference. An accomplished female roster of industry talent addressed a crowd of some 400 guests on the "state of the intersection of art and commerce in the business of communication. " Among the celebrated panelists were Debra Martin Chase , producer of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and "The Princess Diaries," Leslie Dixon , producer of "Mrs.

The young artists gathered around the gallery, waiting to talk about their framed artwork hanging on the wall. "Oohs," "ahhs" and "cool" could be heard as students walked in single file through Paularino Elementary School's Room 6, admiring the work of their peers. "I especially like that picture of the iguana," said first-grade student Ethan Elvanter, 6. "It would kind of be cool to have my picture up there. " The Costa Mesa campus was buzzing Wednesday after lunch with the grand opening of 5R6 art gallery, a section of fifth-grade teacher Lisa Roberts' classroom that's dedicated to her students' work, which includes paintings, drawings and photographs on the wall and sculptural pieces on a table.

The Environmental Nature Center (ENC) in Newport Beach will be the place for Orange County's first - albeit brief - exhibition of landscape paintings by the Chinese artist Bo Hong. He is considered one of the top and most sought-after artists in China, show organizers said. "I can look at it and come back an hour later and see something different," said Lloyd Ikerd, a Corona del Mar resident who is one of the show's two presenters. "It's just amazing art. " The show, titled "A Pure View," will stay up at the ENC, 1601 16th St., through the weekend.

In an effort to pull up Paularino Elementary School's test scores, campus officials want to look at becoming the district's second magnet school. In her proposal to bring the K-6 Costa Mesa campus out of Program Improvement, Interim Principal Bonnie Swann said Paularino wants to become an arts magnet and already has several teachers who are strongly dedicated to the arts. "I think it's wonderful that they're the first school that got out of the box and came in with something different than [Response to Intervention]

Gloria Zigner, Douglas Rankin and Elizabeth Turk move in different worlds but have, in their own ways, made a mark on the Orange County arts scene. Come September, all three will be recognized at the 13th annual O.C. Arts Awards in Costa Mesa as recipients of the Helena Modjeska Award, a lifetime achievement handed out by Santa Ana-based nonprofit Arts Orange County, the ceremony's host whose mission is to promote the arts countywide. "It is our premier award," said Richard Stein, Arts O.C. executive director.

If you caught CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday, one of the news magazine's segments reported on the phenomenal rise in investment value in the world of contemporary art. For reasons not explained in the broadcast, the contemporary art market has exploded in the last 20 years, outperforming other investment instruments including the traditional ones like stocks, bonds, commodities and currency markets. Last week in Irvine, a local gathering of art investors came together under the banner of First Foundation, Inc., which arranges loans on art for high net worth clients.

Sunflowers in mason jars dotted the brightly covered tables as inspiration for the Vincent van Gogh-themed art activity, but some students came with their imaginations blazing. "I'm drawing people getting hot lava on them," said kindergartner Luke Hohman, 6, paintbrush in hand over his scene of a giant volcano. "I'm drawing black death," said kindergartner James Gallagher, 5, as he wielded a black colored pencil. "I'm going to draw a spider web with a big, giant spider. " "The sun is getting red," Luke said as he added red paint to his paper.