College of the Canyons Fine and Performing Arts Division will host the 2010 ARTstART Festival May 7-8.
Including students, faculty and staff, the two-day long ARTstART festival will offer the community a glimpse inside the daily activities of the college’s Fine and Performing Arts Division, while highlighting students’ work and providing a behind-the-scenes look at the division’s facilities.

“Attending ARTstART 2010 offers a great opportunity to meet with faculty, staff, and students of the division,” said Dr. Floyd Moos, dean of fine and performing arts at the college.  “Whether your taste is for dance, theatre, music, visual arts, traditional art or the contemporary, the breadth and depth of the activities here at the college may well surprise.”
Attendees will have the opportunity to roam freely from building to building across campus, to view and experience samplings from the college’s art, music, dance, theatre, animation, photography, media and entertainment arts, graphics and multimedia design and studio arts departments.
As part of the college’s ongoing 40th Anniversary celebration, the ARTstART festival will coincide with the college’s annual POPS! Concert, featuring members of the college’s Jazz Ensemble and Lab Jazz Combo bands, and performances by the College of the Canyons choir and dance departments, as well as the New Works Festival in the Black Box Theater.
The schedule of activities will also include live music, student theatre performances, modern dance presentations, gallery exhibits, interactive lectures, in-class demonstrations, movie screenings from the International Film Festival series and a unique open house and tour of the Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center.
As a unique addition to the festival, a selection of Saugus Union School District (SUSD) students from Charles Helmers, North Park and Plum Canyon Elementary Schools will have their work featured in the SUSD Student Art Show running both days of the festival.
The ARTstART Festival will begin at 11 a.m. Friday, May 7, and run throughout the day until approximately 9:30 p.m. It will continue from 9 a.m. to approximately 10 p.m., Saturday, May 8.
The college’s Environmental Science Fair will also be taking place on campus from 3 to 7 p.m., Friday May 7, in the COC student center.
“The division has a wealth of talent to display, from its staff to its faculty and most certainly from its students,” said Michael McCaffrey, art department faculty member at the college. “This will be the second year that the college has showcased the Fine and Performing Arts Division for the community.”
To view a full 2010 ARTstART Festival schedule of activities and event descriptions visit www.canyons.edu/artstart.