CFA - Engaging Our Community 2020

CFA

LMU College of Communication and Fine Arts

ENGAGINGOUR OUR ENGAGING COMMUNITY COMMUNITY CFA.LMU.EDU

CFA ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY

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CFA’S COMMITMENT

CFA ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY

CONTENTS

Contents

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OUR COMMITMENT

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SERVICE LEARNING

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SOCIAL JUSTICE ADVOCACY

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ART AS THERAPY

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PERFORMING FOR GOOD

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ART IN CORRECTIONS

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“We must critically challenge the roles that teaching, schooling and education play or should play in the cultural and political nature of our society. An essential element of our pedagogy in the College of Communication and Fine Arts at LMU is to instill in students of all ages, as well as in the diverse communities that we immerse ourselves, the deep desire to have a positive effect on the world. We do this with a rigor of engagement through the critical and expressive areas of communication, theatre, music, art, dance, music and art therapy — and through an embodied praxis of our university mission that promotes the encouragement of learning, the education of the whole person, and the service of faith and the promotion of justice.”

Bryant Keith Alexander, Ph.D. Dean, LMU College of Communication and Fine Arts

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What is Community Engagement?

With its distinctive focus on the human experience, Loyola Marymount University’s College of Communication and Fine Arts seeks to provide all our students, faculty, and the larger community, with ongoing opportunities to not just give back, but to develop perspectives that will advance a more compassionate and just world.

By fully reflecting the dynamic educational context of our college, CFA offers opportunities for students and faculty to impact the lives of thousands of atrisk children, adults and families through diverse service initiatives, both as independent programs and integrated into academics. The programs that materialize from this commitment are dynamic, ever-changing in scope and form, and allow for new and evolving possibilities to be constantly explored and imagined.

The students who emerge after four years at CFA not only benefit from an expanded knowledge base and critical thinking abilities, but also from the personal growth that comes from community engagement on a

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level that inspires a lifetime of leadership in creating a just world. Our students and faculty are involved in service through mentorships, coursework, awareness campaigns, therapeutic programs, partnerships, fundraisers and international programs, as well as over 100 free and low-cost performances, events and exhibitions each year that are open to the community.

CFA’s efforts are dependent upon the generous ongoing support of alumni, parents, foundations, corporations and friends of the university to make what we achieve possible. This support ensures that CFA can continue to educate ethical, talented and deserving students for generations to come.

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SERVICE LEARNING

“I know that each year our student body looks forward to coming to LMU, and the teachers do as well. Art instruction is something that is sorely lacking at our school, and ARTsmart has been our connection to that.”

Cyril Baird, Principal, Westside Global Awareness Magnet

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ARTsmart ARTsmart is a service-learning program that pairs LMU student mentors with a local public school students who visit LMU for art instruction and to view on-campus art exhibitions several times in each academic year.

This program is housed in the LMU Department of Art and Art History, whose students teach visual arts to the students at Westside Global Awareness Magnet, an under-served K-8 school in LAUSD, and from the Hoopa Indian Reservation in Humbolt County, California. The goal of this partnership is to build an appetite within these students for the exploration of materials, concepts, and innovation through artistic expression, and create visual literacy that will serve them throughout their lives.

members of a rapidly changing society. Second, ARTsmart is a leadership-development program for LMU student mentors that incorporates teaching in the arts and community service. With budget cuts affecting Los Angeles Unified School District art programs all over the city, ARTsmart has filled an important educational gap.

The exchange with these two schools includes about 50 eighth graders from Hoopa and 50 eighth graders from Westside, who work together in LMU’s Thomas P. Kelly, Jr. Student Art Gallery to create installation art about their shared journey during important life transitions.

The dual mission of ARTsmart is to first provide underserved schoolchildren with an education in the arts that will provide both the instrumental and the intrinsic benefits necessary to become well-rounded, productive

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Design Entrepreneurship Offered within LMU’s Department of Art and Art History, Design Entrepreneurship is a class that has taken on many forms in recent years. Last summer, students in the class collaborated with the Al Wooten Center, a nonprofit youth center in Los Angeles that provides free after school and low-cost summer programs for boys and girls in grades 3-12. The project students tackled involved renovating communal spaces within the center, and was the product of a collaboration between the Center for Service and Action, Hannon Library staff, and HKS Architects.

LMU students visited the center frequently, to conduct in depth field observations, interview staff and students and create design plans and renderings, selecting colors, furniture and educational/ recreational materials.

Previously, the course traveled internationally, taking students to Florence, Italy, to engage with local artisans and community leaders. The goal was to measure the potential of design to positively impact Florence’s urban well-being, raising awareness of social and environmental issues in the local community and among visitors. Students participated in a series of visits and activities in order to better understand the local context and collect information toward their own project proposal. To this end, students worked closely with the volunteer non-profit organization Angeli del Bello, which organizes cleanups in parks and piazzas around the city. Alongside local volunteers, students cleaned graffiti behind the Santa Maria Novella train station and tended to the Rose Garden in Oltrarno, just below Piazzale Michelangelo.

“We wanted to provide an efficient work space that serves multiple purposes. More importantly, we want to provide a space that is inspired by community and culture. Having the opportunity to interact with the students was pivotal in our process. Understanding what these kids’ ambitions and dreams are helped shape the resources we wanted to provide them. The success of the center is dependent upon the success of its students so we needed to provide a design that would enable them to reach their full potential. Their passion for the project was contagious!”

Kelly Sidney ‘21

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Summer Arts Workshop Initiated over ten years ago by the Department of Marital and Family Therapy with specialization in Art Therapy, the Summer Arts Workshop (SAW) has been providing arts-based services to address the needs of adolescents at risk of gang affiliation.

Each year, the middle school workshop participants from Dolores Mission School visit LMU to collaborate with MFT faculty members, graduate students and alumni over the course of a week to explore and express their experiences and personalities through art.

Participants are invited to create representations of their personal and historical narrative and explore how they can stay grounded in their beliefs and values while remaining flexible and curious in collective spaces.

Follow-up therapy workshops are conducted on-site at Dolores Mission, which is located in what was once the poorest mission in Los Angeles. Many of the students at the school face adversity stemming from their status as first and second-generation immigrants from Central America.

“The kids create art pieces that are thoughtful, intentional, and skillful. They also verbalize an understanding of the concepts that we are attempting to share. Together they create a shared story using words that describe their art piece – the story exemplifying their thoughts about the increased understanding they have for themselves and their peers.”

Jessica Bianchi, MFT Faculty

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Dance Volunteerism LMU Dance students participate in several dance service work and community projects. Dance majors and minors volunteer off-campus, teaching dance to children and adults at the Westchester Family YMCA, Mar Vista Family Center, Loyola Village Elementary School, Westside Global Awareness Magnet, and Gabrielle Charter School.

Each of these opportunities enliven dance students’ connection to LMU’s mission statement through their dance studies, and provide a valuable training ground for students interested in careers as educators. In this way, our students develop the skills necessary to be successful dance professionals who work in a wide variety of settings and communities.

LMU Dance maintains a student chapter of The National Dance Education Organization and its local state affiliate, the California Dance Education Association. LMU’s NDEO student chapter provides students who are interested in dance and dance arts education with opportunities to mentor local dance students, raise money to benefit local dance initiative and charity programs, and make lasting connections with community organizations to offer dance

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workshops or classes. The student chapter strives to provide a forum for intellectual and creative exchange for the talented students enrolled in LMU Dance.

The NDEO chapter works frequently with Movement Exchange, an organization that unites dance and service, describing itself as a growing community of dance diplomats—movers and shakers, activists and global citizens, dreamers and achievers, teachers and learners, volunteers and friends.

In 2016, our students raised funds to travel to Panama over spring break to support children in orphanages, a project coordinated through Movement Exchange.

As international “dance diplomats,” they taught dance twice a day to children in two different orphanages.

Following this program, the NDEO student chapter received a service award for most philanthropic student organization at LMU in 2016. Students returned to Panama in 2020 for another orphanage visits, with additional engagement opportunities currently being planned.

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“It’s all about arts advocacy and arts accessibility. These kids have had a lot taken from them, and they haven’t had the privilege of what I’ve had – to dance in a studio. Dance can bring such joy and it can help kids break out of their shell. I witnessed this over and over during my trip.”

Caeli Koizumi ‘17

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Music Advocacy In collaboration with the LMU Family of Schools, members of the LMU Department of Music approached the WISH Charter Elementary School with a desire to assist with its string instrument program. The school had acquired about 40 string instruments, but were lacking in quality instruction for their students. This was a perfect opportunity for music students to assist the music educators at WISH by providing instruction to the new string students as well as operational support.

The goal of the program is to create a robust string program at WISH in which members of the LMU Orchestra conduct ongoing semi-private and group instruction sessions with the string students, and support the music teacher by assisting with instrument care and skill-building.

Dance as Social Action LMU Dance offers a course called Dance as Social Action, where students participate in theoretical and artistic exploration of dance as a cultural phenomenon and consider its role in social change. As part of this course, students developed an instructional volunteer program with Hawthorne Science and Math Academy to offer pro bono services as dance teachers and choreographer/advisors with groups of high-school students there, many of whom have never attended dance classes prior to this experience.

The program has been so successful that it was recently expanded to include 25 students, and currently has a wait list of eager participants. The dance club the group has formed now perform at talent shows and school pep rallies, and many of the students are now applying their new skills to set choreography on themselves.

“While many of these students do not have prior dance experience, they are so eager to learn. They are the highlight of my week, and they make me believe in the power of dance.

In the early stages of this program, I worried that they may give up or become frustrated, but each semester they come back with renewed energy and spirit. I am so proud of them and so grateful for the generosity they display each week. They have fully welcomed me into their space, and I will be forever changed.”

Gillian Ebersole ‘20

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Young Choral Scholars Program Part of the LMU Choral Program’s mission is to cultivate a love of choral music and collective choral singing with singers of all ages. The program is especially committed to encouraging and supporting the next generation of choral musicians. To that end, the program has established the LMU Young Choral Scholars Program within the Department of Music and in affiliation with the LMU Family of Schools.

The program is designed to engage young singers in good academic standing with rigorous choral music training that leads to both public performances and community-based outreach opportunities in their schools, public venues, and with disenfranchised populations. The program provides select students from the LMU Family of Schools with scholarships to participate in the LMU choruses through the LMU Extension Program and then pairs them with a LMU chorus member mentor.

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The young choral scholars then work in coordination with the LMU Family of Schools each semester to create meaningful, music-related service projects based on their areas of interest and the needs of our cooperating institutions.

Young choral scholars and their mentors actively work to create service-oriented projects that help provide knowledge about the arts and a practical, experiential learning opportunity, that helps to bridge the artistic and academic gap between the high school and the university experience. These opportunities add value to the emotional, spiritual, physical and social lives of these students through choral music.

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“[In Bless Me Child for I Have Sinned] I wanted to approach this dark, secretive subject with light and transparency. I built a glass confessional in which the traditional roles are reversed: instead of the priest sitting and hearing confession, he must kneel down and ask forgiveness from the child.”

Trina McKillen Artist, Confess

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S O CI A L JU STI C E ADVO CACY

Laband Art Gallery Campus-based art galleries and museums are situated on nearly every college and university in the United States. These art venues reflect the profiles of their respective institutions and bring wide-ranging approaches and missions to conversations about art.

LMU’s Laband Art Gallery engages LMU’s Jesuit and Marymount values and traditions by presenting thought-provoking exhibitions that are responsive to issues that are actively unfolding.

The Laband is committed to giving voice and visibility to communities who currently struggle to be seen and heard such as LGBTQ, people of color, and femaleidentifying artists. Art has the ability to communicate and evoke emotion in unexpected ways and open up critical discussions about the human condition.

“Confess,” the 2019 solo exhibition by artist Trina McKillen, is an example of a project that opened up challenging conversations. Comprised of multiple installations, “Confess” addressed the subject of the clerical sexual abuse of children and the havoc it has wreaked on individuals and their families. Exhibitionrelated programming was carefully conceived together with various university partners and welcomed community members to join us and explore profound questions raised by the issues of our time.

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“I never felt like I had the privilege to be neutral as an artist. … And so I would hope that every single artist — whether or not their work is directly speaking to political problems … is making time and space to be politically engaged, to be reading, to be registered to vote if they can, to inspire other people to vote and to exercise democracy on a daily basis.”

Antonius-Tín Bui, Artist, Finding Heart (tim tim) Other socially engaged exhibitions have turned a spotlight on notions of identity. Queer identity was explored in fall 2019’s exhibition “Finding Heart (tìm tim)” by Antonius-Tín Bui. The delicate paper cutting portrait series on display features queer Asian American Pacific Islanders, and his Donrose paper fashion depicts male bodies adorned in majestic-looking, cut-out paper garments that convey a sense of mystery, beauty and fragility. As a queer, gender non-binary, VietnameseAmerican artist, Bui’s work celebrates, honors, and challenges assumptions about intersectional identities.

Site specific installations around LMU’s campus such as Yarnbombing and DreamWavers were curated and promoted by the Laband, and have taken on complex topics such as coral destruction, immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights, and bullying.

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St. Ignatius Dialogues and Jesuit Cup The St. Ignatius Dialogues and Jesuit Cup are a public-service-learning and civic debate initiative addressing pressing societal issues such as hunger, homelessness, the for-profit prison system, and the role of education in rehabilitation and reducing recidivism. Participation at the inaugural event required a mandatory service component hosted by the L.A. Mission and Homeboy Industries.

In its inaugural year, the dialogues began with a day of community service at the L.A. Mission. Students prepared food, cleaned facilities, decorated signs, washed dishes, and helped contribute to the work of the mission. After tours at the L.A. Mission and Homeboy Industries, students had the opportunity to discuss their experience over three rounds of designed discussion and reflection.

This event was created by the LMU Debate Program in collaboration with the L.A. Mission and Homeboy Industries to provide students from LMU, other Jesuit universities and the member schools of the Civic Debate Conference, with an experiential learning opportunity. It aims to combine social action with collaborative dialogue to improve understanding, produce knowledge, and promote the ability of students to negotiate consensus on difficult policy, economic, and social questions.

The L.A. Mission is a not-for-profit organization which exists to provide help, hope and opportunity to men, women and children in need. Homeboy Industries is a not-for-profit organization which provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women.

“Volunteering at the L.A. Mission, learning about the services they offer, and meeting residents was an eye-opening experience about the growing issue of homelessness in Los Angeles. It was a unique and immersive way to begin the Jesuit Cup, because it allowed us debaters to meet with affected individuals, talk to them directly, and witness the issue up close, rather than simply through research.”

Bianca Salinas ‘23

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CSJ Center for Reconciliation and Justice For many years, CFA has partnered with LMU’s CSJ Center for Reconciliation & Justice. The Center, which is run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, offers a forum for dialogue, a place of education and a resource for reflective action. Through a diverse array of offerings, the CSJ Center aims to be a presence for the needs of the LMU community by fully pursuing the university mission to encourage “the service of faith and the promotion of justice” at LMU and beyond.

One such offering is an award named “Hidden Heroes,” where the CSJ Center honors faculty, staff, students and alumni who exemplify justice and reconciliation in their lives. The contribution of each awardee is celebrated through the telling of their story in a dramatic performance given by theatre arts students.

Each recipient is also honored through the presentation of an award and a celebration with family, colleagues and friends at a reception.

In addition, LMU’s Department of Theatre Arts offers an oral history class called Voices of Justice, where students explore issues of reconciliation, justice, social action, and collaboration throughout the course of the semester, working closely with the CSJ Center.

The course concludes with a fundraiser performance in which students learn about current issues by reenacting scenes based on real-life accounts. Topics covered in the class have included sexism, human trafficking and homelessness, with proceeds going directly to treatment centers.

As part of the class, the students meet extensively with people who are affected by these issues­—trafficking victims, homeless individuals, sexual abuse survivors— to inform their final presentations. The experience of this course is intended to be a consciousness-raising one. The goal is to tell stories that wouldn’t necessarily be told otherwise, and it shows students and audience members how they can get involved in solving the world’s problems. The popularity of this course is apparent by the fact that it is cross-listed within six CFA departments that all support and give their students credit for this class.

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Mexican Femicides Since 1993, violent female homicides have escalated in Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, even as the state continues to deny that a problem exists. LMU’s Department of Communication Studies faculty members and students are intimately involved with the Luchando hasta Encontrarlas and Ni Una Mas movements, which seek to challenge Mexican rhetoric and bring attention and awareness to the crimes, as well as to the missing girls and women.

Luchando hasta Encontrarlas is a mural project about the missing girls and femicides in Ciudad Juárez y Chihuahua, México, which uses murals as a form of consciousness-raising and education about femicide.

To date, the group has produced 14 murals, with the faces of 18 missing and murdered girls. Because of the actions of Luchando hasta Encontrarlas, other families of victims have organized themselves to paint and memorialize their daughters.

Luchando hasta Encontrarlas is part of a growing movement to stop the impunity surrounding femicide, and a living example of the power of art for social change. Faculty members and students from the Department of Communication Studies have traveled to Mexico, raising funds for, and participating in, the creation of some of the murals. Communication Studies has also hosted members of the Mother’s Committee for Juarez to visit campus and speak to students and the LMU community on the issue of femicide, including one of the mothers of a missing girl who was memorialized by the project.

Members of the LMU community joined family members of the murdered and disappeared women while on a trip to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to paint black crosses onto pink backgrounds where the bodies of eight women were found in a river canal along the Juárez-El Paso border as part of Ni Una Mas (Not One More).

Communication Studies is dedicated to shedding light on issues of femicide and gender violence, with courses, speakers, events, and for several years sponsored alternative break trips to Juárez, Mexico, until escalating crime and violence derailed the trips.

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Art Therapy in Mexico The work of LMU’s Department of Marital and Family with Specialization in Art Therapy touches the hearts of children, adults, and families through the art process, supporting wellness throughout the Los Angeles area and beyond. The summer program Art Therapy in Mexico was developed in order to help inform growing clinical skills with social justice and cultural awareness.

This two-week long summer program teams LMU art therapy students with students from the Mexican Institute of Art and Psychotherapy (IMPA). The program concludes with a week-long art therapy workshop that is offered to low income community members participating in a women’s clinic in the San Miguel de Allende region. In recent years, groups have focused on children and adolescent issues, domestic violence processing, loss and grief, and life transitions, to name a few.

The workshop allows participants the opportunity to normalize and support healing with others who have endured similar challenges. Art pieces are discussed in a supportive and confidential setting, and the week culminates in a presentation of group pieces, which are then displayed for the following year, reminding participants of their shared voyage.

Animal Drawing for Animal Rights Throughout the semester, students enrolled in ART 334: Animal Drawing work with a non-profit animal rights organization of their choosing to create a poster or other item to promote their activism protecting endangered species, wildlife habitat and refuge, and pet adoptions.

On-site drawing of animals takes place both on campus and with field trips to the LA Zoo, Museum of Natural History, Page Museum, and Long Beach Aquarium.

Some recent organizations the students have worked with include Friends for Life Animal Shelter, SOAR: Saving Our Avian Resources, American Bird Conservancy, Paradise Animal Welfare Society, Cheetah Outreach, and ACES: American Crocodile Education Sanctuary.

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ART AS THERAPY

A RT A S TH ER APY

Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic Located in the LMU Department of Marital and Family Therapy with specialization in Art Therapy, the Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic collaborates with multiple organizations including the Los Angeles Unified School District, Loyola Marymount University Family of Schools, American Red Cross, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center, New Directions for Veterans, and Save the Children. These partnerships include seven different programs that deliver more than 1,500 hours of direct service.

Working without walls and reaching out into the community, MFT students, faculty and alumni provide sustained art therapy services throughout the year. The

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services help a variety of clientele, including young people in school settings, as well as adults and families in community centers, shelters and veterans’ homes.

“We are not building a building, we are building a community of art therapists” is how Helen B. Landgarten, art therapist and department founder, described the clinic named in her honor at its inauguration. The clinic also serves the educational needs of the department’s graduate students by providing opportunities to participate in and observe art therapy services in non-clinical settings in the community.

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A RT A S TH ER APY Disaster Response With natural disasters becoming increasingly frequent, more and more people are experiencing the associated trauma due to losses of homes, neighborhoods, belongings and even the death of family and friends.

Teams of LMU-trained art therapists travel around the United States visiting disaster relief shelters to engage individuals in clinical art therapy and help them acknowledge and express their feelings about the disaster, and to work toward developing a hopeful outlook for the future.

The teams have provided support to hurricane, flooding, and fire victims in California, Texas, and Louisiana in recent years. In many cases, the art therapists are the only support program that return to the area consistently to provide follow-up support services, even after most programs had moved on. For many of the children, creating a bridge to explore the future is a necessary phase of their recovery process.

ART AS THERAPY

Veteran Art Therapy The Veteran Art Therapy group is a collaboration between LMU’s Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic and the University of California, Riverside. Art therapy groups with veterans commenced in the early spring of 2020 on the campus of UCR and are led by an MFT faculty member and alumna.

The clinic has a collaboration with the Veterans Administration program New Directions. This program provides art therapy groups for the most challenged of our nation’s military heroes, homeless veterans, who often face problems with substance abuse. The collaboration with New Directions for Veterans has a direct impact on the lives of homeless veterans struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from exposure to trauma.

Family Art Therapy Assessment Program By working directly with health providers, this indepth art therapy assessment is conducted by MFT faculty, staff, and alumni, and allows clinicians a deeper understanding of the families they are providing services to. The Family Art Assessment Program is currently sponsored by the Barbara Streisand Foundation in Palm Desert, California and started providing services in early 2020.

Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Teens Pregnant and parenting teens and their children are some of the most vulnerable members of our society, with complex psychological needs from struggling with severe circumstances. The clinic provides art therapy services that address the needs of pregnant and parenting inner-city teens who attend Thomas Riley High School in Los Angeles.

The teens visit the clinic weekly to cope with stress, learn how to become better communicators, develop their identities, manage their anger and enhance their parenting skills.

“Art therapists have a unique role to play in disaster work. Art-making can provide a non-verbal means to discharge acute stress that is inherent in disasters. Every person who experiences a disaster or traumatic event has a story to tell that is often best told visually through the art.”

Einat Metzl, MFT Faculty

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American Red Cross By partnering with the American Red Cross, the clinic has also developed mental health training for clinicians, covering key concepts required of anyone volunteering to respond in Disaster Mental Health. It prepares licensed mental health professionals to respond across the continuum of disaster preparedness, response and recovery.

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“This event is a cherished LMU tradition unique from any other music event. It is an excellent opportunity for our talented opera singers, instrumentalists, and faculty, as well as our guest performers, to reach a new audience and expose young children to classical music and dance.”

Tania Fleischer, Music Faculty

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PERFORMING FOR GOOD

P ERFO RMI NG FOR G O OD

Annual Children’s Concert In collaboration with the LMU Family of Schools, CFA’s Department of Music brings students and families on campus each year for the Annual LMU Children’s Concerts, which are free and open to the community.

The Family of Schools is a university program dedicated to developing partnerships between the university and schools in the Westchester area. Children of all ages are invited to enjoy and participate in the performances presented by LMU students from the Chamber Ensembles, Sinatra Opera Workshop and other ensembles.

The performances include music, stories, puppets, costumes, dancers, and integrate participation from elementary school performers, utilizing them as narrators, actors, artists and musicians. These children work closely with LMU faculty, students and professional artists in creating exciting, accessible concerts of classical music for all ages.

YOLA at HOLA In 2017, LMU Department of Music began a collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to benefit under-served music students. In the first visit of what promises to be an expanding level of involvement, Music faculty members took string and percussion Music students over to the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) participants at HOLA (Heart of Los Angeles), one of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s celebrated after school music education programs.

Located in the Rampart District, YOLA at HOLA serves hundreds of students with intensive afterschool orchestral instruction five days a week. The LA Phil and its community partners provide free instruments, intensive music training, and academic support to students from under-served neighborhoods, empowering them to become vital citizens, leaders, and agents of change.

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The partnership both gives our music students with an additional performance opportunity in an alternative setting, and provides those who are interested in pursuing music education with a valuable and professionalizing experience. Going forward, LMU Music students plan to regularly visit YOLA at HOLA as volunteer instructors and teachers’ assistants, working in small group settings to offer more individualized instruction to struggling students as well as to those that may need an additional challenge.

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HIV/AIDS Awareness Since 2006, the Department of Theatre Arts has hosted an annual fundraiser event to benefit local AIDS charities called Stages of AIDS. Held in conjunction with World AIDS Day in early December, the theatre production is performed by students and is intended to educate and inform the audience about AIDS, with donations collected at the door to benefit organizations such as Project Angel Food, AIDS Project Los Angeles and AIDS Healthcare Foundation of Los Angeles.

Recent performances include The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel, A Staged Reading of Angels in America by Tony Kushner, and Raft of the Medusa by Joe Pintauro.

These performances serve a dual purpose, first of which is to expose both theatre arts students and the audience members to an up-close look at the AIDS crisis. The second purpose is to use this awareness to achieve the goal of ending discrimination against those currently affected by the disease, and instilling an appreciation for early victims who faced demonization before the illness was fully understood. LMU’s CSJ Center for Reconciliation and Justice often hosts a post-play discussion and reception, where audience members can come together to discuss the complex themes brought up in the often emotional performances.

Scholarship Fundraising LMU’s Department of Theatre Arts hosts a pair of fundraisers each year in remembrance of Sam Wasson, a beloved student who died when he was a sophomore theatre arts major at LMU. The fundraisers include Crosswords, a series of one act plays performed by LMU alumni and other professional actors, and BTLS4SAM, an event where the LMU community gathers outdoors to play and listen to Beatles music.

The proceeds from these events directly fund a scholarship given each spring to a student who is involved in both the performance and technical side of theatre, and who also embodies Sam’s warm, funny, and open-hearted spirit.

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Shakespeare on the Bluff William Shakespeare was a playwright with profound themes, complex characters, and heightened language who illuminates the human condition through his work, reinforcing the concept of theatre as a mirror for society and an effective tool of social change. Ever since its start in 2018, the mission of the Shakespeare on the Bluff Festival has been to enrich LMU’s neighboring communities of Westchester, Playa Vista, Marina del Rey, Venice, Playa del Rey and Inglewood by presenting accessible, interesting and innovative theatre experiences that educate, inspire and entertain.

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LMU Theatre Arts aims to not only provide a training ground for the next generation of artists by allowing them to perform classical theatre, but also to work with community partners to ensure free, exciting, userfriendly Shakespeare to benefit and entertain our local communities. Shakespeare on the Bluff has brought to life many classical Shakespeare works, including As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, and Pericles, delighting thousands of audience members of all ages – and counting – in the process.

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ART IN CORRECTIONS

A RT I N CO RR E CT I ON S

Youth Camp Art Education In collaboration with the organizations Arts for Incarcerated Youth and the Armory Center for the Arts, faculty in the Department of Art and Art History have visited juvenile detention facilities in the Greater Los Angeles Area to facilitate art education for the young residents.

The goal of these collaborations is to create an on-site mural, which both engages the residents in an expressive art process and beautifies their surroundings. Following the completion of the murals, the young participants are invited to a culminating party where they are awarded certificates.

At Camp McNair, which is part of the Los Angeles County Challenger Memorial Youth Camps, the young residents collaborated with studio arts faculty to create the mural pictured to the left over 25 total visits. Faculty worked with two groups for two hours each at every visit. Projects included drawing lessons, printmaking, watercolor, mixed media and painting techniques, as well as brainstorming time. Another mural was created with the young residents at Camp Scott in Santa Clarita.

Art in Corrections Conference Research conducted in both state prisons and county jails have shown that visual and performing arts programs in correctional facilities not only improve inmates’ confidence, communication skills and emotional management, but result in better relations with other inmates and staff.

CFA partnered with California Lawyers for the Arts to host the second annual Arts in Corrections Conference, which invited experts in the field of prison arts, along with former inmates who developed an interest in painting and guitar making while incarcerated, to share their experiences, skills, and insights about current research.

The conference, which is geared toward arts educators, featured classes led by master artists with experience teaching different art disciplines in institutional settings; research about prison arts initiatives and their benefits; and information on best practices and the challenges facing these programs.

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ART IN CORRECTIONS

A RT IN CO RR E CT I ON S

Justice on Trial Film Festival The Justice on Trial Film Festival speaks to the challenges of people caught up in the judicial system, who know only too well the pain and injustice—the jail house beatings, the solitary confinement, the stop-andfrisk humiliations, the selective prosecutions with bad plea bargains, and the unreasonably long sentences that they suffer. The film festival creates an opportunity to project their voices to a world deafened by the negative images and stereotypes presented by the media.

Growing out of a conversation between awardwinning author Michelle Alexander and Susan Burton, founder of A New Way of Life Re-Entry Project, the festival is now co-hosted by CFA, the Department of

Art Therapy at Juvenile Hall Part of the LMU Department of Marital and Family Therapy with specialization in Art Therapy’s commitment to social justice and serving diverse local communities is introduced to students early in their coursework. While enrolled in Child Art Psychotherapy and Adolescent Art Psychotherapy courses, graduate students are guided in facilitating thoughtful artmaking experiences with adolescents housed at the Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles.

The opportunity to facilitate art-making, while considering developmental and contextual variables impacting the children they meet, prepares the graduate students for the complex demands of becoming effective therapists. At the same time, these handson experiences provide the children and teens with creative and caring engagement that expands what their current settings and curricula offer.

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Communication Studies along with the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts. Justice on Trial serves as an extension of work conducted by communication studies faculty and students on prison reform.

The films presented as part of the festival are poignant and thought-provoking, and address the impact of mass incarceration. This festival gives filmmakers, advocates, and those affected a platform to discover the human side of the story and creates an opportunity to project unheard voices to a world deafened by the negative images and stereotypes presented by the media.

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CFA’S COMMITMENT

“We hold the Justice on Trial Film Festival every year to create a platform for stories of our forgotten fellow citizens behind bars. Since many states and the federal government are implementing criminal justice reforms right now, this is a particularly critical time to increase awareness of the effects of mass incarceration. The Festival brings communities together...to have vital discussions about the injustices of our system and to explore the potential solutions.”

Susan Barton, Founder, A New Way of Life

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CFA’S COMMITMENT