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CALIFORNIA STATE SUMMER SCHOOL ARTS FOUNDATION Annual Report 2015-2016
Contact
Executive Director: Heidi Kershaw
(626) 584-4055 [email protected] www.csssaf.org 2
About the California State Summer School for the Arts
The California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA) is an immersive, creative, and cutting-edge pre-college program for talented and motivated high school students in the arts. CSSSA nurtures future generations of artists, arts leaders and creative thinkers, training students in seven different artistic disciplines: Animation, Creative Writing, Dance, Film, Music, Theater and Visual Arts.
Taught by renowned practicing artists and college-level arts faculty, the curriculum gives students a four-week immersive arts experience, allowing them to broaden their horizons, deepen their skills and discover a path to college and career. CSSSA supports the creative economy of California by training future members of the arts and entertainment industries, which together represent one of the State’s largest business sectors. Held on the campus of the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CSSSA provides a transformative educational experience for 500 young artists each year. Upon completion, the program offers graduates three units of California State University course credit. Furthermore, it is a pipeline to university level funding through several foundation and collegiate affiliates that offer scholarships to students that complete the CSSSA program. Originally structured as a public/private partnership, California State Summer School for the Arts is an agency of the State of California, founded through enabling legislation. Alongside CSSSA, the CSSSA Foundation (CSSSAF) was incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit to raise a diverse array of private sector funds for the School and to ensure that no qualified student is denied access to the program due to financial circumstances. Over the past 30 years, CSSSA has trained more than 15,000 young artists from all 58 counties in California, as well as students from across the country and around the world. 3
Opening Words FROM CSSSA DIRECTOR MICHAEL FIELDS
The CSSSA experience is immersive and rigorous. It asks and values the act of self-discovery. It celebrates the journey as much as the destination. It is said that creativity is the mastery of skills and information, put in the service of dreams. CSSSA is a singular chance to dream big.
In practicing art, we are given a gift of freedom and a responsibility to entertain, and enthrall, and confound, challenge, and heal, and provoke, and move a room full of strangers — some of whom will take your words, your performance, your creations, your film, your gestures as indelible sources of inspiration and sustenance for the rest of their lives.
Excerpted from CSSSA Opening Day, 2016
It is said that creativity is the mastery of skills and information, put in the service of dreams. CSSSA is a “singular chance to dream big. 4 The CSSSA Experience
Every summer for the past 30 years, highly talented, passionate students from all over the state of California have come together to experience the power and possibility of CSSSA.
At CSSSA, world-class faculty and outstanding artists inspire and teach the next generation. Whether they become practicing artists, join the entertainment industry, or work in business, arts nonprofits, or other areas, CSSSA students are creative thinkers, well-prepared for the competitive workplace of the 21st century.
CSSSA provides professional training for students in 7 artistic disciplines: Animation / Film / Music Creative Writing/Visual Arts Theater / Dance
CSSSA’s objectives are three-fold:
To enable artistically-gifted students, broadly reflective of the state’s 1. diversity, to receive intensive pre-college multidisciplinary arts training
To strengthen the future of California’s creative economy by providing a 2. training ground for the next generation of artists and arts pr