CalArts Celebrates 50 Years of Following Walt Disney’s Dreams

For 50 years, its been a safe place for storytellers musicians, animators, directors, writers, artists of all kinds to learn, grow and thrive. AsCalArtscelebrates its golden anniversary, it also faces the future head-on.

Broad trustee emeritus Tim Disney, whose great-grandfather, Walt Disney, laid the foundation for what is now a world-class arts school, says thatCalArtswas founded with very large-scale, utopian ideas by Walt Disney. Disneyland andCalArtswere very grand things, Disney says, adding that Walt died before the school opened and that his grandfather, Roy Disney, had the very hard job seeing the plans through. His commitment was a very beautiful thing.

Its not a coincidence that Tim Disney spearheaded the Roy and Edna DisneyCalArtsTheater (RedCat) in Downtown L.A., which hosts cutting-edge performances.

Walt Disney was inspired by CalTech. He had radical ideas about education, and wanted to create a kind of laboratory where the arts would cross-pollinate, notesCalArtsfaculty member and author Janet Sarbanes, who has been doing extensive research on the schools history. Disney said bring me the most innovative people in their field. She notes that Disneys vision was radical, recruiting avant- garde artists from New York but always with an eye on cross-pollinating disciplines. The rich mix of artists/instructors and intellectual stimulation has seen such names as Tim Burton, Don Cheadle, Pete Docter, Genndy Tartakovsky, Katy Sagal, Allison Brie, Ravi Coltrane, Nedra Wheeler, Marcelo Zarvos and Paul Ruebens, among many others, trek its halls.

CalArtshas had an outsized impact on our society, evidenced by what the alumni have done, saysCalArtspresident Ravi Rajan.

SinceCalArtsis basically one flowing building on a tree-filled hill in Valencia, Calif., the 1400 students- and teachers regularly engage on campus. This is the point, says jazz program director David Roitstein, founding member of theCalArtsjazz program. He also praises the flexibility of the instructors and students and programs, noting that the jazz program was founded in the early 1980s with the mandate from dean of music Nicholas England himself an expert on world music to do it differently.

He wanted to start this program, but he didnt want to do it the same way as all the other schools do it, which is primarily about harmony and very linear, analytical, academic kind of thinking, you know. But jazz tradition is an oral tradition too. So he brought in Charlie Haden the legendary bassist and composer. That sort of industry outreach is baked into the curriculum.

Innovative teaching and student engagement thrills faculty member Ellen McCartney, who teaches costume design and notes the success of such alumni as Rita Ryak, X. Hill, Lean Sands, Kate Fry and Barbara Inglehart. Storytelling through costume is the key her students learn.

The focus of the training is on the design and the conceptual side of things, says McCartney, adding, Its really the storytelling part of it. That is, why are we telling these stories, what stories are important? And all of it involves collaboration. It involves communication.

Rajanlooks forward to the next 50 years but also sees big challenges for higher education.

We really believe strongly that aptitude is evenly distributed in the population, but opportunity is not, he says, noting that the school will be wrestling with that fact, and it isnt going to be an easily solvable problem. You cant snap your fingers and do it. But its built into what were doing. Because what we do is so personalized, with a very low student to faculty ratio and thats the magic.

As for other blue-sky ideas for the next half-century, Rajan says, Theres a lot of thinking about how we could create a lab or an institute where technology and technologists can come and work with artists and the newest things can be there and that can maybe be funded by public private partnerships.

Sounds a lot like what Walt Disney would have wanted from his school of storytellers.