Art Renaissance at East Los Angeles College

New complex creates an inspiring space for collaborative and performance art.

“Our new Performing and Fine Arts Center will be a star on the map for the entire region,” enthuses Kimbly Brown, dance professor at East Los Angeles College. “Not only are the dance studios and performance theaters state-of-the-art, but the fact that we will be in the same complex as the visual arts, theatre, and music departments will allow us to collaborate on many different levels. Imagine dancing to live music and having art students draw and paint dancers—
the possibilities are limitless.”

The largest project in the Los Angeles Community College District’s Sustainable Building Program will be ready for spring classes. More than 159,000 square feet of classroom, exhibit, and performance space is being added to the college. The entrance to the three-building complex on the east side of campus is the Vincent Price Art Museum, which will house an 8,000 piece collection and a multimedia lecture hall for art history courses.

Faculty worked with the Arquitectonica design team in the early planning stages. Art professors integrated the outdoors with the interior of five art studios designed with open ceilings, elevated north-facing windows for ideal lighting, and centralized exterior space so students can work outside as an alternative. ELAC’s prominent ceramics program will have five kilns to fire life-size ceramic pieces as well as smaller work. It is enclosed with an innovative grid system that provides the advantages of being indoors with the feeling of being outside.

“It is a miracle that the theater arts complex is completed,” comments Michael Kasnetsis, chairman of the Speech, Theatre Arts, and Broadcasting Department at ELAC. “When the college first estimated the cost, the price of our building was exorbitant because Hurricane Katrina and the Chinese Olympic building boom had driven up the cost of construction. It took a long time to complete the design and state-mandated permitting process, but the delay was a blessing in disguise. Construction costs had dropped so we could afford to build this amazing facility.”

Two additional theaters form the core of the new theatre arts building. A classic proscenium stage provides a venue to teach students traditional staging and lighting techniques. The “black box” theater is a flexible space that can be adapted to different staging and seating configurations, such as theater-in-the-round. Two dedicated classrooms and two workshops for costume and scenery design, plus storage areas, dressing rooms, and faculty offices complete the new facility.

Music faculty requested high-quality acoustical recital halls and a 36-seat classroom equipped as a state-of-the-art recording studio where students can learn to operate sophisticated digital equipment and produce high quality recordings. The dance department shares a 350-seat theater with music that will be the new home for its internationally renowned Let’s Dance Company as well as for a variety of ethnic and contemporary dance performances.