Save the date: Friday April 12th and Saturday April 13th, the Celia Center is holding their second annual Arts Festival, Adopting Resilience, Fostering the Spirit of Creativity: The Voices of the Fostered and Adopted.
The non-profit organization is featuring the work of diverse artists in a wide range of mediums; along with the art exhibition, performances, readings, workshops, children’s activities, and an artist’s panel are all part of the event.
The artists participating were encouraged to explore their personal experiences as individuals who were adopted and/or in foster care. They’re offering experiences in musical, performance, and visual arts, as well as in the healing arts.
The event will be held at the Highways Performance Space, a co-presenter of the festival in partnership with Celia Center. The opening reception is scheduled for 6 – 8 p.m. on the 12th. The art exhibition will be viewable through April 28th.
The LA-based, non-profit Celia Center was founded in 2012 by Jeanette Yoffe, a child therapist with a special focus on adoption and foster care issues. Inspired by her own experiences in the foster care system and through the adoption process, Yoffe also had a strong desire to merge her previous career in the arts as a dancer and actress with her activism.
The center provides workshops, salon support groups, and other events throughout the year, supporting and uniting those who’ve worked their way through adoption and foster care.
Joffe (left) will be one of the performers at the Celia Center Arts Festival. Other highlights of the weekend event include a writing workshop, and a celebrity book reading for children with track athlete Steven Benedict (right); the opening reception is focused on the CCAF’s visual art group exhibition, curated by Nicole Rademacher (middle image), herself both an artist and an adoptee.
Attendees will have the opportunity to hear evening performances at 8 p.m. both nights of Voices from the Past to Present, a 90-minute presentation of narrative, poetry, spoken word, and theater pieces assembled by actor and playwright Brian Stanton; the event will also include Yoffe’s performance from her own play, What’s Your Name, Who’s Your Daddy. The play recounts her experiences in foster care and adoption by a New York Jewish family, a work which inspired Yoffe in her work as a psychotherapist.
Also featured will be Rock Willk (above), Julayne Lee, and performance artist Kayla Tange; as well as Jerri Allyn, reading a letter written to the biological son that she found. The event will additionally include a reading from Susan Harris O’Connor, writer of a seminal autobiographical book, The Harris Narratives: An Introspective Study of a Trans-racial Adoptee.
A writing arts workshop will also take place at 4 p.m. on Saturday. Both this workshop, Writing the Unsaid, and the evening performances require purchased ticketing; tickets are available at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celia-center-arts-festival-2019-tickets-51995221106
Free programming at the event includes children’s activities such as face painting from 12 noon – 3 p.m. on Saturday; a celebrity book reading at 1 p.m. from professional track and field athlete and Olympic Trials Qualifier Steven Benedict, a former foster child who has run in some of the world’s most prestigious events.
Event goers can expect to experience VR painting with Google Tilt Brush as well. And for ages four and up, there will be a Healing Arts Table for children in foster care and/or adoption and their families. Free for adults will be an artists panel and Q&A moderated by curator and Highways museum director Rebeca Trawick.
For more information, visit https://www.celiacenterartsfestival.org/
Highways Performance Space is located at 1651 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, 90404
- Genie Davis; images provided by Celia Center Arts Festival