Greater Long Beach Arts Lab (GLOBAL) Celebrates National Arts Humanities Month

by Joe Mello, Community Correspondent

(Oct. 1, 2011) -- Now in its third year, the Arts Council for Long Beach has transformed October in Long Beach into one of the premiere national showcases of the arts as part of the National Arts and Humanities Month.

The Greater Long Beach Arts Lab, known by its acronym GLOBAL, was reinvented by the Arts Council in 2009 from its "October is Arts Month." Last year after a successful media campaign, GLOBAL was widely recognized as a model community arts showcase.

This year, GLOBAL promises to be bigger and better than ever with over 1,000 events and 13 local sponsors (including LBReport.com). Itineraries on the GLOBAL website (www.globallb.com) fall into seven categories: Music and Sound; Books and Words; Dance; Theater; Visual Arts; Free; and Family Friendly. The range and depth of the offerings within Long Beach are truly mind boggling.

Music offerings include everything from a free David Rubinstein Piano Recital at the Long Beach Public Library on October 22nd, to the CSULB Bob Cole Conservatory of Music presenting Drums and Drummers on October 17th.

Dance lovers get everything from Radio and Juliet performed at the Carpenter Center by Ballet Maribor to a multi-company presentation called Line Up at the Long Beach Playhouse. Radio and Juliet on October 15th mixes the beautiful melodies of Romeo and Juliet with the hard rhythmic power of the modern rock group Radiohead, while Line Up features 14 dance companies in 20 production pieces on October 8th. Also at the Carpenter Center October 21-22 will be Indian Jazz Suites featuring Indian Kathak master Pandit Chitresh Das dancing with Emmy Award winner Jason Samuels Smith.

The city's biggest arts organization, the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, has three events this month. Opening night of the Classics series is tonight, October 1; the new "Sounds & Spaces", free chamber music in architecturally significant spaces around LB is October 23, and opening night of the Orchestra POPS! season is October 29. There's more at www.lbso.org.

As GLOBAL shares October with the annual ghosts and goblins celebration, it's no surprise that many events have a traditional Halloween bent. Opening October 1st, The Long Beach Playhouse is staging Dracula through October 30th.

Across town, The Richard Goad Theater will feature on October 28-October 31st, the Long Beach Shakespeare Company performing War of the Worlds, based on the Orson Welles radio broadcast on the night of October 30, 1938.

For non-scary fun Long Beach’s American Melodrama Theater and Music Hall presents Snooty and the Beast through October 9th. For the spooky storytellers, Gatsby Books is holding its 2nd Annual Scary Story Contest, with the Long Beach Writers Group reading the entries aloud and announcing the winners on October 24th. On October 30th, Rancho Los Alamitos Historic Ranch and Gardens will host the Children’s Fall Festival: Starry Sky and Harvest Moon complete with a costume parade.

With October 1st falling on a Saturday this year, the recognized opening day premiere event is the East Village Soundwalk. In its 7th year, the Long Beach Soundwalk is part of an international movement to place Sound Art in public spaces. Soundwalk runs from 3-10 pm and is free.

LBReport.com will feature continued coverage all month long of the sights and sounds of the Greater Long Beach Arts Lab.

Disclosure: LBReport.com is among this year's sponsors, and is a founding sponsor, of GLOBAL.

The Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, mentioned in the above text, has an ad on LBReport.com.