Acclaimed ballet instructor and choreographer Lou Fancher of the Berkeley Ballet Theater will present two dance master classes for teens and adults on June 14 and 16. This series is sponsored by the Dance Alliance of the Beck Center.

Master classes will include an Intermediate Ballet Technique class on Tuesday, June 14 and a Contemporary Workshop on Thursday, June 16. Classes are 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Beck Music-Armory Building. The cost is $16 per class or $30 for the two-class series. Special discounted rates are available for Beck Center students.

In addition to the master classes, Fancher will also teach a Classical Ballet Camp at the Beck Center for students ages 11 to 16 years. The week-long camp, which runs June 13 through 17, is designed for intermediate ballet students who are interested in expanding their classical technique. The camp meets 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, and includes a daily two-hour technique class and a one-hour variations class. Tuition for the camp is $195 per student. Space is limited.

Lou Fancher is a nationally known instructor, coach, and choreographer currently on the faculty at Berkeley Ballet Theater. She has been ballet mistress for Company C Contemporary Ballet, James Sewell Ballet, Minnesota Dance Theatre, and Alberta Ballet and a guest instructor for Smuin Ballet, Oakland Ballet, University of Michigan, and University of California at Davis. Her works have been commissioned by James Sewell Ballet, New York Ballet Theatre, Ballet Pacifica, and Alberta Ballet. In addition, she has participated in the Carlisle Project, a program devoted to nurturing and developing promising choreographers in classical ballet

To register for the camp or master classes call 216.521.2540 x10

At the Beck Center for the Arts, we strive to present our customers with a positive experience in everything we do—from arts education to the theater to the gallery. This also extends to our class registration process.

In our commitment to provide convenient options for arts education customers, we are adding online registration for all arts classes. This software was supposed to go live this month. During the installation process, we discovered that in order to ensure that our customers can take advantage of all of the software’s capabilities, such as discounts and payment history, we need more time to get it to the level of optimal performance you expect and deserve.

We fully expect that the software will be ready to accept online registrations for our summer camps and classes. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

If you have any questions or would like to register you or your child for the Winter/Spring 2011 semester, please call 216.521.2540 x10.

It is with great sadness that we report that Jocelyn Chang, a longtime member of the Beck Center Music Faculty, has passed away. Our deepest sympathy goes to her husband and Beck Center faculty member, Michael Leese.

Jocelyn was a champion of harp and new music, participating in festivals, conferences, workshops, and concerts while working directly with composers to perform their music for all types of audiences. She commissioned and premiered many works for harp by composers from all over North America, Europe, and Taiwan, where she founded the harp department at the Chinese Cultural University and taught full-time from 1977 to 1981. She was a leader in the exploration of a revolutionary new invention, the Dilling harp. She commissioned and premiered more than 70 works expressly for this instrument, either solo or in combination with other instruments or choir.

Jocelyn served as principal harpist and a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony. Her talent for improvisation has been showcased in collaborations in music, dance, theater, poetry, visual art, sculpture, and performance art. She performed on radio and television in the U.S., Romania, and Bulgaria, and appeared on more than two dozen CDs and videos. Her harp/flute duo with composer/flutist Michael Leese performed more than 100 times a year in venues ranging from experimental theater to corporate dinner parties, concert series, and worship services.

A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and Cleveland State University, she has taught at CSU, Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory, Kent State University, Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland Music School Settlement, and Beck Center for the Arts.

Jocelyn will be missed by all of us at Beck Center and by her many students, friends, and fans throughout the Cleveland area.

Beck Center’s Cartooning instructor Len Peralta has seen some high profile success during the last month as a CNN Editor's Choice project on their homepage.  Len’s Geek A Week, a compilation of 52 online trading cards featuring celebrity geeks and nerds, is very popular. To read about the project, visit CNN's website.

Len is also about to publish a collaborative book with writer Trace Beaulieu called Silly Rhymes for Belligerent Children. To sneak a peek at some of Len's illustrations, see this blog site.