The experience of living your dream career for two weeks is right at your fingertips if you are an artist, writer, musician, actor or dancer. For eight years, Fresno State has put on a summer arts program that started in 1986 for all undergraduate and graduate California State University students. Students who attend this two-week session can earn three units in theater, dance, music, visual arts, creative writing, new media and arts education.

The CSU Summer Arts program has two sessions, and enrollment fees start at $752 for California resident undergraduate students, not including housing. What students often don’t know is that 80 percent of CSU student participants receive scholarship assistance. The first session is from July 1 to July 14, and the deadline to apply is May 21. The second two-week session is July 15 to July 28, and the deadline to apply is June 4.

Joanne Bartok, assistant director of summer arts, said the program brings in the best instructors in the world.

“The artists that are in the top of their field and the most exciting will stay two days to the full two weeks,” Bartok said.

She said that most of the artists who attend will also hold public events that students will attend free in the Fresno community and on the Fresno State campus. Fourteen classes will be offered, and about 400 students across the state and 100 artists will join.

Bartok said the program is very unique.

“What we do that is different from what anyone else does is that there are a lot of intensive arts programs, but we are the only ones that have all the different genres of the arts,” she said.

Dance professor Loreli Bayne helped organize this event for dance majors. In fall of 2005, Bayne sent out a proposal and received a grant for a New York City dance program to come to California. Bayne will again teach a two-week intensive dance workshop at the summer arts program. The course is called the NicholasLeichterDance, Bayne said. Leichter founded a type of street hip-hop contemporary dance.

“It is very popular right now,” Bayne said. “(Nicholas Leichter) is really hot in dance.”

Eight members who use this technique are called the “Culture Clash,” and they will be performing July 1 at Fresno State to kick off the festival of ongoing performances during the four weeks.

Bayne’s workshop involves dance choreography, where students learn dance company pieces, and will only be offered the first session of the program.

Bayne also said she is excited that Mia Michaels, the choreographer from “So You Think You Can Dance,” will visit the program for two days.

Robyn Gee, a senior double major in dance and communication studies, will be one of the Sacramento State students who will be attending the program. She said she can’t wait to go.

“Professor Bayne is so committed to her students and always gives them 100 percent of her time and energy,” she said.

Gee said she was inspired by Bayne because Bayne started dancing later than most: in college. Gee dances nine to 10 hours a day and is choreographing and dancing in the current senior dance concert, “Without Boundaries.” She said to be able to dance for two weeks is a great opportunity because students are able to experience what it is like to have a career in dance.

“You realize it is something you can actually do with your life and make it a career,” Gee said.

Bartok said that the summer program gives the students a chance to interact with different students in different art majors.

“The most exciting part of the program is the dorm lawn. You have 100 artists and a couple of hundred students, and everybody is living together, and the dancers will come out and dance, and the drummers will come out and drum and the writers will go out on the side and write about the dancers dancing, the drummers drumming, and all that,” Bartok said. Camilla Aceves can be reached at [email protected]