Founded in 1961 by Walt Disney and his brother Roy, CalArts offers comprehensive degree programs across the full range of the visual, performing, media, and literary arts through its six schools. Admission is decided primarily on artistic merit and creative promise.
Disney imagined CalArts as an all-inclusive community, where artists can look outside their own metiers (programs) and collaborate with each other, across conventional categories, to craft new forms of expression. By breaking through artificial barriers, this ongoing exchange of ideas and methods opens up fresh perspectives, sparks out-of-the-box innovation, and energizes the creative community as a whole.
Now, more than 50 years later, the CalArts learning experience continues to stand apart from other schools. Our intimate, creative environment prioritizes experimentation, supported through individual mentorship and guidance. Every student has a faculty mentor throughout their time at CalArts who advises them both academically and creatively and can serve as a link to their professional industries. All of our faculty are practicing artists as well as educators, and CalArts students have access to visiting artists every semester, often building strong working relationships and connections that form the foundation of lifelong professional networks.
And the clearest way to measure a CalArts education is to look at the work and transformative cultural impact of our alums.
Beyond its campus, the Institute also encompasses the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), an arts presenting center in downtown LA, and the Community Arts Partnership (CAP), a cocurricular youth-arts education program with community organizations and public schools throughout LA County.