Mesa Arts Center’s mission is to invite all people to create and discover entertaining, challenging, and diverse art and arts experiences within joyous, dynamic, and welcoming environments. Owned and operated by the City of Mesa, Mesa Arts Center is a unique, architecturally stunning, international award winning facility located in the heart of downtown Mesa. Arizona’s largest multidisciplinary arts center is home to four theaters, five art galleries, 14 art studios, and a seven acre campus with two outdoor stages. Guests come to Mesa Arts Center to experience the finest live entertainment and performances, world-class visual art exhibitions, outstanding arts education classes, and a wide variety of community engagement programs and projects. The facility is an architectural showpiece and a destination for visitors to the Phoenix area.
2019-20 Performing Live season
Mesa Arts Center’s Performing Live series, featuring 60-80 shows annually of national and international touring artists, enables audiences to connect with brilliant artists and big ideas—with thrilling and poetic experiences. These shared experiences further our ability to understand each other, to see the world from different perspectives, and find common ground. Season highlights include amazing jazz and world music and dance concerts, the National Geographic Live! speaker series which delivers stories of life-changing explorations from behind the camera, the Classical Music Inside Out series curated by GRAMMY award-winning cellist Zuill Bailey, a Valentine’s Day engagement with renowned opera singer Renée Fleming, solo performance by star of film, TV and Broadway, Mandy Patinkin, family engagements like Double Dare Live and much more.
Mesa Arts Center’s FREE signature festivals and events:
Season Kickoff Event: Sept 13, 2019
Spark at Dark: 3rd Saturday Of Every Month Oct-May, 2019-2020
Día De Los Muertos: Oct 26-27, 2019
Out To Lunch Concert Series: Thursdays, Nov 2019-Mar 2020
Mesa Arts Festival: Dec 14-15, 2019
Fall 2019 Opening Reception & Season Kickoff
Sept 13 | 6:00–10:00 PM
Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum (MCAM) offers 15 changing exhibitions annually, with major openings in September, February and May. The theme for the fall exhibitions is flora and fauna, which explores animals and plants in contemporary art. Joel Sartore, acclaimed National Geographic photographer, will show works from is Photo Ark project, in which he photographed every endangered species on the planet. Other features include the fantastic piñata beasts of Roberto Benavidez, the narrative fiber sculptures of Carol Eckert and Mary Meyer’s nature inspired mixed media works, as well as a Flora & Fauna group show exploring the diversity and beauty of life on earth. MCAM admission is always FREE.
Flora & Fauna
Botanicals and Animals in Contemporary Art
Dobson Main Gallery | Sept 13, 2019-Jan 26, 2020
Photo Ark
Joel Sartore
South Gallery | Sept 13, 2019-Nov 24, 2019
The Memory of Birds
Carol Eckert
North Gallery | Sept 13, 2019-Jan 5, 2020
Medieval Piñata
Roberto Benavidez
SRP Gallery | Sept 13, 2019-Jan 12, 2020
biophilia
Mary Meyer
Project Room | Sept 13, 2019-Jan 12, 2020
Explore nearly 1,000 visual and performing arts classes, workshops and arts camps offered for all ages.
Winter/Spring 2020 Registration: Nov 15, 2019
Arts Camps!
Join us for Arts Camps at Mesa Arts Center! Choose from theater, mural art, glass, painting, dance, music and more this summer! Camp programs at Mesa Arts Center are designed to provide unique and engaging arts experiences for youth, pre-teens and teens in our state-of-the-art studio classrooms. Explore and register for art studio classes
Mesa Arts Center’s Engagement Programs provide high-quality arts experiences for people of all ages and backgrounds. From K – 12 students improving literacy skills through hip hop, poetry and drama, to veterans and service members relieving stress through printmaking and metalworking, to older adults connecting by dancing flamenco, these programs are driven by the belief that the arts are a critical component to a healthy, activated and vibrant community.
Classical Music Inside Out – Zuill in School
Mesa Arts Center frequently leads large collaborative projects to address community needs and interests, to explore cross-sector opportunities to use art and art-making for community development, and to engage residents of our region in powerful experiences that place art at the heart of our communities.
Current community projects:
Free Workshop Series: Aug-Oct, 2019 | Art installation: Nov 16-24, 2019 | Celebration and Kickoff Nov 16, 2019
Mesa Arts Center and the Mesa Department of Arts and Culture are proud to present the Water=Life project, in partnership with the Mesa Departments of Water Resources, Sustainability and Parks and Recreation.
Water=Life works with a large and diverse group of local artists to lead 12 community workshops exploring water through art-making, and culminates in a temporary work of public art in Riverview Park that explores the importance of water to our region–past, present and future. The project will engender broad community participation and celebrate the legacy of our canal system, originally created by the ancient indigenous people of our region.
Try your hand at ceramics, hoop dancing, spoken word, textile art and more through this series of free workshops offered as part of Water=Life. All ages are invited to participate, and those who attend will have the opportunity to contribute ideas, personal reflection or artwork to the culminating public art installation in Mesa’s Riverview Park. Water=Life is supported by the Arizona Community Foundation’s Water Public Art Prize and a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Mesa Prototyping Festival: March 21, 2020
The Mesa Prototyping Project (MPP) asks, “How does a community design itself?” This fall through next spring, we’ll continue Part II of the Mesa Prototyping Project as we celebrate community-engaged design in neighborhoods south and southeast of downtown. The project will feature 10 temporary installations resulting from neighborhoods identifying their needs and applicants experimenting with creative ways to address them, with the resulting prototypes installed for a one-day community event. MPP empowers all residents to think about ways to improve the beauty and functionality of their environments. It builds community relationships by connecting neighbors and neighborhoods to each other and to cultural resources, and by offering creative ways for ideas and community opportunities to be explored, expressed and celebrated.
Find one-of-a-kind art and unique gifts at The Store at Mesa Arts Center, an Artists Cooperative Gallery featuring original work by Arizona artists.
The Mesa Arts Center maintains formal relationships with several Mesa-based arts organizations that perform at the international award-winning facility. These organizations were instrumental in helping realize the vision that is the Mesa Arts Center and directly assisted in making it become a reality.
Symphony of the Southwest
Youth Symphony of The Southwest
Ballet Etudes
Southwest Shakespeare Co.
Mesa Encore Theatre
East Valley Children’s Theatre
Metropolitan Youth Symphony
Salt River Brass
Mesa Arts Center Members are the first to hear about new shows and enjoy exclusive Members-only events. Membership supports Mesa Arts Center’s Engagement and access programs serving people throughout our region.
Contact Mesa Arts Center
Box Office & Registration:
One East Main St
Mesa, AZ 85201
480.644.6500
M-F 10A-7P
SAT 10A-5P
SUN 12P-4P
MCA Museum:
480.644.6560
Mon: Closed
Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat: 10am-5pm
Thu: 10am-8pm
Sun: Noon-5pm
[2nd Fri of the Month: 10am-10pm]
Social Media handles:
FB @MesaArtsCenterAZ Twitter @MesaArtsCenter Intsa @mesaartscenter