In University City, the region’s kids don’t just watch the arts — they make them. COCA, the Center of Creative Arts, is one of America’s largest community arts centers, welcoming some 50,000 people a year into a landmark Erich Mendelsohn building where toddlers take first dance steps and teenagers mount full productions.
The family menu is enormous: dance, theatre, visual art, voice and circus classes; beloved summer camps; and COCA Presents performances — family theatre and dance at the Catherine B. Berges Theatre — that put professional polish on kid-sized stories. Scholarships and free community programs keep the doors wide, true to COCA’s founding mission in 1986.
If your child has ever hummed, twirled or doodled, COCA has a class with their name on it.
COCA is at 6880 Washington Avenue in University City. Classes and shows at cocastl.org.
