Mesa’s Dennis Kavanaugh is hosting Coffee with the Councilmember on Friday, an event where residents can get updates on city events and ask questions. The event will include Cindy Ornstein, executive director of the Mesa Arts Center, who will provide highlights of this year’s events at city museums and at the MAC. Coffee and breakfast will be provided at the event, at the Mesa Hilton, 1011 W. Holmes Ave. For more information or to RSVP, call Charlotte McDermott at (480) 644-5294.

A fresh crop of concerts, theatrical productions and art exhibitions aren’t all that’s new at Mesa Arts Center this season. The 5-year-old complex has a brand-new director, Cindy Ornstein, a New York native who worked for the past 10 years as head of the Flint (Mich.) Cultural Center Corporation, a nine-building campus with a 2,000-seat auditorium, history museum, automotive gallery and planetarium that hosted Broadway shows and music, dance, theater and education programs.

Mesa’s quest for a new arts and culture director has been narrowed to a woman who is now the president of the Flint Cultural Center Corp. in Michigan.

Mesa is trying to boost its downtown’s economy while bolstering its image as a center of arts and culture by allowing certain nonprofits to rent the Mesa Arts Center at a reduced rate.

Savion Glover, the dance icon many critics say “saved” the art of tap dancing, isn’t just a master of dance steps; “he’s a percussionist with his feet,” says Mesa Arts Center director Cindy Ornstein, who’s presented Glover in past performances at other venues. Glover, star of Broadway’s “Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk” and former “Sesame Street” cast member, dances this weekend in a new concert-style production, “Bare Soundz.”

The Mesa Arts Center has been named arts organization of the year by the Arts & Business Council of Greater Phoenix.

Mesa has chosen a new arts and culture director who has an extensive background running museums and a wide variety of cultural events.

Through her role as Mesa's new arts and culture czar, Cindy Ornstein is one of the few people who has found some encouraging news in this long economic slump.

With its flagship piece — the Mesa Arts Center — in place the arts and performance scenes in Arizona’s third-largest city have been on the receiving end of some international acclaim of late.

The Mesa Arts Center will have a new outdoor stage for performances and visual art demonstrations in the next year or two, as part of a transformation planned for the 8-year old facility.

A popular inflatable art installation that visitors can walk through will return to the East Valley for spring break, as part of a larger festival in downtown Mesa.

As staff at the Mesa Arts Center began preparation for its second “Festival of Creativity,” MAC executive director Cindy Ornstein said the group was looking for something to pique their interests — a spark, of sorts.

Combine three little pigs, a trip to one of the most renowned arts centers in the state and a group of school children, and that makes for one exciting field trip.

If it sounds strange now, it won’t for long. Amococo is about to become a Valley buzzword.

My Mesa Takes Flight sub-committee assignment is to write a narrative about events that took place 70 years ago - events that changed everything in what we now know as the East Valley.

Chances are you haven’t seen Native American art like this before.