Lensic Performing Arts Center
Enriching our community through performing arts and education
The Lensic Performing Arts Center is Santa Fe’s year-round home for the performing arts. Our mission is to enrich lives by bringing diverse art and people together in the historic Lensic Theater, a cornerstone of downtown Santa Fe since 1931. The Lensic Performing Arts Center is New Mexico’s largest performing arts education provider, reaching 13,000 students annually. The Lensic also programs events throughout New Mexico as Lensic 360, including 50+ free events with the annual Santa Fe Summer Scene program.
The Lensic's Summer Scene is now in its third year. This programming significantly adds to the unparalleled arts and culture offerings in Santa Fe, a small city with less than 90,000 people that truly punches above its weight. It was not always the case, as Lensic 360 Director, Jamie Lenfestey recalls:
“I was walking through the Railyard on a night where there was a show there and on the Plaza as well. I walked past a couple and overheard the woman exclaim, 'I can’t believe how much is going on in this town!' I stopped in my tracks, turned back, and said, 'I have been waiting 20 years for someone to say that!'"
Summer Scene has grown enormously through the years, bringing an extraordinary vibrancy to this unique community that connects us with friends, neighbors, and visitors alike, through our shared love of music and our beautiful City Different.
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The Santa Fe Community Foundation invited local nonprofits to submit stories related to our July topic of Arts & Culture.
Communities In Schools of New Mexico
Communities In Schools of New Mexico is dedicated to surrounding students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. By placing site coordinators directly on school campuses, CISNM provides critical services to students facing significant barriers to academic success and empowers them to stay in school and achieve in life.
Santa Fe Alliance For Science
The Santa Fe Alliance for Science (SFAFS) is an all-volunteer organization that has served the students of Santa Fe for over seventeen years. Its mission is to “Bring out the Inner Scientist in Every Student".
Silver Bullet Productions
Chama Valley Arts cultivates creativity, learning, and community through arts and culture. They collaborate with local schools, offer youth and adult classes, camps at their arts center, and are opening a new pottery studio.
