Arts & Culture in San Dimas

Kinetic Theory helps aspiring clowns, acrobats, and plate spinners learn the dangling ropes of circus showmanship with its performance-training program. Led by veteran performers including Cirque du Soleil alums and professionally trained aerialists, the intro to circus arts course incorporates elements of aerial arts, acrobatics, physical training, and basic object skills such as clown-car repair to provide a well-rounded primer on big-top performance. Classes are kept small so students can focus on learning essential skills necessary for safe tumbling and performance, while also improving fitness with a dynamic workout. Kinetic Theory's spacious studio features sturdy safety mats beneath a variety of ropes, silk drapes, and trapezes that provide the playful nostalgia of a playground without the muckraking toddler politics. Introductory classes are held Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons for adults, while youth sessions take place Thursday afternoons for children as young as 6 years old.

The Dinner Detective's renowned troupe of talented actors engages audiences with an evening of laughs, intrigue, and suspense as mock murder accompanies a four-course meal where everyone in attendance is a suspect. A dressed-down cast of professional Hollywood- and Chicago-trained sleuths circulates through the crowd, sniffing out phony alibis and asking the hard questions to solve the mystery of each whodunit. Before the night is over, the fictional criminal is cuffed and the most accurately detecting diner takes home a prize package. The Dinner Detective leases out its gumshoes to clean up crime during private events such as fundraisers, family reunions, or embezzlement hearings. The thespians have sharpened their entertaining chops by performing for such Fortune 500 companies as Universal Studios and Walt Disney Imagineering.

The Los Angeles Ballet is a group of more than two dozen dancers who prance across the stage like marionettes controlled by Santa's team of bethumbed reindeer. See this renowned company perform a holiday classic to the choreography of experienced husband and wife team Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary.

In 2008, South Pacific swept the Tony Awards®, capturing seven golden trophies, including Best Musical Revival and Best Director for Bartlett Sher. Based on James Michener's Pulitzer Prize–winning book, Tales of the South Pacific, South Pacific tells, dances, and sings the story of two couples—Navy nurse Nellie Forbush with French plantation owner Emile de Becque, and airman Joe Cable with lovely native lass Liat— torn by war and the temptations of tropical paradise. The original production won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1950, with its frank depiction of racial prejudice as a central theme.

Before El Cid's skilled professional dancers and musicians strut and strum their stuff on stage, tuck into dinner fare such as the chipotle short ribs with roasted-garlic butter-whipped potatoes ($14.95), or pollo mole, a dish of seared chicken simmered in mole with red rice and ratatouille ($16.99). Vegetarian diners can hang a fang on stuffed peppers cooked in Grand Marnier ($15.99). There are eight entree selections in all, each of which is served with the soup of the day, a mixed-green salad, and a healthy heaping of zesty flair.

Presented with 600 acres of verdant pasture to sculpt into an executive course, golf-course architect David Rainville dreamt up 18 Bermuda grass fairways adorned with colorful flowerbeds, four ponds strewn into play, and sand bunkers of various sizes and difficulties. In the three decades since Rainville’s vision became reality, the course’s trees have flourished on all of the eight par 4s and 10 par 3s. The well-manicured course has been ranked in the top 10 courses in San Diego, inviting golfers of all stripes to experience the verdant playground and perhaps occasional sightings of caddies that graze on the short grass. While swinging through the course, men and women are asked to wear collared shirts, protecting them from neck sunburns, informality, and vampire flagsticks.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 62 course
• Length of 3,968 yards
• Course rating of 58.9
• Slope rating of 102
• Course layout