News: Art-in-Motion Strengthens Neighborhood Community
Taken from The Near Westside Monthly Newsletter
Picture a very, very tall paper mache puppet with the longest dress you’ve ever seen. She is a grandmother figure, reflecting various Latino cultures that look to the matriarch to keep the community together. As Rita Paniagua, Director of La Liga, puts it, the image communicates that in Latino cultures, “Grandma Rules!”
Now imagine what the local artist Juan Cruz could do with that image, working with a group of 8- to 12-year-olds affiliated with La Liga. And there you have the first step in a citywide project—Art-in-Motion—conceived by Open Hand Theater’s Geoff Navias, Imagining America’s Jan Cohen-Cruz, and Lauren Unbekant of Syracuse Stage.
The goal of Art-in-Motion is to create an artistically rich, multi-generational, multicultural, university/community event that supports, strengthens, and connects neighborhoods through the arts. In all four quadrants of the city, Navias is initiating puppet workshops and, with Unbekant and Cohen-Cruz, helping groups create theatrical scenes expressing something distinctive about their neighborhood. All four puppets and scenes will be featured in a performance on Sept. 11 at 2 p.m. on the lawn of the MOST in Armory Square.
Step two in the Near Westside is the creation of a theatrical scene, capable of being performed out of doors, linked to the puppet but also extending beyond. This component will be directed by Jose Miguel Hernandez, who for 11 years has directed La Joven Guardia del Teatro, La Liga’s own youth theatre troupe. Thanks to a Weed and Seed grant, Art-in-Motion’s puppet and theatrical scene will be the vehicle for La Liga youth to communicate a message of safety not only in the neighborhood but citywide.
As Navias points out, as important as building the puppet and the scene, are the conversations the project generates about neighborhoods. In conversations to generate images about the Near Westside, many of the children expressed the comfort and joy they experience there—also visible in the vibrant colors they used for the puppet.
The project is funded through a Syracuse University Chancellor’s Leadership Project grant and support from New York Council for the Humanities.
For more information about Art-in-Motion contact Vicky DelPrato at vadelpra@syr.edu or (315) 443-8590.
