April 2004 / Nov. 2003 / Summer 2003 / Feb. 2003

April 13, 2004

Local youth present their videos at ASU’s Place: Vision & Voice Digital Storytelling Festival

TEMPE, Ariz. – Since 2002, teenagers from the Gila River Indian community have been working with the ASU Herberger College of the Arts theatre department to explore the meaning of identity through video production and theatrical performance. The community-based youth drama project, Place: Vision & Voice, is premiering its latest installment of videos at a digital storytelling festival at 7:30 p.m., May 7, in the Galvin Playhouse on the ASU campus. The event is free and open to the public.

The theatre department’s child drama program has offered arts opportunities for young people through Place: Vision and Voice since 2000. Place includes two partnerships; one with the Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning High School, located on the Gila River Indian reservation; and one for children in long-term foster care with the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Child Protective Services.

During the Place: Vision & Voice Digital Storytelling Festival, youths from the Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning Center will premiere “A Window into Family,” a 30-minute video about the influence of family on identity. The teens worked with theatre professor Stephani Etheridge Woodson and graduate students Megan Alrutz and Julia Newby to create the new video. Their first video, The River People, was chosen for screening at the 2003 CinemaTexas International Short Film Festival.

For the partnership with Child Protective Services, a small group of youths in foster care who are nearing transition to independent living traveled to the ASU campus for nine weeks to collaborate with Woodson and a team of student artists to produce the video “Being Me – Through the Eyes of Youth in Foster Care,” also premiering at the festival.
“These projects are about exploring kids’ voices and giving them a vehicle to be heard,” said Woodson. “The festival also is a unique opportunity for the different project participants to see each other’s work.”

The Herberger College of the Arts at Arizona State University is dedicated to enriching its students and its community through innovative, collaborative and transforming experiences. Founded in 1964, Herberger College comprises four nationally ranked academic units: school of music, school of art, department of dance and department of theatre, plus the Institute for Studies in the Arts and the ASU Art Museum. To learn more about the college, visit http://herbergercollege.asu.edu.

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November 20, 2003

ASU’s Herberger College of the Arts honors Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning Center with 2003 Community Partnership Award

TEMPE, Ariz. – The Herberger College of the Arts at Arizona State University has awarded its 2003 Community Partnership Award to the Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning Center, a charter school on the Gila River Indian reservation in Pinal County. The annual award recognizes a local organization for achievement in community-oriented programming that integrates the arts and education.

The program, “Place: Vision and Voice,” is dedicated to opening dialogue between youth and the adults in their communities through the performing arts, including the use of digital media. It is now in its second year.

As part of the program, the Gila River teens at the Ira Hayes center enroll in an elective course in which they create a collaborative multimedia performance. In its first year, the program resulted in a documentary video, The River People, which was screened at the CinemaTexas International Short Film Festival in Austin, Texas; and at the Atlatl Native Voices Film Festival at Arizona State University, Tempe, this fall.

Herberger College theatre professor Stephanie Etheridge Woodson, together with graduate student Megan Alrutz, facilitated the program at the Ira Hayes center.

“ The project’s goal was to focus on identity issues,” says Woodson, “This resulted in the realization that the teens learn about Indian traditions almost entirely by oral customs passed through their families. Some of the teens had never been taught the Pima culture and really hungered for information about what it means to be Akimel O’otham.”

The school “Has shown great commitment to the partnership program,” according to Melanie Ohm, director of Community Programs for the Herberger College.

“ They have given the program space, equipment, time and energy,” Ohm said. “The Herberger College funded the first year of the program, and the school then sought funding to pay for the second year through the 21st Century Learning Grants. They’ve also bought a Mac computer so we can teach the students editing.”

The Ira Hayes center is the fourth recipient of the Herberger College’s annual reward. Previous recipients were the Murphy School District in 2000, Mayo Humanities in Medicine in 2001, and Cathy Genzler and Music for Suzy in 2002.

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Summer 2003

Documentary produced by Arizona State University and Gila River Indian teens chosen for CinemaTexas international film festival

TEMPE, Ariz. – The River People, a documentary video created by Arizona Gila River Indian teens in conjunction with the Herberger College of the Arts at Arizona State University, will show in September at the CinemaTexas International Short Film Festival in Austin, Texas. CinemaTexas is considered one of the best short film festivals in the world.

“ The video was chosen for its poetic and creative visual portrayal of Native American teens rarely represented in mainstream media,” said project organizer Stephani Etheridge Woodson, theatre professor at the Herberger College of the Arts. The River People, one of 18 pieces selected from nearly 60 submitted, will enjoy its first public screening Sept. 13-14 during the Cinemakids portion of the festival devoted to honoring young media producers.

To create the video, Woodson helped a group of 14- to 18-year-old Akimel O’otham teens use improvisation, creative writing and interviewing techniques to explore their relationships to their heritage. The teens videotaped interviews with local elders and added their own poetic responses to questions such as “I am,” “I want,” “I see,” “I say.” The result is a 40-minute video collage that shows the teens’ pride in their culture and also their concerns about a dying culture, caring for elders and cities building closer to the reservation.

The River People is the product of a multimedia performing arts project called Place: Vision and Voice, a partnership between the Herberger College of the Arts, Huhugam Heritage Center and the Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning High School, located on the Gila River Indian reservation. The project’s goal was to focus on identity issues and the outcome was the realization that Akimel O’otham teens learn about Indian traditions almost entirely by oral customs passed through their families. Some of the teens had never been taught the Pima culture and really hungered for information about what it means to be Akimel O’otham.

The Herberger College of the Arts at Arizona State University is dedicated to enriching its students and its community through innovative, collaborative and transforming experiences. Founded in 1964, Herberger College comprises four nationally ranked academic units: school of music, school of art, department of dance and department of theatre, plus the Institute for Studies in the Arts and the ASU Art Museum.

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February 26, 2003

Premiere party planned for Gila River Indian Community

Place: Vision & Voice, in conjunction with the Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning Center and the Huhugam Heritage Center, announces the premiere of The River People, a video collage created by the students of the Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning Center on the Gila River Indian Community.

The premiere party will be held March 13, 2003, from 5-7 p.m. at the Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning Center.

Professor of Theatre Stephani Etheridge Woodson partnered with the Huhugam Heritage Center and the Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning High School, working with 14-to 18-year-old Akimel O’otham Indians to explore their relationship to their heritage, the adults in their immediate community and to non-Indians through the use of multi-media and performance.

Many Gila youth have little or no knowledge of their peoples’ traditional ways, and thus one of the objects of the project is to have young people explore their heritage and their personal relationships to that heritage.

Through workshops, theatre games, improvisations, creative writing, and interviews, the group explored thematic language, metaphor and symbol, identity, family relationships, and leisure activities. They also worked on video filming techniques, interviewing strategies, storyboards, basic editing principles and sound capture.

The final result is this exciting video collage.

This project supported in part by grants from the Herberger College of the Arts at Arizona State University and ArtsWork: The Kax Herberger Center for Children and the Arts.

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