Bapchule, AZ, August 2002 to December 2005; This residency was a three year collaboration between the Ira H. Hayes Memorial Applied Learning Center and the Place: Vision & Voice Project. We were in residence at the school teaching an elective theatre/media arts course centered each year on a different principal project. Students received academic credit and met AZ State Standards in theatre and multimedia.  This project was unusual in that it occurred during the school day and as a part of students’ curriculum. 

“Telling the Story of Me: Performing Identity on the Gila River Indian Community” is a pdf publication that collects some of the words and images from the first two years of the residency.  This publication includes a forward by one of the young artists and an extensive bibliography as well as over 100 images and poems by the youth.  The file is rather large (75 MB)so a fast connection is recommended.

Download “Telling the Story of Me: Performing Identity on the Gila River Indian Community”

Year One Project:
	The River People: What is HERITAGE? (first five minutes)
Year Two Project:
	A Window into Family: What is a family and what does FAMILY mean?
Year Three Project:
	Playing at Happiness: What does happiness really mean and how do we live a HAPPY life?

Quicktime required to play clips. Download Quicktime.

General Project Goals

General Project Evaluation

The program's success was evaluated and documented in a variety of ways. Success in this project was based upon the following core principles:

• Practitioners and participants develop a mutually meaningful, reciprocal and collaborative relationship, useful and instructive to all.
• Participants enter fully into roles as co-directors of the project, making substantial and un-coerced contributions to shaping all aspects of the work and setting their own aims for the project.
• Participants experience a deepening and broadening of their cultural knowledge, including self-identity and a greater mastery of the arts media deployed in the project, (meeting the arts standards) with openings to further learning and practice as desired.
• Participants feel satisfied with what they have been able to express and communicate through the project.
• Participants demonstrate heightened confidence and a more favorable disposition toward school and to taking part in the school/educational community.
  

All members of the artistic teaching team will keep a teaching journal documenting their work on the project. Team members will also be asked for periodic written program evaluations in line with the core principles. The PVV team will also meet periodically with school teachers and administration to evaluate the program using both the core principles and the AZ Educational Standards. Students attendance at school and continued enrollment in the school will be tracked (The drop out rate on the reservation is extraordinarily high). Participants will perform a self-evaluation and be evaluated by the school principal and/or participating teachers who will look at grades, and promotion. Students will also create a portfolio that will be used to document their work and/or apply to college/jobs. Students will be given an exit interview and we will also conduct interviews with select parents/grandparents/caregivers. Lastly, an effective program must build and maintain a network of community partnerships therefore the PVV team will meet with community members and the tribes’ educational committee at least twice a year and administer final programmatic evaluations.