Lift Up Your Hearts!
A Celebration of Imagination in Our Lives
THEATERWORK photos by Petr Jerabek.
The Building Creative Communities Conference will open with a celebration of the imagination and the many forms that spring from it in the life of a community and its people. It honors the beauty, creativity, and excellence found in places of all sizes and the deep connection between the highest forms of art and the art found in daily life. From the imagination comes the gifts that a community gives to its people and to strangers who come into its midst. We can learn to imagine a place as it is, as it was, and then, as it will or may be.
This celebration includes music, dance, poetry, puppetry, visual arts, film and more.
THEATERWORK has been engaged in the creation of community celebrations since it was founded in Minnesota forty years ago. It was invited into both large cities and small towns nationally to story-gather and design performances, parades, festivals, and – in many instances – worked with local people to bring the stories to print in illustrated books and workbooks.
In its 18 seasons in New Mexico THEATERWORK has continued with that work at the invitation of schools, community centers, historical societies, churches, and arts councils. It has hosted poetry readings, musical evenings, special storytelling events and performed 110 plays. THEATERWORK has produced the work of contemporary playwrights of international renown as well as many new works by New Mexico playwrights. Most recently it realized a three-day celebration of the work of New Mexico poet Jimmy Santiago Baca on the occasion of the world premiere of the documentary film based on his memoir A Place to Stand.