Chancellor's Leadership Project: Laboratory of Community, Arts, and Learning (LOCAL)

In searching for solutions to today’s most vexing problems, local communities are looking toward new avenues to inspire and unite. LOCAL explores how the arts contribute to local challenges. We're currently focusing on the need to re-infuse the city of Syracuse's downtown with energy and appeal given 50 years of population decrease. LOCAL also contributes to Syracuse University’s Scholarship in Action, providing projects through which students learn hands-on from experts on campus and in the community.

In July 2009, LOCAL launched two projects:

Backstory Performances on the Connective Corridor

In partnership with Syracuse Stage and the Syracuse University Drama Department, several solo performances will tour along Syracuse’s Connective Corridor. These will be developed and staged by Lauren Unbekant, Syracuse Stage’s Education Director and Drama Department Instructor; and Kevin Bott, Imagining America’s Coordinator of Publications and Events. These touring Backstory performances will be created through extensive research into the lives of notable cultural figures. Backstory’s current repertoire includes pieces on George Washington Carver, Anne Frank, Zora Neale Hurston, and Harriet Tubman. This year’s first Backstory on the Corridor is entitled Woman in the Blue Dress. It will be performed at the Everson Museum as part of their Impressionism exhibit, which includes the painting by Renoir on which the piece is based.

Art-in-Motion Workshops culminating in Performance on September 11, 2010

This project is a partnership of Imagining America, Syracuse Stage, and Open Hand Theater, a professional masks and puppets repertory troupe that produces original productions for adults and provides performances, workshops, and artist in residency programs for local schools. Open Hand Theater is situated in a museum and performance center whose mission is the celebration of the human experience through mask and puppet traditions from around the world. Directed by Open Hand’s Artistic Director Geoffrey Navias with segments by Lauren Unbekant of Syracuse Stage, this project will feature workshops at a range of city venues, leading to a large scale, festive theatrical event on September 11, 2010 at 2pm. Syracuse University students participate both through a course, “Masks, Movement, and Giant Puppets” (link) and pre-orientation opportunities in August 2010.  Major support is provided by Chancellor Nancy Cantor of Syracuse University through a Chancellor’s Leadership Project grant.

Thanks to funding from New York Council for the Humanities, Art-in-Motion also features a series of public conversations:

“WaterFire and the Role of Art in Downtown Development”
Artist Barnaby Evans, creator of WaterFire, Providence, RI
March 3, 8:30-10am, The Warehouse Auditorium

 “Just Design and the Future of Main Street”
Mindy Fullilove, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Public Health at Columbia University, will emphasize the intertwined health of places and people.
April 15, 7 p.m.  The Warehouse Auditorium

“Community Arts in Downtown Syracuse”
 Barnaby Evans, Mindy Fullilove and Maria Rosario Jackson:
Panel on Sunday, September 12, 2 p.m.

“Cultural Vitality and Community Revitalization: Opportunities and Challenges”
Maria Rosario Jackson, Senior Research Associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Center at the Urban Institute
Monday, September 13, time and location tba

For more information about this Chancellor's Leadership Project, read the press release here.