Arts Activities Support
Funding for Keeb Kwm /Stories of our Life, a live performance with Hmong elders using story circles, video, and food to create a talk story dinner circle that will invite audience members to play and eat and listen. Workshops will take place at the Hmong Elder Center in St Paul and culminate in performances around the community.
Julie Andersen: Executive Director, Eagan Art House; Jill Anfang: Program Director, Roseville Parks and Recreation; Bethany Brunsell: Music Teacher and Performer; Kathy Busch: Realtor and Shakopee School Board Member; Shelly Chamberlain: Minnesota Council of Nonprofits Operations Director; Paul Creager: Saint Paul Public Schools Administrator, Square Lake Film Festival Director; Joan Elwell: Lakeshore Players Executive Director; Mary Erickson: Eastern Carver County Schools Community Education; Kristi Gaudette: Prior Lake Savage Community Education; Peter Leggett: Walker West Music Academy Executive Director; Dayna Martinez: Ordway Center for the Performing Arts; Christine Murakami Noonan: Minnesota State Fair Foundation; Margaret Rog: Consultant and Grant Writer; Heather Rutledge: ArtReach Saint Croix Executive Director; Rachel Smoka: Children's Theatre Company Development Officer; Beth Starbuck: Vocal Performer; Dameun Strange: Composer and Performer; Melissa Wright: William Mitchell College of Law.
Elin Anderson: Artistic; Betsy Mowry: Administration, Youth Programming, Community Service; Joseph Hagedorn: Marketing, Organizational Planning, Education; Angela Bernhardt: Fundraising, General Management, Community Service; Sue Crolick: Administration; Ian Plitnick: Administration, Fundraising; Cathy Gustafson: Administration, Education.
ACHF Arts Access
We will engage 20 or more out of 100 Hmong elders with theater. Three hundred people attend the performances and will honor the stories of Hmong elders.We will do monthly check-ins with the Elder Center director to make sure the elders are satisfied with our programming and post-show surveys for those who are literate and video interviews for those who are not literate. We will measure attendees this by tracking them at all public and private performances as well as providing paper, face-to-face, and video options for feedback.
The goal of this project - Letters to Our Grandchildren - was intended to engage Hmong elders attending a day program in the telling and performing of their own stories, in their own languages, for each other, their families and broader community. We accomplished this through 20 on site theater-based workshops at the Hmong Elders’ Center in St Paul which used improvisation techniques to highlight culturally-specific rituals, stories and riddles. Ages of audience ranged from toddler (2 years) to approximately 80 year olds. Mean age appeared to be 25-40 years old. Ninety-nine percent of the audience was of Hmong ethnicity… Actors had several members of their families in attendance…Performers were quicker to jump in with their lines or parts than the previous day performance…Performers appeared to enjoy laughter from the audience and appeared to feed off them and each other, playing up their parts and projecting their voices.
Other, local or private