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.

Large-Scale Performance Event Downtown

This project is a partnership of Imagining America 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. To be directed by Open Hand’s Artistic Director Geoffrey Navias, this project will feature workshops at a range of city venues, leading to a large scale, festive theatrical event tentatively scheduled for late August 2010. Syracuse University students and local people of all ages are welcome to participate. Details to follow!

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