Lake Street Arts!
Since 2015 Pangea World Theater's Lake Street Arts! (LSA!) program has worked to deepen the practice of placekeeping through the arts. Offering workshops, large scale public art, story circles and ensemble based performances Lake Street Arts! (LSA!) tends to the communities we arise from. LSA! utilizes the Arts to create visions for a more just, joyful and livable Minneapolis and our shared Earth to emerge.
Let's dream together.
Featured Video: Rebecca Nichloson from Life Born of Fire 2022, Minneapolis Song for George Floyd
Current and Past Programs and Projects
Milkweed Maps Yard Sign Project is a simple way to connect all the small acts we can take to tend to our shared Earth. Designed by the Dakota artist Marlena Myles. This work of art yard sign encourages Milkweed and pollinator friendly planting for the Monarch Butterfly and letting the leaves and plants winter over to support Fireflies, Bumblebees and more. Each small act we take stitches together a map of renewal and resilience for all of us. Add to this map. Get a yard sign at one of Pangea's events or contact Pangea to arrange picking one up. Take a picture of the sign in your yard or the balcony of your apartment where you have a potted flower, your community space or wherever you are tending to the Earth.
Poetry in the Windows is a Placekeeping project between poets and local businesses and organizations. Pangea and guest curators invite poets to write a piece that speaks to the moment we are in. Then the poems are installed in the windows of local businesses and organizations along Lake Street from Bde Maka Ska to the HaHa Wakpa (Mississippi River). Poetry in the Windows makes space for what is missing, stolen and unimagined. It offers dreams for the transformation and healing of our streets, communities and shared Earth. Each poem installed has a QR code to see where all the poems live and to hear the poets read their work. In three cycles of Poetry in the Windows Pangea has installed fifty-five poems. This project connects poets, independent businesses, and the public together in mutual support.
The Seeding Change Institute is a new initiative by Pangea World Theater and funded by The Jerome Foundation to create a generative, supportive institute for artists to strengthen their skills and critical approach to making socially engaged Art projects and work in any genre. The Seeding Change Institute is developed for artists by artists and those working in the arts. The Seeding Change Institute seeks to connect artists to a larger community, to a deeper understanding of the role of the artist in social transformation and to each other. Now in it's third year the institute has twenty-six cohort alumni.
It Takes a Hive
You Are Here! A new map of Lake Street
Drawn from a series of collage workshops and writing prompts You Are Here! A new Map of Lake Street was created by collaborator Keegan Xavi, with words from a poem by Poetry in the Windows writer Rush Merchant and design by stowe silver. The map celebrates our shared Earth & Sky and was part of a year of free community art workshops and performances on and about Lake Street, in Minneapolis 2022-2023. Our workshop artists were: Venus De Mars, Anthony Ceballos, Dejajolle, Sarah M. Greer, Sayge Carroll and Keegan Xavi. A poster of the map was made and 500 copies were distributed to the public.
WE NEED EACH OTHER The Lake Street Arts! Story Circle Archive is an edited collection of poems, images, visual art and stories gathered from over thirty story circles and interviews held between 2020-2021 in the Twin Cities about people's experiences with the Covid-19 and the Uprising after the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police department. The archive is a 141 pages and might take a moment to load on your computer. There is also a print version and Pangea has distributed over 700 copies of this archive to the public.
Seed Syllables was a collaboration between Chrissie Orr and Pangea's Co-Artistic Director Meena Natarajan. Commissioned by the Academy for the Love of Learning in Santa Fe where Orr is a fellow. Orr and Natarajan engaged in conversations with 32 artists/activists/cultural workers and thinkers across the U.S. and Canada through zoom. Then in residency in both Santa Fe and Minneapolis they created two public rituals from poems created out of the conversations and a series of paintings by Orr.
Life Born of Fire was an ensemble created ritual performance with music, dance, songs, poems, film and stories woven from many story circles and artists own experiences surviving Covid-19 and the Uprising after George Floyd. The first version was performed outside in a vacant lot, two buildings away from the 3rd Precinct, Minneapolis, August 2022. The second version happened at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis August 2023.
Transition Stage
READINGS
In development: Liberating Spaces including Artist Gatherings and a National Symposium in 2027 &
Spirit Roads: An Augmented Reality Journey Through Dakota Homelands This project will reconnect the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis with the Dakota homelands beneath its streets. Dakota artist Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota / Mohegan / Muscoge) will be the lead artist.
Watch this space.
It is my honor to curate Lake Street Arts! With the ongoing attacks against immigrants and Indigenous communities, the lack of real change addressing police violence in Minneapolis and across the country, the ongoing systems of anti-Blackness and misogyny and war and greed engulfing the world and trying to steal the future…Art that nurtures the epic, gorgeous and messy stories of who we are remains deeply necessary for our survival.
Love in these Tender and Dangerous Times,
Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe
Lake Street Arts! Curator
Pangea is so thankful for the funders of Lake Street Arts!
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
