Borderlands Theater has won a $100,000 grant to do what it does best: making immersive, community-based theater.
Tucson’s Borderlands is one of 18 theaters across the country that won a grant from One Nation One Project, an initiative that aims to underscore the impact of the arts on the community’s well-being. There is extensive research about the power of the arts in health, and One Nation is calling on that to fuel the initiative.
About six years ago, Borderlands decided that rather than traditional stage plays, it would do theater and music about and performed in barrios around the Old Pueblo. Stories from the elders in the neighborhood, music, puppetry and poetry are combined to tell the story of the neighborhood and the people who live there. These are not sit-down-and-watch events. Attendees walk through a portion of the neighborhoods as actors and residents unfold the history of the area.
It is this approach that led One Nation to reach out to Borderlands to create and produce a performance that will be presented on July 27, 2024, — the other 17 cities and towns will do the same on that date. The prompt for all of them: #NoPlaceLikeHome.
“We’re part of an 18-city cohort that is hyper-local and of national relevance,” said Marc David Pinate, Borderlands producing artistic director. The theaters will be “creating work for, by and with our communities to celebrate home, heal and thrive together.”
“We are so happy to be involved,” said Milta Ortiz, the company’s associate artistic director. “We are already deeply in the community. What we are doing is the type of work they are interested in. They thought we were a great fit.”
During the upcoming season, Borderlands will present bits and pieces from what they expect that final July 27 performance to be. That includes a musical concert featuring works from an Ortiz-written musical, “Anita,”and performances by Tucson youth, who, under the guidance of Ortiz, wrote and will perform a play about mental health.
There’s more: “We will have neighborhood folks give talks, and art-making activities with kids,” Ortiz said. “We want to understand their exposure to art and how they feel when they sing and make art.”
Research from Americans for the Arts and others indicates they will feel better, happier and more content.
Pinate says they will be reaching out to and including community health organizations. The goal, he said, is “to have folks armed with the knowledge of how arts and culture can add to social cohesion and mental health.”
To find out more about Borderlands Theater, visit borderlandstheater.org.
Walking tour of the historic Barrio Viejo neighborhood south of downtown Tucson. Text by Bobbie Jo Buel. Photos by Mamta Popat. Produced by Rick Wiley / Arizona Daily Star 2020
