Walking Fish's B. Someday Productions to Host Navajo Summer Arts Camp in New Mexico, Begin. Today

B. Someday Productions, located at Walking Fish Theatre in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, launch a new initiative serving Navajo youth in New Mexico today. The Navajo Summer Arts Camp serves Navajo children and youth, ages 5-18, residing in the eastern area of the Navajo Nation and/or in area of the Thoreau Community Center, Thoreau, NM where the camp is sponsored. The camp also serves Navajo elders and parents of the children and youth.

Beginning today, July 22, and running through August 2, B. Someday Productions' Artistic Director, Michelle Pauls will bring two weeks of theatre games and activities, including a pared down version of B. Someday's Barrymore Award-winning OF MYTHIC PROPORTIONS program to Navajo teens living on the Navajo Nation Reservation. The camp will serve grades eight through twelve and will focus on storytelling, theatre games, and creating an original piece of performance, based on stories from their own lives. The camp will culminate in an original piece of theatre, which they then will perform for each other and for the community of the reservation. Traditional stories shared by community elders will also be incorporated. The Public Performance will be audience-interactive, and the whole community will be invited to share in the young people's original piece of live performance!

It is the hope that B. Someday will bring this summer arts camp to the reservation again, and eventually, create a Cultural Exchange, where Navajo youth will travel to Philadelphia, PA to share in local arts and performance such as hip hop dancing, performance poetry, puppet making, and the like. And then Philadelphia youth will travel to the Reservation and learn traditional arts and customs from the Navajos, such as storytelling, Indian lore, and care of horses.

Between October 2009 and October 2010, 15 teenagers in the community of Thoreau, NM took their lives. While there has been a dramatic decrease in youth suicides since then, the pressures youth face here have not disappeared. It is our hope that this Summer Arts Performance Program will be the light for some young people living on the Reservation. We are all Americans, after all, it is our duty to help one another. The arts should be accessible to all, and it is our belief that THEATRE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD! One performance at a time.

B. Someday Productions is located in a multi-cultural, low-income community of Philadelphia, PA. We use a combination of theatre, literature, and myth to bring together local artists, students, and the community. With like-minded groups from the immediate community, and the community at large we collaborate and produce theatrical works that are both original, and adapted. Our mission is to have youth from the community encouraged and mentored by local artists to write, produce, and promote shows that are taken from the youths lives and then transformed into live theatre. These performances are seen on stage at the community schools, institutions, and local community centers.