Stage Door News
Stage Door News
DAREarts announces that this afternoon, August 9, 2018, twenty-seven youths from Toronto and eight Indigenous youths from the remote, northern community of Webequie First Nation will visit Stratford Festival to see To Kill A Mockingbird as part of DAREarts’ annual summer camp. After the performance, at 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm, the youths will engage in a Q&A session in the Eaton Lounge with actors from the stage, local MPs and Stratford Festival’s Artistic Director, Antoni Cimolino. The media is welcome.
This partnership of 22 years continues to be a leader in bridging cultures. Last year, as a way to celebrate Canada’s 150th, DAREarts and the Stratford Festival brought together educators and artists from both organizations to work with Indigenous youths in four northern communities, including Webequie First Nation.
This year’s DAREarts summer camp runs August 7-14 for 35 youths aged 12 – 19. The Indigenous and non-Indigenous teens together are creating drama and visual arts, inspired by Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and the production by The Stratford Festival. Here’s diversity and inclusion at its finest as the youths share their own real life challenges like those presented in this play. The summer camp will culminate with a presentation by the youths themselves in Toronto.
“We at DAREarts appreciate this multi-decade partnership with Stratford Festival that is all the more inclusive by involving our remote northern Indigenous youths, said Marilyn Field, Founder and President of DAREarts. “Our rural Indigenous youths and our urban non-Indigenous youths are sharing experiences so different and yet so similar as Canadians who are often not heard. These youths have plenty to dream, achieve and lead.”
DAREarts encourages youth to step outside of their familiar boundaries and engage in positive risk taking. As they collaborate on artwork, they can distance themselves from their own life challenges and enjoy the safety of a supportive atmosphere.
As our programs grow, we ensure that they are relevant in addressing current social challenges affecting youth. We focus on constructive, positive social skills that are essential to success, particularly in communities where opportunities are limited.
DAREarts is a Canadian charity that empowers at-risk young people to be leaders who ignite change. That includes partnering with First Nations to work alongside their youth, artists and elders to together address life challenges including isolation, hopelessness, mental wellness and suicide. In its 22 years, DAREarts has reached over 200,000 young Canadians. Visit www.darearts.com
The Stratford Festival has been setting the standard for classical theatre in North America for 65 years. With the works of Shakespeare at its core, this acclaimed repertory theatre presents a seven-month season of a dozen or more plays in four venues, along with a Forum of events to enrich the play-going experience. It has been committed to arts education for decades, welcoming more than 60,000 students each year and offering a wide variety of curriculum support programs, including Teaching Shakespeare, Teaching Musical Theatre, an annual teachers’ conference, Performance Plus and other electronic study guides, as well as a summer Shakespeare School for budding actors. The Stratford Festival’s volunteer program Es Artes has been teaching acting and theatrical skills to at-risk youth in Suchitoto, El Salvador, for the past eight years. Since its revolutionary first season in 1953, the Festival has welcomed more than 28 million theatregoers from around the world. Visit www.stratfordfestival.ca
DAREarts LEAD SUPPORTERS: Northbridge Insurance; Anne Livingston; Scotiabank, TD, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, The Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario
2018-08-09
Stratford: DAREarts youth bridges cultures at the Stratford Festival