The Emerald Camino Project

August 21-September 26, 2021

Logan Square Camino: 1-7 PM, Saturday 8/21/21
Humboldt Park Camino: 1-7 PM, Sunday 8/22/21
East Garfield Park Camino: 1-7 PM, Saturday 8/28/21
North Lawndale Camino: 1-7 PM, Sunday 8/29/21
Little Village Camino: 1-7 PM, Saturday 9/4/21
Back of the Yards Camino: 1-7 PM, Sunday 9/5/21
Englewood Camino: 1-7 PM, Saturday 9/11/21
Washington Park Camino: 1-7 PM, Sunday 9/12/21
Bronzeville Camino: 1-7 PM, Saturday 9/18/21
Hyde Park Camino: 1-7 PM, Sunday 9/19/21
Woodlawn Camino: 1-7 PM, Saturday 9/25/21
Jackson Park Camino/Project Closing Celebration: 1-7 PM, Sunday 9/26/21

Theatre Y productions are offered to the public free of charge thanks to our members. THEATRE Y is a Chicago-based Free Theatre, sustained through an NPR-like membership model, that serves to manifest imagined realities, living global citizenship to better understand our shared humanity. Having specialized in international collaboration for 15 years, Theatre Y will use this latest project to turn its focus inward towards Chicago, the global metropolis which has always been its home.

Theatre Y proudly presents YOU ARE HERE: The Emerald Camino Project, an ambulatory performance designed to celebrate our shared humanity and the walkable, beautiful urban environment Daniel Burnham envisioned for Chicago. Created in partnership with approximately 80 artists, community leaders, and organizations across a dozen communities, YOU ARE HERE will offer an urban pilgrimage through Burnham’s Emerald Necklace--the boulevard system that links the great public parks on Chicago's west and south sides--forging new relationships with the city and its people along the way.

YOU ARE HERE is the second installment in Theatre Y’s ongoing Camino Project, inspired by the ensemble's 2017 trek along Spain's Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage route dating from the 9th century. During their trek from the French border to Finisterre (Latin for "the end of the world"), Theatre Y members attempted to find new possibilities for a social life based on ancient practices and rooted in the body. The first iteration of the Project, produced in 2019, combined a five-mile walk through Bucktown and Humboldt Park, a celebratory meal, and performative events blending theater, dance, and performance art.

Reviewing the 2019 Camino Project for Picture This Post, Amy Munice wrote, "What a LIFE experience this production is! . . . [T]heater experiences don't get better than this.” Josh Flanders of the Chicago Reader called it “a theatrical experience unlike any other. You go on a journey in order to find out why you went."

YOU ARE HERE will retain the 2019 format while inverting its dynamic. In a nod to the cultural, political, and, yes, viral upheaval of the last year--the roiling of our public consciousness on matters of race and equity in a COVID-traumatized nation--this year’s Camino Project will cast Theatre Y as the guest and our “audience” as the guides. The goal this time around is to forge connections among diverse Chicago communities and foster dialogue through which participants can hear, heal, and bond with one another.

"YOU ARE HERE is a joyful post-pandemic experience that connects Chicago's diverse communities through the intersection of conversation and art," says Theatre Y artistic director Melissa Lorraine.

During its six-week run, YOU ARE HERE will convene in each of 12 Chicago neighborhoods connected by the Emerald Necklace: Logan Square, Humboldt Park, East Garfield Park, North Lawndale, Little Village, Back of the Yards, Englewood, Washington Park, Bronzeville, Hyde Park, Woodlawn, and Jackson Park. The odysseys will begin at a local green space and end with a picnic in the same location. Sustained dialog being the core of the experience, each participant will be paired up with a stranger (one person from the neighborhood to be toured, the other from another part of the city) so they can talk as they go, stimulated by all they experience along the way. The routes will follow a four-mile loop incorporating significant historic, social, cultural, and religious sites; they will include rest stops and pauses for performances by local artists, singers, dancers and poets. A full pilgrimage will take six hours in total. Participants can join us in all of them or just one.

YOU ARE HERE is directed by Theatre Y Artistic Director Melissa Lorraine and features choreography by Serbia-based artist Heni Varga. It will be documented by Worldview Solutions, a social-enterprise spinoff of WBEZ radio; by National Geographic's Out of Eden Chicago; and by Berlin-based Nigerian photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi, as part of his residency in Chicago. His photographs, along with 940 hours of recorded conversations, and video documentation by Justin T. Jones and Worldview Solutions will archive and memorialize this celebratory walk.

Designers include sound artist and composer Kimberly Sutton, set designer Henry Wilkinson, and costume designer Rebecca Hinsdale. Emily Bragg will serve as assistant director and stage manager, aided by assistant stage managers Kayla Adams and Heaven Rice. The Theatre Y ensemble members are Arlene Arnone, Sage Behr, Clara Byczkowski, Catrina Evans, Adrian Garcia Jr., Howard Raik, Eric Roberts, Samantha Sowell, Kris Tori, Juan Loza, Nadia Pillay, and Nick Wenz (with help from Luis Crespo, Renata McAdams, and Melanie McNulty). The original Camino Project was conceived by Evan Hill.

Sound Design features Marvin Tate, Dorottya Döbrei, and Konstantin Stefanovic.

Each walk will be shepherded by Haman Cross III.

Featured Logan Square Artists:

• Marvin Tate

• Mariachi and Mexican Market

• Los Chinelos de Morelos

Featured Humboldt Park Artists:

• Raices to Roots

• Eduardo Arocho - Paseo Boricua Tours

• Matt Roberts (Mild High Club Drummer) and friends

Featured East Garfield Park Artists:

• Que B.I.L.L.A.H
  - https://www.facebook.com/QueBiilah

• Meida Teresa McNeal - Honey Pot Performance

Featured North Lawndale Artists:

• Marcus Quinn Jackson

• Willie Round - aka Prince Roc

• Love Blooms Here Plaza - Pop up Museum

• Firehouse Community Art Center
  
  Featured Little Village Artists:

• Ballet Folklorico de Chicago

• Working Bikes

• Huehuecoyotl Aztec Dancers
  
  Featured Back of the Yards Artists:

• Marimba Ensemble

• Youth Mariachi

• Huehuecoyotl Aztec Dancers

Featured Englewood Artists:

• 69th and Union Mirror Garden and Ballroom

• Resident Association of Greater Englewood - R.A.G.E.

• Barbara’s Garden

• Just Flo

Featured Washington Park Artists:

• David Anthony Geary

• Lola Ayisha Ogbara
  
  Featured Bronzeville Artists:

• Gallery Guichard

• Borderless Studio at Overton Elementary School

• Blanc Gallery

• Bronzeville Historical Society
  
  Featured Hyde Park Artists:

• Hyde Park School of Dance

• Alec Trio

• Dancer Irene Hsiao, Carillonneur Jim Fackenthal, and Virginio Ferrari's Dialogo

• PROJECT PARTNERS

Steve Bynum/Worldview Solutions
Steve Bynum is senior producer at WBEZ/Chicago Public Media. He has nearly 30 years in news, multimedia production, civic engagement and cultural diplomacy. For nearly two decades, he was lead producer for Worldview, WBEZ's 25-year global affairs/news program. He is CEO of Worldview Solutions, an independent social-enterprise media nonprofit inspired by Worldview. The endeavor aims to leverage solutions-oriented stories and projects, through a global lens, which reflect the resilience, joy, and progress of communities across the Great Lakes region. Steve grew up in Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood.

Worldview Solutions is modeled after the emerging form of "Constructive Journalism", "...that involves applying positive psychology techniques to news processes and production...to facilitate future-oriented, constructive conversations...[by] strengthening co-creation with readers, viewers and listeners." The Constructive Journalism model strives to illuminate the human condition by telling stories of joy, resilience and progress.

Utilizing conventional media, and its own distribution platform, Worldview Solutions will document these journeys with Theatre Y and chronicle the experiences through radio broadcasts, podcasts, video and documentary content, audience engagement experiences, and social media.

Julia Payne, Bill Parker, and Paul Salopek/Out of Eden Chicago and National Geographic
Drawing on the slow journalism ethos of inclusive, cross-cultural dialogue and community engagement, Out of Eden Walk-Chicago is a civic-minded project that fosters understanding and tolerance by encouraging residents to walk through Chicago's diverse neighborhoods and share their experiences of home across the city on a crowd-sourced storytelling map. Out of Eden Walk-Chicago hopes to realize the synergistic opportunities for collaborating with Theatre Y's Camino Project along the themes that inform our like-minded philosophies, which leverage the power of walking and storytelling to foster meaningful connections across borders. We look forward to continuing to provide programmatic support for the Camino Project and to investigating ways we will work together to maximize positive impact for the general public, community organizations, and other grassroots partners.

Lisa Roberts, Independent Curator 

Lisa is an educator, writer, planner, curator, and closet artist who works with museums, gardens, parks, preserves, schools, colleges, universities, nonprofits and NGO's to envision, plan and develop projects that have broadly to do with "education" but not the usual form. She works with texts and exhibits, technology and art, and has a particular interest in Theatre Y's Camino Project as 'Landscape Interpretation'. She brings her networks within Chicago's park districts into this year's Emerald Necklace Route and is working on bringing Theatre Y's Camino Project to their local and international open lands in the years to come.

Consultants for walkability improvements to be made along the routes:
Karen Weigert, Exec. VP, Slipstream; former chief sustainability officer, City of Chicago
Roberto Requejo, Program Director for Elevated Chicago
Vanessa Irizarry and Lubica Benak, Chicago Department of Transportation

THE EMERALD CAMINO PROJECT

YOU ARE HERE

Twelve Walking Performances Along the Boulevards that
Connect the City’s Neighborhood Parks

Theatre Y presents YOU ARE HERE, a series of 12 six-hour walking “conversations” spread out across Chicago's Emerald Necklace

Some of the 80+ Camino Project Community Leaders and Artists (a complete list available upon request):
Marshall Callery, Youth Engagement Council and THRIVE Chicago (Woodlawn)
Genora Stone, Quadrant Coordinator (Woodlawn)
Janice A. Knox, Hyde Park Historical Society
Nora Carroll, Community Actors Program (Hyde Park)
August Tye. Hyde Park School of Dance
Ereatha McCullough, Kleo Center + After School Matters (Washington Park)
Camilla Schmidt, Ellis Park Advisory Council (Bronzeville)
Friar Kelly, Precious Blood (Back of the Yards)
Xail Hernandez, Working Bikes (Little Village)
Jay Simon, Jay Simon Photography Pop-Up Spot (North Lawndale)
Alexie Young, Art West Gallery and Art West Collective (North Lawndale)
Que Billah, rapper (East Garfield Park)
Julie Sulzen, Sulzen Fine Art Studio (Logan Square)
Marvin Tate, spoken word artist (Logan Square)

This engagement is supported by:
The MacArthur Foundation, The Arts Work Fund, The Chicago Community Trust, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The School of the Art Institute, The Goethe Institute, The Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, The Chicago Architectural Biennial, the City of Chicago, and the Arts Midwest GIG Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts with additional contributions from the Illinois Arts Council.

In 2018 Theatre Y transitioned into a Free Theater to ensure that everyone is able to benefit from our programming.  This is maintained through a membership model that is similar to NPR.  Since 2018, every single Theatre Y offering has been open to the public for free to insist that Theatre isn't just another economic transaction but an opportunity to offer radical hospitality; a community experience created for meaningful face to face encounters.