Stories Inside Out

September 2020. In partnership with Círculos Academy High School in Santa Ana, we piloted a high school arts residency, focused on personal voice in the midst of hardship and social unrest. All on Zoom!

Does your school receive Title I funds, with families who have food and housing insecurity? Do you work with Dreamers and undocumented families? Do you have a group of students experiencing grief and loss, are impacted by cancer or have family members with cancer? Contact Us. We can bring an arts residency to your school or district.

Narrative, Poetry, Art and Dance

I wonder if darkness could kill light

I pretend to be under the rain

I understand life is not perfect

I touch air, feeling my grandpa

I pretend (that I am playing soccer in a real soccer stadium)

I wonder what the world would look like if grass were not green

I hope in the future there will be great things coming my way

I say world peace can happen if we try hard enough

I dream to do something

even though you do not want to or you find it difficult

I wonder what I will be when I grow up

I touch the hand of my future self,

assuring me it’s gonna be okay

- Selected lines from "I Am" poems, written by 9th graders

after reading "Caged Bird" by Maya Angelou

and discussing the Black Lives Matter protests