BY ALEJANDRA TOBAR ALATRIZ
Lake Street Arts! is an interdisciplinary leadership and community development, multi-year collaborative initiative focusing on place-making and place-keeping through the arts led by Pangea World Theater. Working with artists from East Africa, Latina/o/x and Indigenous Communities along East Lake Street, LSA! uses art as a tool to shape development plans towards a more equitable, sustainable model of growth.
Through a generous grant from ArtPlace, LSA! Phase 1 runs through Spring 2016 and Phase 2 begins Summer of 2016.  Goals include a Community Organizing Artist Apprenticeship Program and a Community Based Plan to develop East Lake Street as a Cultural Corridor.
LSA! centers People of Color, Immigrant, and Indigenous artists as community organizers that will contextualize Pangea”'s program through 2018.Â
“We will be principled in serving the revered and diverse Lake Street ecosystem. Our guiding principles will keep us accountable, emergent in design, and strategic. We seek to spark artistry and creativity while simultaneously working against the forces of gentrification. From the beginning we ask what will remain of our work after the Poetry comes down from the windows.”
Pangea World Theater is partnering with a broad network of artists and businesses to install multimedia interventions along Lake Street including:
“Poetry in the Windows”; a youth and young adult poetry exhibition in storefronts with Lake Street Council.
“Home,” an ensemble piece with Latinx, East African, and Dakota/Lakota/Ojibwe actors.
“LUCA” ”“Latin@s Unidos por la Cultura y el Arte””and other creative coalitions centering the arts and culture in their work across industry through dusk dance parties and open mic gatherings.
“Lake Street Arts Cabaret” – the five-hour street event down East Lake Street with Patrick”'s Cabaret, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Elsa”'s House of Sleep, Himalayan Restaurant, and Ghandi Mahal Restaurant AND other
Community learning gatherings and allied collaborations.
LSA! Local Directing and Theater Institute, building performance capacity with community members for a street festival.
LSA! Celebrate Minneapolis Indigenous People”'s Day (formerly Columbus Day) October 12th.
Through the transformative power of the art, we will:
Support cross-industry & cross-cultural dialogue, creating, learning, strategizing, & organizing AND
Contribute to highlighting Lake Street as a place where people love to live, seek to work, and come to learn and play.
www.artplaceamerica.org/grantee/lake-street-arts
711 W. Lake Street Mpls., MN 55408 pangea@pangeaworldtheatre.org
Alejandra Tobar Alatriz, is L.S.A. Project Director
