PROJECT KNOWLEDGE- Day 17

Day 17: Appalshop & The Roadside Theater

Today we woke up early from our beautiful Asheville campsite and got on the road to Whitesburg, KY to visit Appalshop. Check out our morning view!

Appalshop is a multi-disciplinary arts organization dedicated to capturing the stories and expressing the voices of the Appalachian community as well as other communities they collaborate with around the country and around the world. They really appealed to us because of their model of integrating different arts together toward social progress... through radio, music, filmmaking, photography, and theatre they have created rich and deep dialogues that bring the community together and enact social understanding and change. (for example, check out their Thousand Kites project www.ThousandKites.org)

We began our visit by meeting Andy Kachor, who took us into their screening room and gave us a private screening of the Thousand Kites project documentary called Up the Ridge. He actually gave us a good laugh by showing us this funny and somewhat creepy Russian video before we started too... it might give you a laugh.

It was a gorgeous day, so afterward we sat at a picnic table in the sunlight with Andy & Nick Szuberla (who actually co-created the Thousand Kites documentary) and had a wonderful talk with them about the structure of Appalshop, how the artists interact with the local community, how the organization approaches it's funding and financial challenges, and how they use their collective talents to make a difference with their work. Nick gave us tremendous insight into the process of how they function and how we can learn from their challenges and successes.

After our meeting, we hopped back in the RVs and headed to the home of the Roadside Theater (Appalshop's theatre company) to meet with two of the founders Dudley Cocke and Donna Porterfield as well as Artistic Associate Matt Salter. They are tremendously giving people and have been a huge inspiration to us in the ways they have uplifted communities with their work.

We began our discussion with a story circle (one of the techniques they use to develop their original shows). There are specific rules attached to the process, but the broad essence is that you pick a theme and then one by one you go around the circle and each person tells a personal story based on that theme. As the circle progresses the spirit of the group focuses and deepens. We had moving experience and by the time we were ready for our discussion we felt very connected with them.

We had a great discussion about their ideas on artistic excellence, about the ways they've used their work to diffuse conflict in a community, and about their financial model and the ways it would have to evolve in order to support our future. There was such a generous spirit about the time they spent with us, they are an inspiration.

After we said goodbye we walked back to our RVs and got on the road towards Blacksburg, Virginia for our breakfast meeting tomorrow with Bob Leonard, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at Virginia Tech. These days are going fast!