Milagro creating Utopia in Hillsboro, Oregon

With grant support from The Standard, Milagro artists visited students from Drama and English as a Second Language classes at Brown Middle School and Century High Schools in Hillsboro, Oregon for three weeks in April. At these two schools, students designed their own environmentally sustainable communities and created eco-dramas, an environmentally focused form of social justice theatre.
At Brown Middle School about 20 drama students from Batya Podos’ class wrote ecodrama scenes and performed for their peers, skits on littering, air pollution, smoking, alternative energy and recycling. Some of the creative choices included using llamas instead of lawn mowers to cut grass and using sky diving as a new “high” to replace smoking addiction. Milagro artists Matt Haynes and Dañel Malan worked with these classes to share their acting and improvisational skills both in English and in Spanish as needed.
In Gloria Campos’ English as a Second Language classes about 60 students engaged in a discussion of what an environmentally sustainable “utopia” could be and designed posters of their communities.
“Tarzanos of the Amazon” was one of the stand out examples of a community built in the Amazon jungle, where it’s citizens travel by swinging from vines and make soccer balls from rubber trees for both their own sports and a form of commerce with other communities. Other utopian designs included “The Sand Hood” where houses are built like giant sand castles or “Pom Land”, where the citizens build rickshaws for their mode of transportation. Most of the students chose a democratic form of government, preferred the idea of living in nature because of the health advantages, exercise opportunities and all agreed that growing your own vegetables was a healthier and safer life choice.
"I would love for Teatro Milagro to return and of our ESL classes in their activities.
They have great rapport with the students and keep them engaged. "
- Gloria Campos, Brown MS ESL
Meanwhile, over at Century High School, Milagro artist Omar Vargas worked with about 30 of Devon Julien’s English as a Second Language students, creating and designing utopia’s as well.
The student start the class with a brainstorming session about the problems that our planet is facing and discuss what would be some of the positive choices that could make Utopia possible. Utopian designs in each group showed different approaches to the idea of living in a sustainable community. For housing, some of the designs included wood, bamboo, clay and rocks. Many of the students chose fire as their principal form of energy and for transportation boats, walking and swimming were some of the options. Again, democracy was the favored form of government and speaking native languages was the most popular form of communication.
Omar is very energetic and made a really good connection with the students.
"I think this is a wonderful opportunity for our diverse student population.”
- Devan Julien, Century High ESL
Also at the high school, drama students had an opportunity to explore ecodrama in the outdoors on one of Oregon’s rare sunny days. About a dozen drama students explored such issues as deforestation, city beautification and animal rights with guest artists Matt Haynes and Dañel Malan. In the deforestation scene, a tree hugger convinces a logger to save the tree and build a tree house instead and in the city beautification scene, two students convince a business owner to pay for flowers that they will plant in exchange for free advertising, another “win-win” in the ecodrama world.
The residency concludes with a free community performance of Milagro’s El Ultimo at Century High School on Wednesday, April 29th at 7 pm in the campus theatre. Students from the school will appear in cameo roles in original work they scripted themselves for the occasion.
This residency was made possible with additional support from Juan Young Trust, Oregon Arts Commission, Target, Autzen Foundation, powells.com and El Hispanic News. For more information about the Hillsboro program, contact Saideh Haghighi at the Office of Hispanic Outreach at 503-844-1486.