Theater camp moves teens in new directions

Nick Taniguchi was in a dark place. The high school freshman struggled with suicidal feelings, racial isolation and loneliness.

When his mom, Theresa, signed him up for Penumbra Theatre's Summer Institute, he wasn't interested.

"I just wanted to fool around and hang out with the wrong people like I was always doing," Nick said.

That changed after his first week at the theater camp that teaches teens to use art for social activism. The experience "broke down all my walls," he said.

His father, Marshall, marvels at Nick's transformation. "It actually saved his life. He's found hope. He's found a voice. He was totally uplifted."

Nick, 17, now an incoming senior at Hopkins High School in Minnetonka and a third-year student at the Summer Institute, is not the only one. Many institute students said that Penumbra, a black theater company based in St. Paul, gave them a greater understanding of the world and a different view of their own ability to contribute to it.

It opened students' minds to the struggles of those with different life experiences, forced them to face their own emotions and prompted some to go to college.

Each summer, about 30 teens, at least half of them black, enroll. They study acting and dance, sure, but they also talk about race, class, gender, sexuality, ability and religious differences. If students want to return for a second or third summer, they must plan and implement an art project in their communities that addresses a social injustice.

This year's tuition is $400 per student, which includes four five-day weeks of instruction from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., lunch, field trips and a dorm stay at the University of Minnesota. (The actual cost is $3,000 per student, but Summer Institute is supported by grants and private donations.) Scholarships ensure access to needy students.

Summer Institute has existed for 20 years, but in 2005, Sarah Bellamy, education director of Penumbra, launched a redesign of the institute where such issues as racism and homophobia were included in the curriculum, making those equal to the artistic classes.

The students "confront unfair things in the world that boggle their minds," said Bellamy, whose father, Lou, is founder and artistic director of Penumbra Theatre. "They want to know why: Why did the Holocaust happen? Why did slavery happen?

"We're arming them with words that adults listen to, with critical thinking skills."

A culminating performance of this summer's session, which will feature scenes the teens wrote based on their own life experiences, will be held at 6 p.m. Monday at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul.

Emotional recall

Nick's turning point happened on his second day at Summer Institute. One of his acting teachers, Tonia Jackson, asked her students to imagine they were getting ready for the funeral of someone they love. The students then created a scene, acting out their final goodbyes.

"They made us go deep inside," he said. "They pulled out the real emotion. It made me feel real vulnerable. I don't think anybody likes to tap into that vulnerability but once you do, it produces a more enlightened you. I broke down."

Nick often felt alone and singled out at school or in his extracurricular activities as "the black kid." Adopted by Marshall and Theresa as a baby, he was brought into a racially mixed family -- his dad is Japanese, his mom's white, and his two adopted siblings are black, like him.

Even after Nick's first Penumbra summer, his troubles persisted. It was difficult to relate to his usual acquaintances and surroundings with his newfound outlook.

"After the program ended, it was back to school," Nick said. "Suicide was on my mind. I needed a safe place to keep from doing something stupid."

Art for change

Nick returned to Summer Institute and planned his first of two independent projects: Crunk for Life. He went to a fifth-grade classroom at Marcy Open School in Minneapolis and taught crunk, a style of hip-hop dancing, to the kids, hoping to show them a positive artistic outlet that might keep them out of gangs.

Having found his biological mother earlier, Nick learned that cousins and other family members had died as a result of gang violence. He lost a good friend, too, just 17 years old, to gun violence.

"I felt overwhelmed and like everybody was dying," he said. "I went to a couple vigils and it was just heartbreaking to see all these youth that were trying to make a change in their own individual lives die, and they didn't have a chance to do it."

His second project was a 12-minute documentary with K.G. Wilson, a former gang member and activist with an organization called Hope Ministries, about the detrimental effects of rap music on black men in particular. You can find it on YouTube by searching for "Bring Back the Beat."

While Nick's projects were driven by concern for issues of race and class, the students' interests show a wide range.

Another former student and intern, Dahlia Stone, created monologues from interviews with people affected by genocide, showing the similarities between the experiences of Jewish people during the Holocaust to those who suffered in Rwanda or Darfur. Lena Zinkl, a third-year student with Nick, plans to work with adolescent girls in her St. Anthony Park community exploring body-image issues.

Bellamy said that through Penumbra's education, the students feel the weight and complexity of the American experience, particularly from minority points of view, and they want to make it better.

"This tiny little theater in Minnesota, this black theater company -- it's gonna change the world," she said.

Looking forward

Every grief that Nick experiences further builds his confidence in his self-proclaimed purpose -- to share his story.

"I feel like I'm going somewhere really far with my life and I feel like there [are] a lot more lives to save than only mine."

He plans to attend college after this year to study acting and philosophy.

He continued: "There's always hope in life. You've just got to find it."