An Auraria Parable
Program
A note
Thank You
Thank you all so much for attending An Auraria Parable.
On behalf of all the the artists, creators, advisors, community representatives, storytellers, and perfomers, I wanted to say thank you for joining us on this journey to the past of Auraria and the people who have considered this place its home.
When I first started this project with my former co-creator Jenny Filipetti, we had envisioned a piece that was abound in magical realism and light-hearted adventure. What the project grew into is a beautiful and thoughtful exploration of the past and the people that were here. The project achieves something profound and transformative through storytelling and allowing spaces to speak for themselves.
From a personal place, I hope that each and everyone of you that has attended felt inspired to continue to learn and continue to find ways to share your own stories. Each of you is important and your stories help continue the flow of community and connection.
Sincerely,
James Lopez
Founder of The Exposure Project
PER STORIES EXIMIUS
About The Parable
An Auraria Parable was developed from an original creative pitch to the Denver Center For Performing Arts Off-Center grant program, Powered By, ran in 2022.
The original project, Don Quixote De Auraria, a fable set on the Auraria campus, was centered around addressing the issue of gentrification and inevitability of development and loss of community in an city struggling to modernize.
As the story sat, the intent of the project changed and its focus evolved based on the needs of the community and the ever changing political climate of our time. The concept started to take a deeper look at Auraria as a location and the people that have been living on it. What makes them all come to this place? Why do communities need to be displaced for a new community to come in? How do we enter into difficult conversations about trauma, legacy, displacement?
Over the course of a year, in partnership with The Aurarian Campus, The DCPA, Rowena Alegaria – Former Storytelling Laureate of the City of Denver, and The Exposure Project, An Auraria Parable worked on developing techniques, invitation, and community engagement to foster and encourage people to tell their own story how they wanted it to be shared. Whether that was through food, art, dance, or monologues, we wanted to find ways to help make sure stories felt lived in and experienced.
PROJECT TIMELINE
Spring of 2024 - Initial Meetings
Winter 2024 - Spring 2025 Story Sharing Events
Spring 2025- Devising and Writing
May 2025 - Show Launch
About The Show
Storytellers
To make An Auraria Parable come to life, we identified a handful of storytellers whose stories felt universal and provided commentary on the recurring themes we found on campus surrounding invitation and dispalcement.
Our storytellers were identified through direct referrals to our creative team or through our story sharing events held on campus during the fall and winter of 2024.
Withouth these storytellers and their insights, we would never have found some of the deeper connections to this land, its people, and the stories it wanted to share.
Below you will find information about each storyteller who joined us in this journey.
9th St Corridor & Casa Mayan
Frances Torres & Sheila Perez Kindle
Frances Torres and Sheila Perez Kindle are two former residents of Auraria. Both of their families were displaced from Auraria in 1973. Since then, along with Tony Garcia of Su Teatro, Virginia Castro and other former residents of Auraria, Frances and Virginia have worked hard to continue advocacy work for the former families of Auraria. Their efforts aim to provide restitution to those former families and find ways for the campus to connect and provide space for Aurarians on campus through scholarships, museums, and other types of engagement.
St Cajetans
Maria Corral
Maria Corral works for the Denver Center For Performing Arts and is a former MSU Alum.
She has fond memories of St Cajetans and when it was a community church. The church and its transformation into the barren community space it is now was part of the impetus for Maria to stay in Denver, CO and advocate for the Latino community. She is an active voice in the community and helps to run or support various advocacy organizations on campus.
Student Representation
Various Students
This project includes an amalgamation of various stories from students that were provided to us. During our story sharing events on campus, we met with 100’s of students who told us their stories of invitation and displacement and a desire to find connection and meaning on campus.
All of their stories heavily influenced our writing and the artistic voices of our cast. We thank all of them for their work and dedication.
Native Plants Gardens
Autumn Romero & Marsha Whiting
Mother/Daughter combo Autumn and Marsha are enrolled in the Chippewa Cree tribe and from a historical band of Obijwe called the Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians that moved to Denver via relocation.
Marsha formally lived in Auraria with her parents before she was displaced and moved to another part of Denver.
Autumn is a former CU Alum who attended the university via the Displaced Aurarian Scholarship.
While on campus she worked hard to create indigenous representation helping to create the American Indian Student Alliance.
The Audience’s Story
Although we had to pick only a handful of stories for this experience, our hope is that you feel inspired and empowered to share your own story.
Without you, stories can’t come to life. Hopefull this helps you find ways to tell or share your own story in your life.
About The Show
Artists
For this project, we partnered indivdual storytellers with Denver based artists to help make these stories come to life. Each artist brought with them experience, techniques, and creative work that helped to flesh out these spaces and creating powerful backdrops for these stories to be told.
Below you will find information about each artist and see which location they helped contribute to.
Native Plants Garden
Chelsea Kaiah
Chelsea Kaiah (b. 1995) is Ute and Apache/ Irish settler, born on the Northern Ute reservation. As an artist she currently resides in Denver Colorado. She is a passionate activist for Native rights, awareness, and sustainability. Chelsea earned her BFA at Watkins College of Art and Design in Nashville Tennessee.
Today, she learns traditional practices of pine needle weaving, beading, porcupine quilling, buffalo hunting, and hide work, incorporating her interdisciplinary skills to meld a perspective of culture and artistic practice.
St Cajetans
Other Rooms/
Nicholas Caputo
Nicholas Caputo (finnocitta) is a Denver-based sound designer and multi-instrumentalist whose work explores the interplay between presence, memory, and emotion through immersive sonic experiences. With a background that spans cinematic composition, street performance, punk, and experimental noise, his practice bridges the deeply visceral, the contemplative, and the broadly historical. He has composed and performed for immersive and site-specific theater, composes for dance, tours with various bands, works as an audio engineer, and produces out of his music studio, Other Room Studios. Drawing from a palette of field recordings, obsessive instrument acquisition and practice, meditation, and deep listening, Nicholas’ work is versatile and purpose driven—evocative, subtle, and rooted in the exploration of the psyche and the emotions that resonate long after the sounds fade.
Golda Meir
Rowena Alegaria
Rowena Alegaria is the former Chief Storyteller of Denver, the founder and director of the Denver Office of Storytelling, the world’s only municipal storytelling, cultural preservation and narrative change project. She was Naropa University’s 2024 Cobb Peace Lecturer and the 2021 Ricardo Salinas Scholar in Fiction at Aspen Words. She’s writing a novel that plays with form and the history of the Southwest. With 20+ years’ experience leading diverse, high-performing teams, she helps organizations take new approaches to old problems and grow through innovation, technology and strategic thinking. As Chief Storyteller, she leads a team that’s brought resident voices and histories out of the shadows and onto big and little screens for more than half million people. At Alegría Communications, she consults and builds inventive strategies for engaging internal and external audiences around impactful multimedia storytelling and around equity, inclusion, diversity and belonging.
9th St Corridor
Courtney Ozaki
is a cultural connector and creative producer based in Denver, Colorado. After studying at Brooklyn College and receiving an MFA in Performing Arts Management, she worked as a project manager and dance producer for Joyce Theater Productions with whom she developed and toured new works for artists including Wendy Whelan (NY City Ballet), Daniil Simkin (American Ballet Theater), and Malpaso Dance Company from Cuba. A professional taiko musician with over 25 years of experience, she has performed across the globe in Dubai, as well as in major cities throughout the United States. Courtney is the founder of the Japanese Arts Network (JA-NE) – a national resource for artistic collaboration and connection which provides access to resources and develops programs and platforms that support, advance, and strengthen visibility for Japanese Artists in America. She also serves as the Business Director for the Taiko Community Alliance, a national non-profit organization that empowers and advances the art of taiko in North America.
Poetry
Suzi Q. Smith
Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning author, artist, educator, and organizer who lives in Denver, Colorado. While primarily known for her poetry, Suzi is also a singer-songwriter, playwright, and interdisciplinary creative. She has created, curated, coached, and taught for over 20 years, touring throughout the United States
The Auraria Parable Cast
Writer / Artistic Director / Creator James Lopez, The Exposure Project
Creative Producer Courtney Ozaki-Durgin, Off-Center
Story Sharers María Corral, Sheila Perez Kindle, Autumn Romero, Frances Torres, Marsha Whiting
Artistic Collaborators Chelsea Kaiah, Other Rooms, Suzi Q. Smith
Story Sharing Facilitator Rowena Alegria
Sound Designer Matthew Ryan Durgin
Cast
The character of Story Asheala Tasker
Maricela Jordan Hull
Marco Elijah Flores Sandoval
Indigenous Student (Past) Ariana Duran
University Student (Present) Joseph Bowman
Operations Manager Mike Pingel
Crew Tyler Ballow, Matt Dugger, Xavier McElwee
All photos – Brianna Gutierrez – DCPA
RESOURCES
Throughout this project, we found a list of resources to continue your journey and learning about Auraria and the many complex facets of this campus. Below is a list of online resources for context around the various components of the expereince including history about the displaced Aurarians, organizations for indigenous people, and ways to support the Peace Gardens.
Stay in Touch
Join The Newsletter
If you liked this project and want to learn when the next show or project is, join our mailing list below. The Exposure Project is continually developing new work in Denver and beyond.
For Babs,
You were always at the heart of this project. Without you, this never would have happened. Thank you for opening my eyes to what was possible and that the dreaming and sadness of the infinite that we float in, we briefly found each other and could make impacts like this. Even long after you’re gone.