The History of Colors Outreach Program

From a child’s laughter the gods invented the color yellow. From the heart of the earth, brown appeared. From the blood of the gods arose red. Then the gods decided to climb the great ceiba tree, and fling the colors everywhere, painting the earth. Before they had invented these colors, the earth was sad and dull. The plants and animals were all shades of black, white and grey. The gods could not distinguish the birds, flowers, mountains, skies, oceans, and peoples who inhabited the Earth. The gods knew that to make such a planet livable it must have color. They also decided to distribute the hues amongst the men and women- which is why today we have people of different colors, and different ways of thinking. After a long day of inventing all of the colors that now exist, the gods were tired and ready to go to sleep, but they were concerned that in the morning they would forget some of the many colors they had come up with. When they saw the guacamaya bird passing by, they decided to store all of the colors in her feathers, so that when she would fly by, people would remember that all colors, and ways of thinking, have their place in the world.

With this Mayan myth of the invention of color as a point of departure, Teatro de la Luna Luna presents it’s Artistic Outreach Program, designed to teach children and young people the values of cultural diversity and tolerance. Through a series of international multi-media workshops, including dance, music, visual arts, and video, Teatro de la Luna Luna exposes children to challenging and thought-provoking artistic enterprises, based on our rich traditions of world mythology.

This is an excerpt of the History of Colors Artistic Outreach Program imparted in collaboration with the One Respe Foundation in Gurabo, Dominican Republic. This clip contains images of video, visual arts, and dance workshops as well as the final dance/theater performance, which was open to the entire community. Over 100 students aged 7- 14, and youth volunteers were involved in every step of the creation of the final performance, which combined visuals, music, poetry, and dance.