Grantees
and Partners

ID Studio Theater

Overview:

ID Studio Theater is a South Bronx-based immigrant arts organization committed to the empowerment of Latinx and immigrant communities. ID Studio Theater unites artistic excellence with social justice, developing new artistic works through a deeply collaborative workshop process with diverse Latinx community members. The organization employs the performing arts as a foundation for catalyzing community awareness, collective action, and intercommunity dialogue. ID Studio Theater has developed more than 25 bilingual theater and music productions within immigrant communities throughout NYC and beyond.

The South Bronx neighborhood where ID Studio is based is the poorest congressional district in the country. The community is vulnerable to risk factors for poor health outcomes including poor air quality, limited access to healthy food options, and insufficient health services. Combined with the effects of COVID-19, the community is facing high levels of stress, grief, and anxiety.

Montefiore Medical Center’s 2018 Mental Health Dashboard highlighted that 91% of the Bronx population insured by Medicaid lives in a Mental Health Shortage Area, meaning that access to mental health services is limited. Considering the stigma around mental health, combined with language barriers, and accessibility of health services, it is critical for community organizations to fill in the gaps. Health disparities will continue to be exacerbated if the community is not given the tools and support to combat the challenges they face.

Grant:

Purpose: To support the expansion of ID Studio’s Bilingual Healing Arts Initiative.

The Bilingual Healing Arts Initiative uses the performing arts as a vehicle for personal and communal healing, in collaboration with health professionals and service organizations. The Initiative brings culturally relevant arts workshops to the community’s local hospitals, health centers, schools, senior centers, and service organizations to help patients and other participants cope with the mental and emotional difficulties caused by structural violence and the tensions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Initiative includes music, dance, theater, movement, meditation, memories, and art.

Impact:

ID Studio Theater conducted community programs with bilingual healing arts workshops. In partnership with the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation’s Domestic Violence Services Project, programs included a trauma-informed workshop using elements of theater to help individuals navigate emotional and psychological hurdles in order to reframe their personal narrative. Twenty immigrant women from the Bronx and Queens participated.

Coleción Creativa (Collective Creation) Theater Workshops, as part of the 20th anniversary Ferias y Fiestas project, brought theater, music, and dance into the community streets and public spaces. This has enabled ID Studio Theater to reach broader audiences, particularly with community members who might not feel comfortable entering traditional theater spaces. Based on success of the theater workshops, ID Studio Theater added poetry and playwriting workshops.

ID Studio Theater also worked with NYC Health + Hospital/Lincoln. Incoming residents came to ID Studio for an interactive presentation about the community, the role of the arts, and the rich cultural legacy of this section of the Bronx.