“Holding On to Other Places,” tells stories of how residents of South Louisiana stay committed to important places in their lives that they cannot visit very often.
Grand opening of the Neighborhood Story Project on the corner of North Miro and Lapeyrouse Street with the John McDonogh Senior High Marching Band in 2006.
Grand opening of the Neighborhood Story Project on the corner of North Miro and Lapeyrouse Street with the John McDonogh Senior High Marching Band in 2006.
Grand opening of the Neighborhood Story Project on the corner of North Miro and Lapeyrouse Street with the John McDonogh Senior High Marching Band in 2006.
Three stories of coming of age in the suburbs of New Orleans amongst family and friends who are involved in different Christian dominations. Collectively, they share ethnography of religious tolerance in south Louisiana.
Left: Tristan Mitchell's water baptism with the Chi Alpha chapter at the University of New Orleans. Top right: Tristan's grandparents, Audi and Charlotte Mitchell. Middle right: Tristan with Solomon Rhodes' Chi Alpha Life Group. Reed and Tristan Mitchell, with their father, Thomas Mitchell. Photographs courtesy of Tristan Mitchell.
In Act One, “Three Baptism,” Tristan Mitchell, raised in a Southern Baptist church in Slidell, joins a nondenominational Christian organization at UNO where his new congregation participates in baptisms of the Holy Spirit.
FEATURED MUSIC: "It Is Well (Live)" by Bethel Music and Kristene DiMarco from You Make Me Brave, Live at the Civic, from the 2014 self-released album; "If You Ain't In It" by Danny Gokey from Rise, from the self-released 2017 album; and "Build My Life" by Housefires from Housefires III, from the self-released 2016 album.
Top left: Pool party with KEY, a home-school support group on the Westbank of New Orleans in 2013, from left to right: Logan Frances, Ariel Troxclair, Victoria Chauvin, Alexis Chivatero, Aurora Troxclair, and Gabrielle Chivatero. Top middle: Alexis Chivatero with her parents David and Kathleen, and her sister Gabrielle. Top right: Pool party with KEY in 2011, left to right: Sebastian Chauvin, Anna Koch, Victoria Chauvin, Eden Montalbano, John Montalbano, Caleb Ezelle, Gabrielle Chivatero, and Alexis Chivatero. Bottom: John Montalbano, Caleb Ezelle, Gabrielle Chivatero, Emily Alves, Alexis Chivatero, Cole Eskine, Nathan Vollmer (in baseball cap), Gabrielle Olivier, and Victoria Chauvin.
In Act Two, “Home-Schooling on the Westbank,” Alexis Chivatero, returns to the home school support group that was an important anchor in their life for many years. Growing up in a Catholic family on the Westbank who didn’t attend mass regularly, she developed close relationships with Christian fundamentalists whose families pulled them out of school for religious reasons.
FEATURED MUSIC: "Fireflies" by Owl City from Ocean Eyes, released by Universal Republic Records in 2009 and "Home" by Phillip Phillips from The World From The Side of the World, released by Interscope in 2012.
Top left: Vilma Teresa Jordan de Esquivel in her hometown of La Ermita Concepcion Las Minas, Departamento de Chiquimula, Guatemala. Top middle: Faith Builders Seventh Day Adventist Church on Lester Avenue in Metairie. Top right: Land of coffee: Departamento de Chiquimula, Guatemala Bottom: Vilma Esquivel with her daughter and granddaughter, Jacqueline and Daisy Esquivel. Photographs courtesy of the Esquivel family.
In Act 3, Daisy Equivel takes us into the Spanish-speaking Seventh Day Adventists churches in Metairie where she was raised by her Guatemalan family. An active member of the youth leadership council, she encourages the congregation to embrace contemporary Christian rock sung in English while smiling at the memory of grandmother dancing marimba in La Ermita Concepcíon Las Minas, Departmento de Chiquimula.
FEATURED MUSIC: "Luna de Xelaju" by Pedro Pérez from Marimba, Fiesta, y Folklore (2008), released by Prodisc; "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)" by Hillsong UNITED from Zion (2013), released by Hillsong Church; "God's Not Dead (Like A Lion)" by the Newsboys from God's Not Dead (2011), released Inpop Records; "Corrido del Chiquimula" by Marimbas Maderas Chapinas from Arrullo Musical Guatemalteco: Música de Guatemala Para Los Latinos (1996), released by by Meta/Defosa; "Noches de Escuintla" by Marimba Chapilandia from Chapilandia: Marimba Music of Guatemala (2007) , released by Smithsonian Folkway Recordings; "You Say"by Lauren Daigle from Look Up Child (2018), released by Centricty Music.
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