Walking Together premiered November 5 at Wildwood Elementary School. This event was the culmination of three years of planning and collaboration—from composing music to selecting readers—that effectively showcased the numerous ethnicities, cultures and stories of the members of Mahtomedi.
“Walking Together begins with the idea of telling stories and how important telling stories are,” Catherine Dalton, composer and creator of the event, says. “I wanted to start the evening realizing we’re all immigrants to the United States.”
Accompanied by music, readers of different backgrounds delivered stories from their fellow readers about their individual experiences. The stories wove issues of immigration existing in the past and now, especially relating to the community of Mahtomedi.
“I was very excited to be part of her very big vision in my small way,” Margaret Humphrey, a violinist for the event, says. “This is a very important issue to this community.”
Dalton plans on putting on an event like this in the future, if the community is willing.
“It was such an intimate experience,” Allison Lehner, one of the readers, says. “The audience loved it. I know that a lot of them would like to see more of that in our community again.”
View excerpts in this video