Closed captioning is available by clicking on the CC button on the bottom right. An audio descriptive version of this film is available for those blind or visually impaired audience members here: https://vimeo.com/smcperfa/gather-round-audio. Please contact Tara at 925-631-4670 or tms8@stmarys-ca.edu for any questions. For more info about the film or to make a donation, please see: stmarys-ca.edu/gatherround DIRECTOR’S NOTE “Ordinary courage Can bring a brand new day You can take a tiny step You could be a tiny girl A mustard seed of faith and we can change the world.” Caleb, “Ordinary Courage” "gather ‘round" was birthed against the backdrop of Covid-19, civic unrest around racially charged deaths, and further unveiling of systemic inequalities. More, deep isolation. This is a collaboration that gives a story and humanity to seemingly unfamiliar faces, voices, resiliency and a shared community despite the confluence of crises. It’s a piece handcrafted by the constellation of students and national and local artists who are part of the Saint Mary’s College of California family. With this film, we discover that stories live within us and all around us and the process of creation doesn’t have to take place in a rehearsal hall, but with a few shoves of furniture, your own dance world can ignite. With a few strokes on the keyboard, one’s imagination can take the shape of characters and situations for thousands to eavesdrop on. Through take after take, we shed our perceived limitations of what can happen in small, marginalized spaces. We discover that we can build our skills to be our own cinematographers, set and lighting designers, and sound techs. Instead of living in a text that someone created for a different group of people, we seize the opportunity to craft word by word, action by action, our own narratives, testimony, and, hence, reality. Oddly, it becomes more than a musical movie, but rather a toolkit for dealing with life’s obstructions. And a sort of liberation strengthening our belief in our own individuality, resourcefulness, and ability to tackle seemingly impossible tasks. A huge shout-out must be given to all the uncredited collaborators in this process: our families, friends, roommates, dormmates, school faculty and staff, pets, and strangers who lifted us up so that we could be on this journey. Were there hiccups? Of course. There are a million challenges to a project done in a pandemic with a group of people, who might not have ever met in-person. What you won’t see on the film are all the pages and pages of text written by our students, which for one reason or another didn’t make it to the final edit. You’ll miss all the technical pivots that had to be done to get the myriad of pieces aligned just so. In the end we might look at this small, but mighty group not just as performers, but as adventurers, explorers, and in some ways, pioneers. Along the path, we had dance parties, told corny jokes, shared the weight on our shoulders, and had a place to hang out. Not a bad thing to do during one’s spring semester. Thank you for joining us for gather ‘round, our premiere short musical film with words and music by Karen Ann Daniels, created in close collaboration with this ever resilient company. Victor Malana Maog