ORONO – The Rockefeller Foundation has given a three-year $146,000 grant to the Wabanaki Center at the University of Maine to continue language and culture revitalization in Maine Passamaquoddy communities.

The grant was part of the foundation’s Partnerships Affirming Community Transformation program that supports projects by artists and other cultural professionals who contribute to social change.

“This grant builds on a project that was done with the support of a fellowship I had with the Kellogg Foundation,” said Gail Sockabasin, director of the Wabanaki Center. “In the third year of that fellowship, we were given instructions to develop a project in the community.”

As director of the Wabanaki Center, Sockabasin provides support to American Indian students and serves as the liaison between the state’s American Indian communities and the university.

Sockabasin focused on the revitalization of the Passamaquoddy language and culture and, toward this goal, recruited the help of the Headliners Theater for Living of Vancouver, British Columbia. She was introduced to the concept of the Theater of the Oppressed, based on “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” a book by Paulo Freire.

“Freire’s message was that we learn through doing, practice and action, and that real transformation comes through such action,” Sockabasin said. “The Theater of the Oppressed was founded on this idea.”

In this form of education, plays are developed that deal with important cultural or social issues in a community.

Working with Sockabasin on this grant project is Vera Francis, a University of Maine graduate and a Passamaquoddy.

“Interactive theater implies that there will be a relationship between the audience and the performers,” Francis said. “When the play is presented, there will be moments that the audience will be invited to join the play, engage the performers and offer new perspectives on any portion of the play and, perhaps, move it toward a different solution.”

The Kellogg Foundation grant allowed Sockabasin to do a play at Pleasant Point on the topic of culture and language and to develop a CD of Passamaquoddy language and songs.

Sockabasin said the grant will allow her to continue her work to strengthen the connection between young Passamaquoddys and their culture through the arts and a focus on the importance of the language.

“When we did the play, we focused our work on the Passamaquoddy language and experiences within the community,” Sockabasin said. “We focused on the language because we are in the process of losing our language. I believe that the values of how you encounter people and the environment around you has everything to do with the language you speak.”

Sockabasin said most people who are fluent in the Passamaquoddy language and oral tradition are those of an older generation. The younger generation, she said, is much more comfortable with English and the written word.