RedLine is a proud partner and administrator of the Arts in Society grant. Funded through a cohort of Colorado foundations and government agencies, this collaborative program provides grants to both individuals and organizations that use art as a vehicle to promote social justice and community welfare.
We love highlighting our Arts in Society (AiS) grant recipients and all the unique and impactful projects made possible by their grant.
We’re excited continue this series by highlighting 2026 Arts in Society project: The GES Collective Community Power Project with Su Teatro!
Tell us about your organization
In 1972, during the fervor of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, University of Colorado-Denver professor Dr. Rowena Rivera challenged the school’s remedial reading requirement, an institutional barrier designed to discourage Chicano students from enrolling. Instead, she taught a class in Chicano Theater, inviting students to explore their culture, identity and heritage through performance.
From this class, Su Teatro was born.
Su Teatro honed a distinctive style, drawing on music, storytelling, and satire. The company began developing full-length original plays in the 1980s reflecting the shared history, experiences and culture of Chicanos and Latinos.
Over our lifespan, Su Teatro has created more than forty original plays, translations and adaptations, many of which hold profound meaning and personal resonance for our audiences.
Su Teatro has showcased Colorado stories such as the Ludlow Massacre in Southern Colorado, the Kitayama Floral Strike in Brighton and the Denver West High School Blowouts. The company has also produced major contemporary and established playwrights. Su Teatro performs locally and tours nationally.
In 1989, Su Teatro purchased the old Elyria School in Northeast Denver, a home for multidisciplinary arts, including theater, film, music and arts education.
In 2010 we moved to the Arts District on Santa Fe (ADSF) in a strategic decision to be more centrally located.
In 2023 we paid off the mortgage at 721 Santa Fe (the former Denver Civic Theater founded by legendary Denver theater impresario Henry Lowenstein in 1990).
In 2024, we purchased AEG Present’s building at 659 Santa Fe – affectionately referred to as “The Blue Building” to expand our arts education program, the Cultural Arts Education Institute, to better meet the needs of youth and families, to establish a community artistic hub and a regional destination.
Blessing ceremony
Tell us about your first project that will utilize your Arts in Society Colorado Arts Grant
Our goal is to articulate and disrupt the evolving history of racial discrimination and environmental injustice in Denver’s Globeville, Elyria and Swansea (GES) neighborhoods, zip code 80216, the most polluted zip code in the country.
The predominantly Latinx, Chicano ,and working-class residents of the neighborhoods have endured over a century of systemic marginalization evident in industrial zoning, highway construction, redlining, restrictive infrastructure policy, and neglectful governance. Policies of racist discrimination have isolated the neighborhoods and exposed families to health hazards.
Economic development has been prioritized over the well-being of the community; meaningful resident input has not been engaged, and protections have not been offered, reinforcing cycles of inequality and exclusion.
Su Teatro artists and community residents are experimenting with the acto as a tool to build collective power. The acto is a short play (5-15 minutes) utilizing agitation and propaganda to inform and move people to political or social action.
Drawing inspiration from Mexican icons such as the great comedian Cantinflas, actos emphasize biting humor, word play, and physical comedy to offer political critique and analysis.
Together, artists and community members are examining systemic failures and generating ideas for futures grounded in racial justice.
What's next in the pipeline for your organization? What other projects are you dreaming up for next year, and how will your AiS grant help to support these efforts?
Over the last ten years, Su Teatro has implemented a series of projects in communities—projects that have emphasized process over product, storytelling, and ground game—building relationships with community members through one-on-one relationship building in community settings.
Being in the field—e.g. working in community contexts, rather than within the four walls of our theater, places us back where the company originated, as a street theater that performed in parks, at protests and in community spaces.
We are going back to our roots, and as a result our insights, understandings of our community’s experiences, aesthetics and storytelling is much sharper and more visceral. We hope to continue to work in GES and to continue to develop this project.
We are also working in our home neighborhood—The Westside—aka, La Alma-Lincoln Park. We are involved in neighborhood organizing related to the Burnham Yards redevelopment, and are advocating for cultural work as a means to reimagining the future of the neighborhood.
Our neighbors deserve space to dream and to imagine what the neighborhood could be. Billionaires like the Walton-Penner family have opportunities to envision the future, to dream big and to build the future they want—why not our community?
What was your experience like when applying for an Arts in Society grant? What tips would you share with artists looking to apply?
The Arts in Society Colorado arts grant is so competitive—it is humbling and it always feels like an honor when we make it into the cohort. Each year, it is exciting when the cohort is announced and we are always amazed by the variety of projects, disciplines and approaches to doing the work.
We learn something new every time we apply, and the process of putting a proposal together provides us with valuable insights that support both our projects and the articulations of those projects—even when our projects are not selected for Arts in Society funding.
It is important to understand the makings of an authentic cross sector project for Arts in Society—bringing together arts and public policy, arts and mental health, arts and community development, et al is essential—the issue and the art lock together like puzzle pieces. This is what Arts in Society is all about.
Arts in Society Grantee Highlight: The Brave Women's Community Center
Learn about 2026 Arts in Society project: When Fear and Bravery Collide by The Brave Women's Community Center.
Administered by RedLine and funded through a cohort of Colorado foundations and government agencies, Arts in Society is a grant program supporting cross-sector work through the arts across Colorado.
