The Arroyo Arts Collective presents:

Fish Outta Water, A Parade in Highland Park on Sunday June 5 2016

Click on image to download our flyer.

The Arroyo Arts Collective (“AAC”) is presenting FISH OUTTA WATER, a gleefully unstructured parade which will begin at the Southwest Museum located at 234 Museum Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90065 with a gathering call of 11:30 am to line up and 12 noon to start marching down Figueroa to Sycamore Grove Park on Sunday June 5, 2016, just in time to kick off the annual Lummis Day Music Festival. This parade will celebrate the dazzling creativity of Northeast L.A. and honor the Arroyo Seco, a tributary of the Los Angeles River, which was once, and could be again, a vibrant waterway.

All that is required to march, dance, ride, skip or hop along in the parade in a fish themed costume, puppet, doll, hat, mask, or any other piscine accessory. Wild flights of imagination are heartily encouraged. For this event, nothing is too subtle or too baroque. Individuals, families, and teams; all are welcome. “The Thursday Evening Gentlemen's Society Circuit Bending Marching Band and Ladies' Auxiliary” will be providing the music for the parade!

As part of the preparation for FISH OUTTA WATER, the AAC will be hosting fish-puppet making workshops. AAC is proud to partner with talented Puppeteer Artisans, Heather Hoggan, Beth Hernandez and Linda Hoag for the following workshops which are free and open to the public:
Cypress Park Library from 4pm to 6pm on April 6, 2016
The Arroyo Seco Library from 2pm to 4pm on April 9, 2016
Eagle Rock Library from 4pm to 6pm on April 20, 2016

A puppet-making event for adults will be offered at the Audubon Center at Debs Park located at 4700 N Griffin Ave 90031 from 5pm to 8pm on May 17, 2016. (15 participants only — first come first serve)
A giant puppet-making series will be led by Puppet Master and Artistic Director of Fish Outta Water, Beth Peterson at Tierra de la Culebra Art Park located at 240 S. Ave. 57, Los Angeles, CA 90042 on the following Sundays in May: 1, 15, 22 and 29, from 2 to 5 pm.

The community is invited to join in, have fun, meet the neighbors, and make a puppet.
Inspiration for participation can be drawn from anything aquatic. In Norse and ancient European cultures, fish were symbolic of adaptability, determination, and the flow of life. In Greco-Roman mythology, the fish was sacred, representing change and transformation. There could not be a more perfect metaphor for the character of the people of the Arroyo neighborhoods, or a more intense time of transformation for this area.

This event is intended to highlight the importance of the Arroyo Seco, a water way that has always been a place of journeys. The Tongva/Gabrielino, the native people of the region, followed the Arroyo as a source of water and food. In 1770, the Portola Expedition followed the Arroyo to what became the City of Los Angeles. In 1884, Charles Lummis, founder of the Southwest Museum, first City Editor of the Los Angeles Times, City Librarian, and grappler with what it means to live in the Southwest, walked from Cincinnati to Los Angeles and built his home from river rock on the banks of the Arroyo Seco. The beauty of the Arroyo soon attracted wealthy patrons of the arts, who wintered on its banks in Pasadena and South Pasadena. Artists and writers took up residence along the Arroyo through Highland Park, Cypress Park, Montecito Heights, Mount Washington and Hermon—establishing Northeast Los Angeles as L.A.'s original arts community.

Due to massive flooding, the Army Corps of Engineers entombed the Arroyo in concrete, converting it to the flood control channel we see today. In 1940, the last steelhead trout was fished from the Los Angeles River, once a main steelhead site in the LA River system. Friends of the Los Angeles River (FOLAR) have long said that the restoration of the river will be complete when the steelhead trout returns.

Fish Outta Water is supported in part through the generous support of the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles.

Contact: Marita De La Torre, Fish Outta Water Program Director, maritadelatorre@gmail.com, 310-871-3226.