Coming soon! Youth Media Project is hosting Audio Revolution Showcase, an event featuring creative performances by New Mexican youth. The showcase will be held March 18 and will provide Santa Fe residents with a unique opportunity to see a radio show performed live.

"The idea had been up in the air for a while," said Miles Tokunow, a Youth Media Project Vista volunteer and production coordinator, . "We've all been interested expanding the media part of the Youth Media Project."

Youth Media Project is a nonprofit organization that works directly with students by showing them how to incorporate media production into their academic studies and service leadership. Student participants often explore local, social and global issues in their productions for the organization. Youth Media Project also partners with local youth organizations, including Generation Next, to tackle issues.

Audio Revolution Showcase is an extension of the work Northern New Mexico students already do on Audio Revolution, an hour-long radio broadcast. The radio broadcasts are entirely youth produced and can be heard regularly on KSFR 101.1 FM, Santa Fe's public radio station on Wednesday nights.

The Audio Revolution Showcase is different from other Audio Revolution broadcasts for a couple of reasons: First, it's going to be performed in front of a live audience; and second, the showcase allows Youth Media Project to expand into other areas.

"It opens up the door to things like dance, and highlights the creativity of other kinds of performing arts," Tokunow said. "It's kind of a service to the community, I think, to show what everybody's doing."

"We're trying to expand to new media forms to show what we do and how we hope to incorporate new kinds of media into what we do in the future," said Monique Lacoste, Youth Media Project's director of education and programming.

Lacoste also explained that the showcase is a way for student participants to gain experience in new broadcast areas, like video production. The showcase also falls right in line with one of Youth Media Project's key missions.

"(The event) showcases how we are working with students to do storytelling," Lacoste said. "Part of our work is to encourage other people to think about storytelling, and people who attend also get to be a part of that storytelling process."

All Audio Revolution Showcase performers are under age 21. The event will feature theater, dance, as well as poetry and hip-hop performances by New Mexico School for the Arts, United World College and Santa Fe Art Institute, among others. The showcase will feature "Live Conortary" by Conor Cole, music by local bands (Treemotel and Hannah and the Hanbones) and raffle ticket drawings.

Evening presentations will be streamed live at youthmediaproject.org/live, so people who attend will get to be part of the broadcast.

"People should come and be prepared to be amazed by the talent of the community," Lacoste said. "It's going to be a great night."

Tori Velarde is a senior at Santa Fe High School. You can reach her at tori@velardenm.com.