Spokane, WA. – It’s been 50 years since Expo ’74 changed the Spokane community forever, but five decades later, some can still sing-a-long to a song that played daily at that world fair in 1974.
“Up with people, you meet them wherever you go. Up with people, the best kind of folks you know.”
Shannon Dunkin says singing that ‘Up With People’ theme song helped her travel the world with the nonprofit program that invites 17 to 29-year-olds to travel the world, across multiple continents, and perform for the communities they spend about a week in.
“So ‘Up With People’ is an international educational musical group, that essentially travels around the world providing community service,” Shannon said. “We live with host families in every community we visit and then we perform a show for every community.”
One community ‘Up With People’ performed for: Spokane, Washington, for Expo ’74.
Shannon said since ‘Up With People’ is an international group that brings together and celebrates cultures from around the world, it makes sense to feature them at a world’s fair like that.
“I think, for me, the world’s fair really is about bringing people together, bringing cultures together,” Shannon said. “It gives us this space to be connected in a way we don’t typically get to be connected to other people in the world.”
Shannon said her cast consisted of about 175 people from 24 different countries, and that was a very common makeup for an Up With People cast. Today, as she flips through scrapbooks full of her memories from traveling with UWP for a tour, she cherishes the people and places she was able to experience thanks to being a part of the group.
“My tour took me through Rome, and so my cast got to have an audience with Pope John Paul the Second, and we performed for him at St Peter’s Basicalla in front of 28,000 people,” Shannon said.
‘Up With People’ continues to welcome adults to travel with their performing group, and also offers camps for children.
Check out upwithpeople.org to learn more about the group ’empowering youth through performing arts.”
