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The MWAH! Performing Arts Troupe's premiere performance of a special piece 'Blair Holt - A Hero Lives On' was December 10, 2007, at Heritage Middle School in Berwyn, Illinois, a near-west suburb of Chicago, and was repeated December 18 at Freedom Middle School, another school in Berwyn.
This piece focuses on how Blair Holt, a 16-year-old honors student and aspiring rapper at Julian High School on Chicago's South Side, sacrificed his life for a classmate friend when two alleged gang members entered a Chicago CTA bus after school on May 10, 2007, and started firing. Their intended target was a rival gang member in the back of the bus. Blair Holt was one of 32 Chicago Public Schools students who were shot, stabbed, or strangled to death during the 2006-2007 school year.
Information for the piece was provided by Blair's mom, Annette Holt, in a meeting at her Chicago home with MWAH! troupe members. The piece includes options available for students to live as heroes in their own schools and neighborhoods despite the presence of gangs and other negative influences.
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