DEL Hip Hop to the Top: Reflections from our Arnhold Summer Fellows
In week three of our Summer Institute, the Arnhold Summer Fellows joined our course on hip-hop dance education.
Hip-Hop to the Top Part 2 – Return to the Cypher explores hip-hop through the lens of five elements: Knowledge, Deejay (DJ), Emcee (MC), Street Dance, and Graffiti Art. Each day of this advanced hip-hop course participants explored one of these elements and drew a through-line from the early diasporic historical roots of hip-hop in America to today’s 21st-century global stage.
Photo: Tatum Fouts
From Summer Fellow Kamarri Abe:
“During the five day workshop, I was reminded of how important it is to be genuine. All of the guests that came to our Zoom meeting spoke about the importance of being your authentic self. Lady Pink was one of our guest facilitators. She taught the group how to create graffiti art and the different ways to make our art work stand out. As she did this she also made graffiti drawings to give us ideas and examples of how to make letters stand out; how to use symbols; and how to create backdrops behind our main idea.”
Photo: Tatum Fouts
Fellow Veronica Boccardo shared:
“Rokafella’s depiction of how the movement gathers from many cultures such as martial arts and Indian Pow Wows reflects how deeply rooted communities are as well as how inclusive the movement becomes. There’s respect to the predecessors that came before us.”
Fellow Teresa Lucia Forstreuter was inspired to use foundations from this course throughout her teaching in the future:
“I was very surprised to learn about the principles of the Hip Hop Declaration of Peace, establishing class norms each day like love, peace, unity, power and fun. All of these parameters created a sense of excitement and joy inside of me, and I am planning to implement some of these examples into my classes, workshops and retreats.”
Photo: Sarah Dewey
From Fellow Sarah Dewey:
“This past week at DEL was so inspiring, encouraging, and insanely fun! One of my favorite moments was creating art with Lady Pink, who gave us inspiring words as we drew, talking about ‘working from your heart’ and staying true to who you are throughout your art.”