YAE! CAMP

YAE! (Young Artists Empowerment) CAMP

Girls Smashing Stereotypes

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In August 2018, WolfBird Dance hosted the first annual summer camp for female-identifying youth ages 11-14. YAE! (Young Artists Empowerment) Camp was held at Clay Creative in the Central Eastside Industrial District of Portland, OR. This program provided (and strives to continue to provide) young women in our community a platform to develop their artistic voices and find empowerment through art and dance.

During our camp, ten young women from diverse communities across Portland were provided street art and street dance training, accompanied by workshops to learn about the pillars of hip hop and the history and background of this culture: Graffiti (freedom of expression in public space), MC-ing (rhythmic poetry, aka rapping), DJ-ing (artfully blending melodies using a turntable), Breakdancing (a highly expressive style of street dancing), and Knowledge (skills and community building). We dove deep into the fundamentals of hip-hop dance, focusing on free-styling techniques, battling tactics, and how to learn and remember choreographed patterns. They also received lessons in letter-making, drawing, aerosol painting techniques, mural composition, and paint safety.

YAE! Camp provides young women a platform to feel empowered and become creative, productive, and confident members of our community. YAE! Camp offered instruction from an eclectic staff of dancers and artists to display diversity in all forms of artistic professionalism. We brought guest speakers throughout the week to talk about their art and other programs happening in Portland, also lead by women. With the culmination of this camp, students worked together to create a choreographed dance, participate in an all female dance battle, and collaborate on the development of four different murals (one of which is still on display to the public at 420 SE Clay St in Portland). Our students presented these performances and murals at our final YAE! Camp wrap party, closing out the program with an opportunity for our young artists to show off their new skills to friends, family, and the community.

 

YAE! CAMP PROGRAM

DANCE                                                                                                                                                   In the mornings, camp participants were guided by mentors from WolfBird Dance to explore how freestyle and hip-hop can provide empowerment, healing, and comfort in one’s own body. With the support of five main dance camp mentors, we taught the fundamentals of different styles of hip hop such as Krump, Wacking, and popping. We also provided the tools and understanding of how to develop your own freestyle voice and what techniques to use in a battle, while simultaneously teaching the importance of how to learn and retain hip hop technique and choreography. On the final day of YAE! Camp, our ten campers performed their choreography and participated in a final all-female dance battle.

VISUAL ART                                                                                                                                       The afternoon session was led by members of the Portland Street Art Alliance. Campers were guided through the entire process of creating a mural, including visualizing, sketching, and painting with aerosol and brush basic techniques. They were provided both one-on-one and group lessons with PSAA’s mentors. The final collaborative YAE! Camp Mural is on-display in the garage of Clay Creative, now a part of the larger Taylor Electric Project, an area in Portland that provides rotating wall space for local artists.

GUEST ARTISTS + SPEAKERS                                                                                           Throughout YAE! Camp, we brought many local guest speakers/artists to spend time with our students and share their art form and/or life experiences. This provided an opportunity for the girls to communicate and interact with artists they look up to in a non lecture/authoritative setting. It was important for us to ensure that the girls felt like a part of our community and that they could speak to their role models in ways that would encourage seeing themselves in these artistic roles.

This year our guest Artists/speakers included:

  • DeAngelo Raines (Art Not Crime), who spoke on the history of graffiti.
  • Local female street artists, Wokeface (@wokeface), All the Veg (@alltheveg), and Flowering Jane (@flowering_jane), who showed the girls their work and the wide range of styles that street art can embody.
  • Local female DJ, Kaeli Hertz, who taught about mixing and turntable techniques as well as her experience in the industry.
  • Ella Marra-Ketalaar, a Community Engagement Coordinator at the Regional Arts & Culture Council.
  • Jesus Rodales (Find A Way), a local Portland dancer and activist encouraging cultural understanding of hip hop dance, who taught about the origins and history of street dance.
  • Daisy Lim, a dancer from New Zealand, who taught the fundamentals of Krump and how to use creativity and imagination to be a storyteller with movement.
  • Katie Janovec (The Aspire Project), a Portland based dancer who spoke about the fundamentals of popping.
  • Bao Pham (ADAPT), another Portland based dancer who demonstrated the possibilities of movement by combining many styles of hip hop, creating her own unique movement vocabulary.

  

LAST DAY OF CAMP /WRAP PARTY                                                                                                On the final day of YAE! Camp, prior to our party, we encouraged a show and share; an opportunity for the girls to share something unique about them, and a time for us as mentors, to encourage the girls to use this individuality in their art. Many students shared from their black books (YAE! Camp provided sketch books, for the girls to keep and practice in) their drawing styles. One student from Mongolia shared her new found passion for taking graffiti style lettering and transposing it onto Mongolian letters. Two other students taught us about traditional African and Mexican dance. They brought the outfits required for these dance styles and performed some of the dances for us. One student told us she now likes experimenting with incorporating traditional African dance moves into her freestyle practices.

Camp was extended by two hours to invite friends, family, and the community to come see what we created and learned together. Students performed a choreographed dance, showing off their new moves and training on how to collaborate, move through space and remember choreography. Their participation in an all female dance battle, showed their knowledge of artistic choice in free-styling and freedom of expression through dance. We then presented their group murals. The teams presented why they chose their design, what it meant to them, and their favorite camp experiences. This event was not only an opportunity for our students to show their work, but also a chance for the community to see what we can be build when a safe space for learning and creativity is provided to young emerging artists. The response and support of YAE! Camp from our students, parents, and community was unbelievably humbling.

 

How Our Project Idea Developed:  Our last performance, Where to Wear What Hat delivered expressive commentary on the societal roles women are expected to play. Using the iconography of 1950’s femininity, we presented the subconsciously implanted misconceptions of who women are, what they are capable of, and where they belong in society. The piece used polarizing visual aspects of delicate and “feminine” costume pieces against the dancer’s brute physicality, illustrating the inner strength of a woman to survive, versus the fragilely portrayed image of her. As women lifted other women, grappled together, and supported one another throughout the piece, it becomes clear just how much women have become accustomed to internalizing, defining, and manifesting “feminine” ideals. This piece sat with us very heavily and has helped lead us to where we are now. We started asking questions; When did this start? What can we do? How do we interject to start the process of change for the coming generations?

     In this day and age, we are unable to overlook the lack of change in women’s rights. The examples in Where To Wear What Hat followed those characters through childhood memories. Their first memories of sexism and inequality, exposed the confusion and loneliness felt from all of them during the most crucial part of a woman’s life. The transition from “girl” to “woman” is something that all female identifying persons have in common. Through focusing on the up and coming generation and providing them with diverse dance and visual art workshops, we believe that art can be a mentor, specifically during the ages where we feel the most misunderstood.

At WolfBird, we believe in the power of diverse forms of dance and art to begin building a bridge between young girls in this age bracket and the larger community of creative women in Portland. 

DO YOU HAVE A YOUNG ARTIST WHO WOULD BE INTERESTED IN YAE!?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUPPORT AND/OR DONATE TO OUR PROGRAM?

Donate here

 

Email us at Wolfbirddance@gmail.com or reach out through our contact page!