The Columbus Hip Hop | Theatre Project

This is what we put in original proposal for the program.

HIP HOP
Hip-hop is a movement. It began as a way for forgotten young people in New York City — overwhelmingly Black and Latino and poor — to find ways to have fun. Hip-hop provided a means for invisible young people to make themselves known, to represent themselves, and to make their voices heard. Today, it is THE most powerful cultural force on the planet at this moment and it is a language in which young people are already fluent, because it is the culture that best represents their generation.

Unfortunately, hip-hop's cultural potential has been mis-used many times in many grievous ways, leading to the notoriously negative reputation that hip-hop culture now endures. Like many art forms, hip-hop has been twisted into a grotesque misrepresentation of its merits. Some of the elements of hip-hop (especially rap music) have been used to create escapist entertainment of the worst kind, leading some parents and educators to equate it with violence, crime, and licentious behavior.

Those distortions, however, are not true hip-hop. They are low art. It's unfortunate that the mainstream media tends to ignore the most artistic and conscious segments of the culture. Hip-hop at its best is art of the highest plane. Whether you're a slam poet from Brooklyn, a middle-aged graffiti-artist in Europe, an adolescent breakdancer in Cuba, a 10-year old rapper in South Africa, or a young woman from Britain, storming stages the world over, hip-hop is about empowerment, finding the joy, and speaking the truth. It's about making the most of your circumstances and making something out of nothing. It's a constructive art form with aspirations for building a better, more affirmative way of life.

THE PLAN
A group of young people will spend a number of weeks in after-school classes that incorporate hip-hop themes and elements into theatre, writing, and ViewPoints actor training.

In the theatre classes, kids will learn to speak confidently in front of a group by working on scenes from great plays and well as performing their own creations. In addition, we'll explore performing poetry, both traditional poems and hip-hop influenced "slam" poetry.

ViewPoints is an actor training method that encourages connection and collaboration while enabling a group to work together honestly in a safe and supportive environment. It focuses on movement exercises as a way of creating a positive group bond quickly and effectively.

In their writing classes, students will be encouraged to write about what's on their minds in poetry, dramatic scenes, monologues, and essays. All students, regardless of their skill level, will be encouraged to express themselves on paper, through words. In addition, students will study classic texts and hip-hop texts side-by-side, tracing the path from William Butler Yeats to Langston Hughes to Gil-Scot Heron to Jay-Z.

This work will culminate in a production completely written and performed by the students. Even the technical roles (sound, lights, costumes, scenic art) can filled by the students. Elements of hip-hop (rapping, music production, dancing, and urban-influenced visual art) will be combined with work from the classes to create a vibrant new show by, for, and about these young people. The show will be shared at the schools, for the students' peers, and at the Columbus Performing Arts Center for a public audience.

We will work hard to create a context of high expectations. We'll push the kids to talk about big issues, subjects that are larger than just their lives. We'll encourage them to be community-minded, and to think about the bigger picture. In true hip-hop spirit, we will help them find the best parts of themselves so they can move the crowd.

THE STAFF
Geoff Martin and Matt Slaybaugh's work with the Columbus-based theatre companies BlueForms Theatre Group and Available light [theatre] focuses on the creation of original works with a conscience. These groups take as their mission the building of a more conscious and compassionate world through the creation of joyful and profound theatre.

Collaboration is at the center of their works, and was exemplified in their work with the Davis Programs on "Grow", in which a group of teen-aged students wrote and created a 60-minute theatre piece about the challenges and rewards of becoming an adult.
Other staff members will be collaborators from BlueForms and Available Light - experienced, compassionate artists well-versed in their process of collaborative creation.

Steven C. Anderson, Artistic Director of the Phoenix Theatre for Children and Consultant for Theatre Development at the Davis Performing Arts Programs will be provide assistance in planning, implementation and evaluation of this project.

We met in two small groups today and started discussing the goals of the project.

In both groups, we started by watching a short video to give everyone an idea of what our show might look like. The video, set to music, contains clips from my work with several theatres as well as clips from some touring hip-hop/theatre productions. If you click here you too can watch the video.

What would you rap about?

If you had one chance to record a track for Jay-Z's Def Jam label, what would you want to talk about? What's so important to you and your life that you'd want to spend 4 minutes talking about it to everyone in the world?

Today we began introducing the ViewPoints method of actor training. It's a difficult and involved process, but for today it largely involved walking around in circles and learning to say "spatial relationships". (The VP are utilized by the SITI Co. from New York.)

The training serves two main purposes.
1) Building an ensemble.
2) Increasing the body's flexibility and fluidity.

We will return to this work again and again as a way of learning to work together and a way of creating parts of our performance.

Today we expanded upon our previous work and began to write poems from scratch. Each piece started with the phrase "I am from" and then continued on to one of the topics we listed a week ago.

You can read some of the poems by clicking here.

Starting February 13, we will be joined by Teena Marie Custer, a freelance dance artist and B-girl based out of Columbus, Ohio. She's taught and performed nationally and internationally and has even been seen on MTV's Made.

Teena will be teaching a hip-hop dance workshop for all the students who attend on February 13. She'll then select a group of students to create am exciting dance piece for the project-end performance.

For more info about Teena, please visit her website by clicking here.

Today we continued with our ViewPoints movement training, getting more advanced and looking not only at where we are in space, but how we get there.

VIDEO: ViewPoints on Day Five

After taking a vote to decide if we'd work on rapping or acting, we then working on some acting exercises. We did some improvisation, including a game called "What Are You Doing?".

If the AIMS Hip-Hop/Theatre class led the country, this would be their 2007 agenda.

Paint the White House black.
Make the country better.
No drugs.
No drinking.
No smoking.
No war.
Create a hip-hop nation.

We played acting games in the dance studio today. We learned about Improvisation some more and played acting freeze-tag.

After that, we created some scenes from scratch in 15 minutes. Each of 4 groups performed a scene with an everyday problem, and a possible solution. They took place in a classroom, in the lunchroom, at home, and in the neighborhood. We dealt with people trying to cheat, quarreling siblings, selfish friends, and stuck-up kids.