How amazing:

“I had a fantastic day today. They are always doing good things to make me a good person.”        -Tylin

Have a good night!

Chris

So this is our third time coming to NOLA and giving this camp to the kids. Some things are the same every year: shining faces (new and familiar); exciting classes; the sadness that comes when the reality hits that it will soon be over until next year. The energy is unique from one year to the next, however. The personalities of the New Orleans community is all its own anyway. Add to that the ever-changing social climate of a post-Katrina New Orleans and include a smattering of families in need of a release (psychological and/or subconscious) and the result is always interesting!

The kids really need us. At first that need was obvious due to the recent trauma of the storm. But now, four years later, the fresh wounds have scabbed over but there is still the lingering desperation that can come from living in a city that no one thinks about as being in need; unable to see past the popular, gaudy surface.

It is not simply a financial issue. There are many children that we serve that come from families that are considerably well off. But the reality of living in the city that America forgot cannot go by any of them unnoticed. Much of the rebuilding of the area is superficial (mostly in the commercial district and of course Bourbon Street.) However, in our wandering of the city, we still noticed plenty of houses still bearing the markings from the initial searches. (Although it was brought to my attention that some of these markings were left intentionally as a symbol of the homeowners successful survival, I fear this is an exception rather than a rule.)

That’s why I am so proud to be a part of this group. The parents of the kids are very verbal in their gratitude towards us and our continued presence. The kids light up with the attention we give them and love having their moment to shine when we allow them to express themselves creatively. I think they enjoy the fact that we are helping them to find their voice.

For the three years I have been a part of Dance Camp, my contribution has been giving a class experience in African dance styles, rhythms and storytelling (affectionately referred to as Afro Modern.) My reason for this stemmed from reading about the displacement of New Orleans residents after Katrina. Many were separated from their families and the only homes they have ever known! This brought to mind the auction block in slavery times when enslaved Africans already removed from their homeland were also separated from their families.
This association made me realize the importance of heritage and history. Not just for African Americans but for AMERICANS! If we do not know where we came from we don’t know who we are so how in the world can we have any idea where our futures will take us?!

This year, however, I changed my focus in regard to the class. Instead of simply teaching them movements, I decided this year to incorporate ALL of the campers into a performance of the West African welcoming dance known as Fanga.

Teaching so many children of such varied ages and skill levels was a daunting one to say the least. I’m not gonna lie….I was a little nervous around day two! We had a run through of what will be performed at tomorrow night’s performance and, although the run of Fanga was a bit rough….it’s in there! The show is going to be wonderful. All the teachers are giving their “A-game” as usual. Many of us are utilizing different strengths this year. Some of these strengths were acquired through our experiences here in previous years.

I wish I didn’t have to return to Philly a week early, but I will definitely carry this week’s experience with me alongside the smiles of the kids whose lives we’ve impacted again.

Charles Tyson, Jr.

This week has flown by!!!! I can’t believe that tomorrow is the last day of our first week of camp! All week we have had the kids of a West Bank church’s summer camp attending our camp. Unfortunately due to the way their camp runs, we had to say goodbye to 13 of our amazing campers today. It really brought a tear to my eye knowing that these AMAZING children would not be here tomorrow. As sad as I may feel, the smiles on their faces throughout this week will always be a memory that I will have. It was great to reach this group of kids.

As far as our other 32 campers, the performance is upon us! They are all pretty ready it seems, so I am sure it will be a great day and show. Their parents are very excited too!!! I look forward to writing a fun filled post tomorrow about their outstanding performance!

On another note, today’s theme was about the Blueprint for Your Future. They really have some amazing things that they want to do in their futures. How exciting that they are not afraid to dream big. For our art project today they created their “future glasses” where they could see into their future. We will have to post the picture of all of the younger kids with their future glasses on. What a great moment.

Well, sorry it’s short but I need to put the schedule together for tomorrow’s day!!! Look for more postings soon!

Chris

So today was a good day a little rough start but after the gears started moving and the oil was flowing it was a done deal. The kids seem to be enjoying all of the activities we have given them and are super excited about performing on friday. Todays theme was unity and without having to describe it to them they showed us through movement,friendship, and just togetherness. For lunch we had tacos and i must of ate like 5 and then had to leave to go teach at another location for a different camp that was going on, during the same time of our camp. Now we are awaiting dinner and i think tonight we will enjoy some yummy ice cream and call it a night….this is ces signing out!!!!

Each morning after warm-up Steve has us repeat: “I AM AN ARTIST, I AM A DANCER, TODAY IS GOING TO BE THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!” What a great way to start and what a true statement it is. Through all of the frustrating moments, this was still one of the best days of my life. I am so honored to be here teaching and supporting these kids during the rough moments in their lives (and the good ones too!). They may come from and go home to some sad and interesting situations, but for 8 hours out of the day, this is their favorite place to be. As Josue said during our journaling session yesterday, his comfort zone or safe place “is here at camp.” How encouraging!!!!

Today was a great day. I taught ballet to the younger crowd this morning and what a crazy hour! They did a pretty good job considering it was “ballet” (which I got a huge moan when I told them that we would be doing ballet today). Overall, they were very receptive to what we were doing. A big shout out to Cesa for being my front of the room assistant! It totally helps for the kids to see one of their hip hop and breakin’ teachers dancing ballet!

After this I had yoga with the older kids and they really enjoyed it. It is so refreshing to see kids that are dedicated and throw themselves 100% into what they are doing. I really feel that all of the kids are much more focused this year. We have had less issues with sitting out and not participating!!!

Our theme today was Culture and to us that seemed kind of hard. But to our amazement, the kids new exactly what to say when we asked what kinds of things made up a culture. For example: Traditions, customs, clothes, food, music….and the list went on and on! What a shock to us! These kids are amazingly bright and are so willing to put themselves out there.

Some other super amazing moments today were: the Fleur de lis shape in choreography class, the alien mask made by Terrance, Andre’s choice of pose for relaxation during yoga class, Walker and Trinity holding hands and being best friends after one day (and Trinity being upset that people were talking about Walker, even though they weren’t saying anything bad), my back-to-back moment with Tyrell, Amaryah being so excited after teaching her modern class, the reminder of Philly Cheesteaks, Lorenzo’s Pizza, and Amoroso Bread during journaling, the kids wanting to wear the tap shoes and dance around during their free time at the end of the day, and the list goes on and ON!!!!!

We did get 10 additional kids today which puts us at 45 total. I hope that more kids will show up each day!

Chris

7:30am ran 24 blocks and almost died.

8:30 kids arrive. Steve ran a good warm up and then headed to tap.

10:30 Tap was fun! Me and Tory did some headspins in tap shoes which is another 1st added to my list.

11:30 Lunch! Salad, peanut butter on wheat, and lemonade. YUM! Thanks to the LOCC ladies in the kitchen for the hook up!

12:30 Breaking!!! Me and my crew of future breakers killed it in our choreography. Shout out to Trinity, Trey, Requan, and Kavonte! Cesa held it down and taught the youngin’s some amazing movement as well as incorporated the Theme of Culture in his class.

1:30 Improv with Hula Hoops! Kids loved this! They really enjoyed the 3 minutes of fame when we asked them to show us what they had!

2:30 Art! We made mask with plates and pipe cleaners. Got some glitter glue on my pants but it was worth the smile on Tyrells face when he dumped the entire bottle on his paper and spread it with his hand!

3:30 Journaling led by Miss Lauren. Today was good because we compared Philly Culture to New Orleans. It was cool to hear what they associated with our culture. Cheese Steaks, Long Tees, and the Liberty Bell.

4:30 Choreography. My group used word cards and made the cutest dance ever. It consisted of a backslide, air guitars, and bboystances. Cant wait for the show on Friday! I learned the JERK dance from a group of the older girls! Love learning dances specific to their area!

Exhausted, stuffed from the amazing dinner, and ready for tommorow. SOOOO TAP BREAK AND JERK!!

K-EZ

Pasamos el dia muy bien y los nenes lo disfrutaron bastante. A bit worried about the discipline aspect of camp but we will “wing thru it, i assume”. I actually participated in classes throughout the day and really connected with the kids getting to know them on a personal level and trying to become more of a role model/example of what sticking and dedicating yourself to something will do for you and more importantly others. A huge “BAM BAM BAM” shout out the the lovely young lady who made dinner for us tonight…words do not even describe how good it was but if i had to mentions a few… (Ambrosia,Delectable,Delicious,Dulcet,Luscious,Lush,Scrumptious)

Ce$money!!!

Today was our first day of our THIRD year at camp! I can’t believe it has been three years since we started. Our day started bright and early at 9:00 when the kids started to pour in. It was so exciting to see so many familiar faces from years past. As they arrived, some of them would run up to me and start doing dances that I thought them last year. It makes me feel so great that they remembered it, because it shows me how much the camp really meant to them. We had a pretty decent turn out by lunch time, but we are hoping that our numbers will grow as the week goes on.

After warm up, we split the groups up and i taught my tap class. It was definitely the best part of my day BECAUSE WE HAD REAL TAP SHOES!!!! Which were so generously donated to us by a client, and good friend. We were given 69 pairs of tap shoes! Last year, we resorted to taping pennies to the bottoms of the kids’ sneakers, which was a complete disaster. But thankfully, with real tap shoes this year, the kids enjoyed class and participated the entire time. After tap, I went with the younger group and we went to lunch. It was delicious. Hot dogs will do the trick for meany day!! After a filling lunch, we went up to the gym, which felt like a sauna! We took Kelly’s hip hop class which was a lot of fun. The kids really enjoyed it too, and no one seemed to complain about the heat or as to sit down, which was a huge problem last year. In the afternoon we did art projects, and today’s project was to make create their own landscape (today’s theme was landscape). I worked with two girls, Maya and Sarah, and we made a skate park. I don’t even think that either of the girls skate, but that is what they wanted to make! I worked with the little kids most of the day, which can be so draining. But they were great, and we had a lot of fun. After art, I went upstairs to help with improv games that Lisa was leading. We decided to play with balloons and do different levels and movements with them. We would do high and low movement, and sharp and smooth movement. To our surprise, only one balloon popped the entire time.. until it was time to go back downstairs and they all thought that it would be really funny to pop their balloons.

I feel like the day started to cool down after improv. After a short snack, Lauen led everyone in journaling. She had them write about their comfort zone and what their comfort zone would be in twenty years. It was nice to see that everyone was participating in journaling, and not giving up and not getting frustrated. I feel like for being the first day of camp, everything went incredibly smooth.

Finally, we broke up into our choreography groups which was so exciting because all my girls who were in my group from last year ran up to me! They wanted me to be in their group again, and they were showing me their dances from last year. Unfortunately, I had to split them up into two groups. My group decided that they wanted to learn the beat it dance that Charles choreographed for our Michael Jackson tribute. They loved it so much, and they picked it up so quickly because they probably already knew half the dance from watching it on TV or youtube. The day slowly came to an end with our cool down at the end of the day. They split up amoungst themselves and played games or finished up art projects or worked on the dances that they learned during choreography. I could feel myself getting more and more tired as it came closer and closer to 5:00. As everyone was leaving I just realized that today was a terrific day! Everything seemed to be under control, and if it wasn’t, it was all fixed because I didn’t notice a thing!

Now it’s time for our first dinner at our home for the week! Stuffed shells to be exact! Looking forward to a good nights rest and another wonderful day in the morning!!

-Chelsea

Landed in New Orleans yesterday and it was like returning home in a way. Familiar places, people, and food. This morning a bunch of the team went to mass and Pastor Hogg was awesome. He interduced us to the congregation. I enjoyed the band and his sense of humor during Mass. It amazes me every year how supportive, caring, and genuine the locals are in New Orleans. Our waiter at NOW the official restaurant of IPDC Angelis (BEST PIZZA EVER) sparked interest in our group. He was really excited about our mission and what we do and wanted to know how he could further connect us with other local organizations. People from the church have volunteered to cook for us all week which is AWESOME! Another member from the church took us out to dinner just to get to know more about us as individuals. I am grateful for all of the people who have helped to make this trip a success. We have a LONG two weeks ahead of us and Im sure there will be surprises forcing us to scramble under pressure but as always it is sooo worth it. Im excited to see the kids and excited to see what is created this year. Week 1 begins!

K-EZ