Summer classes teach the past and probe the future
By Kim Hudson
For the St. Louis American
“This is black culture,” said Nick Gates, who is co-teaching hip-hop at COCA (Center for Creative Arts) in University City this summer.
“A lot of black youth don’t know about the four elements of hip-hop. It’s just schooling youth on what they should know.”
The four elements are DJing, MCing, breakdancing and graffiti.
Co-teacher Clyde Evans Jr. thinks people are misinformed about the art form in many ways. He plans to correct this by first clarifying the language describing the dance.
“There are dances from the West Coast, and they are referred to as Funk dances instead of breakdances. One was called The Lock because of the locking move you would do with your arms. The other was called Popping because of the tensing and releasing of your muscles. Some people call it ‘Pop-locking.’ It doesn’t exist.”
He cleared up the name of one of the world’s most popular breaking moves.
“The Moonwalk,” he said, “is actually called the Backslide.”
While learning hip-hop dance history, Evans said, kids can expect to spend four or five hours on each of the various forms during his five-day intensive course. COCA is offering the class to adults and kids starting in the sixth grade, so families can break it down together.
Gates’ teaching schedule runs all summer, starting June 10. In some classes, he will teach kids as young as third-graders. In others, he will teach kids who are young at heart.
“For example, there’s a 49-year-old going on 50-year-old,” Gates said. “She is absolutely one of my best students.”
Gates’ classes may offer more time than Evans’ to get the knowledge and moves down.
“The least they should be able to do is perform about a good 16 counts of every element of hip-hop dance,” Gates said.
Spoken word artist Chris Locsin will introduce kids to MCing.
“We’ll go back to the beginning of hip-hop, like the death of disco,” Locsin said. “When people were turning their phonograph into an instrument. Where the word ‘hip-hop’ came from. How rap started before that with DJs in New York becoming sort of rhyming. We’ll even take it back to Africa.”
His class will include kids starting in the sixth grade through high school. He knows the hip-hop he will teach is vastly different from the hip-hop his students know.
“I will try to bridge the gap, in a way,” he said. “When I think of it, I think of A Tribe Called Quest and Diggable Planets. They’re thinking 50 Cent.”
By the end of the class, students will be writing their own poems, performing them as spoken word pieces and, hopefully, become stars themselves.
“I really want to develop some artists,” Locsin said. “They’re going to have some control over where this thing goes.”
Evans is aware that even with all the cultural literacy and dance instruction he offers, families may still be wary of letting their kids learn anything about hip-hop.
“I will not do anything that involves explicit language or movements,” he said. “It’s clean. I won’t use it if it has negative content. We choose songs we would have our own children listen to.”
He said he will use songs by some of hip-hop’s founders, including Roger and Zapp, Afrikaa Bambatta and The Sugar Hill Gang.
“Some pretty ill stuff,” he said.
There are no DJ classes at COCA yet, but Chris Burch will teach students in grades 3 through 7 about graffiti. There is also a class for adult kids in grades 6 through 12. As part of the Hip-Hop Summer Intensives, he will walk students through designing their own T-shirts.
Nick Gates’ classes start June 10. Clyde Evans Jr.’s class runs August 8 through 12. Chris Burch’s and Chris Locsin’s intensive classes run August 1 through 12. Tuition starts at $170 and classes are filling up fast. Call (314) 725-6555 or visit www.cocastl.org for more information.
