Sense of Self
Youths Transformed Through Poetry and Dance
LA PUEBLA — The workshop started with a poem the girls had never heard before: “We have come to be danced Not the pretty dance Not the pretty pretty pick me dance But the claw our way back into the belly Of the sacred, sensual animal dance …” And as the workshop leaders hoped, the poem struck some new notes and chords for the girls. Part of a Hip Hop Poetry Workshop at the Hands Across Cultures Teen Center here, the five- day program is a collaboration between the Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails Inc. and New Mexico CultureNet.
“What would a ‘pretty pretty pick me dance’ look like?” asked teacher Julie Hasted, sitting among a circle of chairs in a room bordered with painted plywood panels in blue, yellow and green.
“Trying out for cheerleader,” said Rosa Estrada, 13, who will start eighth grade in the fall at Carlos F. Vigil Middle School in Española.
Hasted nodded and then said it also reminded her of the “dance” girls sometimes do for boys, mentioning another line in the Jewel Mathieson poem: “Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance.”
Helping girls maintain a strong sense of self was a motivating factor for designing a weeklong experience of poetry, movement and voice.
“They really fall through the cracks at this age,” said Amy C’de Baca, director of fund development for the Girls Scouts of New Mexico Trails.
“It’s so crucial they have activities that help them with self-esteem and literacy,” C’de Baca said. “The purpose and the outcome is to have them be physically fit and to have some positive experiences in learning about poetry and selfexpression.”
Alex Traube, executive director of New Mexico CultureNet, which sponsors the poets-inthe-schools program in conjunction with the Santa Fe Public Schools, said, “We’re using voice as movement, dance as text, and poetry as voice.”
The workshop is one of three planned for eighth- through 10th-grade girls in both La Puebla and Santa Fe. C’de Baca said it is being funded by the United Way of Northern New Mexico and the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation.
Under the facilitation of Hasted, an English teacher at Santa Fe High; Idris Goodwin, a performance poet and rapper; and Michaela Knox, a dance teacher at the National Dance Institute, the girls will use poetry as a vehicle for literacy and confidence building.
Traube said young people easily connect to poetry because they relate it to the music lyrics they listen to.
After some time examining other poems like the dramatic “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou, the girls turned to an exercise called active listening.
“It’s a way to get out of your head and really listen,” Traube said.
With various “prompts” from Goodwin, the participants divided into twos and took turns talking and listening for 90 seconds each. The first prompt was to “talk about your name.”
Selena Valencia, 13, an eighth grader at Carlos F. Vigil Middle School, said, “I got it because of my dad. He liked the singer Selena. People always have problems spelling it.”
After three rounds of active listening, Traube said, “Now grab a pen and write as much as you can.”
And Goodwin added, “Don’t worry if you don’t remember every fact. Just write.”
As the participants wrote — some in phrases, some in complete sentences — Traube said the group would work with the writing in the afternoon after voice exercises with Goodwin and movement with Knox, creating poetry from it.
“I’ll give them a basic sequence of movements,” Knox said, “even something as simple as walking, and then manipulate it … to explore how far you can go with it.”
The girls will also aim toward a small performance at the end of the week.
“We’ll see if we can create something that invokes ‘portraits’ — how do you portray another person?” Traube said. “The idea is to blend poetry so it becomes something they can relate to — not an academic castor oil.”
But even with just a few hours of looking at poetry in new ways, the girls admitted they were seeing it differently.
“Sometimes you think poetry is all about rhyming,” Estrada said. “But it could be about realistic things. Like life.”
If you go
WHAT: Hip Hop Poetry Workshops for Girls, sponsored by Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails Inc. and New Mexico CultureNet
WHEN: June 16-20 and June 23-27. Workshops begin at 9 a.m. and end at 3 p.m., and are designed for girls in eighth through 10th grades
WHERE: June 16-20, Museum of New Mexico Administration Building, Camino Lejo on Museum Hill in Santa Fe; and June 23-27, Hands Across Cultures Teen Center, La Puebla
HOW MUCH: Workshops are free, including lunch and snacks. Enrollment is limited, and girls must sign up and attend all five days. You do not have to be a Girl Scout to attend. To register, call Amy C’de Baca at 505-343-1040, ext. 3010, or e-mail ACdebacags-nmtrails.org
