International Events:

The Namgis Community’s Seafest Cultural Celebration: Alert Bay, British Columbia In August of 2005, Lavie Raven (Minister of Education for UHipHop) was invited by the Namgis to do a mural project with youth in the community, as part of their annual Seafest event. Raven worked with ~20 youth, (primarily 4-8 graders) to create murals that depicted cultural glyphs and artistic traditions of their ancestral culture. Similar to the cross-cultural exchange UHipHop conducted with the Lakota nation in South Dakota, UHipHop learned the traditions and practices of indigenous communities and collaborated with youth to create hip-hop based based products for community beautification.

Community murals from the 2005 UHipHop/Namgis mural project
This year UHipHop will return with four educators and four youth to create choreographed break-dance performances and four more murals for the community. UHipHop students will be trained in break-dance, the mural arts, and video technology. The youth will use video to document the lessons and the actualized work, and will use this footage as part of the year’s video documentary. This cultural exchange teaches youth from different communities how to collaborate artistically, and learn an appreciation for each others’ personal and cultural backgrounds. Students from UHipHop will also create a mural in Chicago that is based on the cultural experiences they shared with the Namgis community.