This past summer, youth from three neighboring community centers worked intently with URBAN-15 to develop their drumming, movement, and production skills.

Free to students in grades 6-8, the Summer Arts Intensive Workshop in Dance and Drumming was a collaborative effort between URBAN-15 and three area community centers. Over 11 weeks, youth attending summer programs at Presa Community Center, Martinez Street Women’s Center, and American Sunrise visited our studio to learn skills in djembe, hand drumming, body percussion, performance technique and film production.

In our first sessions together, we identified change–from light to dark, soft to loud, little to big, chrysalis to butterfly–as a visual, auditory, and sensory thematic linking together our explorations from week to week.

In the next few sessions, students rotated between djembe, hand drum, and movement stations, learning different parts of a short rhythmic piece called “Funky Presa.” 

In our final sessions, we filmed students performing these parts live in front of a green screen. Over many months of careful editing, sonic and visual segments were then layered into a single narrative. The result is “METAMORPHOSIS,” an original video piece that culminates months of hard work and creative energy!

Check it out below: