OUR GOALS
• To provide underserved youth with extracurricular opportunities in the arts
• To emphasize the positive and productive power of Hip-Hop in local
communities and the world
•To foster a connection between local working artists and disadvantaged
youth through creative collaboration
• To inspire academic achievement by engaging students in an alternative
learning environment
• To provide teaching experience for working artists
• To foster respect, self-worth, and individual identity through artistic expression

OUR OBJECTIVES
• We will run two Hip-Hop workshops in the next year.
• In the fall of 2006, the workshop will meet once a week for 12 weeks. Each session will run approxi mately 1 hour and a half. The culmination of the fall session will be a performance for the school at the end of the semester.
• In addition to songwriting, song structure, and performance, students will learn about the history and heritage of Hip-Hop in the South Bronx, encouraging pride in and ownership of their work as artists.
• Artist will meet outside of the workshop once a week to assess the progress of participants.
• The curriculum will be modified as needed.

WHAT WE HAVE DONE SO FAR
Our central program, From the Block, Out the Box launched its first season in the spring of 2006. The 8-week after school Hip-Hop workshop at South Bronx Prep (a 6th – 12th grade school) culminated in two performances, one for the middle school and one for friends and family at Carlito’s Poets Café in Harlem. Local emcees guided 20 sixth and seventh graders through the creative and technical process of songwriting. Working in teams, (one mentor to three or four students) the mentors collaborated with students to create an original song. Our student/emcees learned song structure, delivery and performance. Students wrote songs around the theme of Change...change in their lives as they begin adolescence, change that they would like to see in the music they listen too, as well as change they hope will come to the neighborhoods they live in.

In the fall of 2006, UAB expanded the workshop to include high school students. The volunteer mentor base doubled! The Second season of From the Block, Out the Box focused on the theme of Choice. Students wrote about the negative and positive consequences associated with the choices that they make. The final shows, both at the school and at The Bruckner, were highly energized as the middle school students, high school students, and mentors all shared the stage.

WHERE WE ARE GOING
In the spring of 2007 we will be expanding our program once again. Thanks to very generous equipment donations, we have built a small recording booth in the music room at South Bronx Prep. In order to support our participants academically we will provide incentives for students to perform well in school. Students that improve in their studies will be invited to join us on fieldtrips and have the privilege of recording their own original song.

The theme for Season Three is Storytelling. Students will study artists who incorporate storytelling into their songs and then write their own. During the last week of May, South Bronx Prep will be hosting a Talent Show, in which Urban Art Beat participants will dance, sing, rap and recite original poetry. Students who have taken our visual arts and graphic design workshops will design the set.
GET INVOLVED / JOIN THE MOVEMENT
If you would like to get involved, or if you are a teacher or principal who is interested in having our program at your school, please contact Rosaleen Knoepfel at info@urbanartbeat.org.

Our work is essential to the development of healthy and productive student-artists and instills in them the value of creative collaboration. Every workshop the students attend means time off the streets and away from the T.V. or video games. None of this would be possible without volunteer artists.

Our talented mentors are what keep Urban Art Beat going, each bringing their own expertise on the elements of hip-hop, music and performance. The mentors also create a safe, reliable, and creatively challenging environment that students may not be able to find elsewhere.

We are currently looking for additional mentors, skilled in various urban arts, as well as assistance with our curriculum development, public relations and fundraising efforts.