His educational outreach - designed to instill confidence, discipline and career development skills along with dance instruction - extends to other Memphis youth programs and schools, including Hutchison School and Balmoral Ridgeway Elementary. The mastermind behind the workshop is Tarrik Moore, CEO and co-founder of UDig. One of the school’s pillars is high expectations, and the workshop facilitated by UDig (which stands for Universal Dance Interdisciplinary Guild) fits in well with that mission, she said. If that’s the ticket to engaging our students, we’ll start there and eventually get them invested in the rest of the school day as well.”
“This hip-hop class is one way we can show students who initially may not be excited about reading, math or science that there are other things here to get excited about. “Our mission at Kipp is to see our students to and through college by making sure we’re giving them the academic skills and the character development they need to be successful in high school, college and beyond,” said Grace Williams, principal of Kipp Memphis Elementary and Middle. Some students dance in socks, others wear brightly colored sneakers, and all of them are having a blast. The class - about an equal mix of boys and girls - starts warm-up stretches to the tune of The Jackson 5’s “Never Can Say Goodbye.” When Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” fills the room with a little more funk, UDig instructor Montrell Britton leads them through some fundamentals: the buck jump, the wave, the Pac-Man. These students are taking the school’s elective A Chance to Dance Education Workshop, spearheaded by Memphis’ UDig Dance Company, and they’re more than ready to start working on their hip hop moves. They’re bouncing, sliding their feet, moving their hands and bopping around with anticipation.Īlthough the restlessness is common among kids that age, in this instance, it’s not typical classroom fidgeting. In Room 221 at Kipp Memphis Collegiate Middle charter school, more than two dozen sixth- and seventh-graders can’t keep still as they wait for class to begin.
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