Passing the Mic
8th Annual Intergenerational Hip Hop Arts Series
(Held in memory of John “Vietnam” Nguyen)
November 8-10, 2012
Featuring Marques Toliver, Frank X. Walker, Robbie Q’s Encyclopedia Show with Lynda Barry, The First Wave Hip Hop Theater Ensemble, and the Midwest Hip Hop All Stars
Presented by the University of WI-Madison Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives and the Office of the Vice Provost for Equity, Diversity and Educational Achievement in conjunction with The WI Book Festival
Thursday, November 8, 2012: Midwest All-Stars Hip Hop Showcase
7:30-8:30 pm, Rotunda Studio, Overture Center
Hosted by First Wave and featuring Youth All-Star poets from around the Midwest, Special Guest performance by Poet Jon Sands from NYC!
Friday, November 9, 2012: Encyclopedia Show 2.0
5:30-7:00 pm, Promenade Hall, Overture Center
Hosted by Robbie Telfer and featuring Lynda Barry, Frank X. Walker, Marques Toliver, First Wave and surprise guests.
Friday, November 9, 2012: First Wave – Performance Poetry and the Personal Narrative
7:30-9:00 pm, Promenade Hall, Overture Center
Hosted by OMAI Artistic Director Chris Walker and Madison Poets Laureate Wendy Vardaman & Sarah Busse.
In partnership with Verse Wisconsin, UW Program in Creative Writing, the WI Fellowship of Poets, Black Earth Institute and Madison Poet Laureates
Saturday, November 10, 2012: OMAI’s Annual Passing the Mic and Tribute to John “Vietnam” Nguyen
9:00-11:00 pm, Promenade Hall, Overture Center
Featuring First Wave, the Midwest Hip Hop All Stars, Frank X. Walker, Paul Hastil and Nick Moran from New Breed, Robert Schoville, and Marques Toliver
Celebration: In honor of Artist and First Wave Scholar John “Vietnam” Nguyen, OMAI presents a night full of poetry, music and special performances. First Wave artists Shameaca Moore, Myriha Burton, Janel Herrera, Taylor Scott, and Zhalarina Sanders will present a dynamic and cutting-edge musical set backed up by none other than acclaimed Madison musicians Paul Hastil, Nick Moran and Robert Schoville. Internationally acclaimed musician and singer Marques Toliver will showchase his remarkable talents and poet Frank X. Walker will appear as a special guest.
Come celebrate the life of a brilliant young performer with an evening full of energy, art, music, poetry, Hip Hop, and love.
John Vietnam Nguyen was a MC/Dancer/Poet/Producer/Videographer/Scholar from Chicago, IL. John spent his days tirelessly promoting Hip Hop as a way to build community and change our worlds. John was a shining example of what it means to be a First Wave scholar, an artist, and a good human. We use this night to lift his name.
Getting Real III
Hip Hop Pedagogy, Performance, and Culture in The Classroom and Beyond
A FREE public videoconference series
Every Monday
September 10-December 10, 2012
6:30 pm Central Standard Time / 7:30 pm Eastern Standard Time
Free & Open to the Public. No Registration Needed. Limited Seating Available.
UW-Madison Pyle Center & Lowell Center*
(702 & 610 Langdon St. Madison, WI 53706)
*See full schedule below for room numbers and location for each date
NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503
(726 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003)
Columbia University Room 144 Horace Mann
(Teachers College, 525 West, 120th St. New York, NY 10027)
*Educators are encouraged to attend the series for professional development and to fulfill WI Professional Development Plan (PDP) requirements.
Beginning on Monday, September 10, 2012, the UW-Madison Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI) and the Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate, in collaboration with the Hip-Hop Education Center, will team up with New York University’s Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and Columbia University’s Institute for Urban and Minority Education, to welcome some of the seminal scholars and leaders in the growing field of hip hop studies in the United States today. The parade of special guests will focus their attention on how hip hop culture and culturally relevant pedagogy can serve as innovative approaches to help bridge the achievement gap in our nation’s public schools through the creation of new strategies and curricula to reach students who have been historically under-served by traditional schooling.
In a diverse, highly technological, global world, we need citizens who are capable of, as Paulo Freire states, “reading the word and the world.” Educators give lip service to the concept of “critical thinking” but reduce the concept to the ability to perform on sections of standardized tests of conventional reading. The basic premise of the series is that true critical thinking is stimulated through a critical pedagogy – one that challenges typical orthodoxy to help students ask incisive questions about the nature of the current social, political, economic, and cultural order. One of the more innovative strategies for engaging students in critical thinking is through hip hop culture. Similar to the work of the 1950’s-60’s citizenship schools and freedom schools, New Studies (e.g. Black Studies, Chicano Studies, Women’s Studies, etc.) and popular culture studies, hip hop culture pulls on the organic and local culture of students to help them see the ways grassroots movements engage learners and help produce transformation.
This series will pull on educational theories such as socio-cultural theory, culturally relevant pedagogy, critical media theory, post-colonial theory and critical race theory, to help participants connect hip hop as both an art form and a pedagogical tool to improve the academic success of students who remain marginalized in our schools.
Getting Real III Schedule
UW-Madison Working Schedule: Facilitated by Assistant Professor Chris Walker, School of Dance, and Artistic Director, Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI), UW-Madison
Week One: September 10 – Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor (UW-Madison School of Education) – “Hip Hop / Hip Hope: Reinventing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Two: September 17 – Faisal Abdu’Allah, Internationally-renowned UK visual artist (Art Institute Resident at UW-Madison Spring 2013) – “Mirror to My Thoughts, the Fifth Element of Hip Hop” UW-Madison Pyle Room 313, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Three: September 24 – Maisha Winn, Associate Professor (UW-Madison School of Education) and Susan J. Cellmer, Chair of English Education – “Agitating, Educating and Organizing: Toward a Theory of Black Literate Lives” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Four: October 1 – Dr. Damon Williams, Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate (UW-Madison) – “Beats, Rhymes & the Academy: Past, Present and Future” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Five: October 8 – MC Lyte, legendary lyricist, iconic Hip Hop pioneer, and founder of the Hip Hop Sisters Network, joins Chris Walker, Assistant Professor & OMAI Artistic Director (UW-Madison), with Performances by First Wave Scholars – “Real Begets Real: How Artistic Process Contributes to Academic Success” UW-Madison Lowell Center B1A-B, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
New York University Working Schedule: Facilitated by Martha Diaz, Director, Hip-Hop Education Center (HHEC)
Week Six: October 15 – Dr. Pedro Noguera, Professor, Steinhard School for Culture, Education, and Human Development and Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education (NYU) – “Education, Popular Culture and Youth Agency” UW-Madison Lowell Center B1A-B, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Seven: October 22 – Dr. Marcella Runell Hall, Professor and Director of the Center for Academic and Spiritual Life (NYU) – “Promising Practices for Utilizing a Social Justice Hip Hop Pedagogy: Notes from the Real World” UW-Madison Pyle Room 313, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Eight: October 29 – Carlos “Mare139” Rodriguez, Pioneer Graffiti Artist and Sculptor, and Scholar-In-Residence (HHEC) – “Art for the Next Century: How Graffiti Transformed Contemporary Art and Remixed History” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Nine: November 5 – Dr. Joseph Schloss, Adjunct Professor Black and Latino Studies, and Sociology (City University of New York) and Jorge “Popmaster Fabel” Pabon, Vice Presedident of the Rock Steady Crew – “From the Source to the Course: Issues and Strategies for Collaborative Hip Hop Scholarship” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Ten: November 12 – Marlon Burgess, South African MC/Poet and Ph.D. Candidate (NYU Graduate School of Arts and Science, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, American Studies Program) – “Rhyme, Rhythm & Resistance: Afro-Cosmopolitanism, Art and Public Pedagogy in South Africa’s Social Justice Struggles” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Columbia University Working Schedule: Facilitated by Martha Diaz, Director, Hip-Hop Education Center (HHEC)
Week Eleven: November 19 – Dr. Ernest Morrell, Professor of English and Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (Teachers College, Columbia University) – “Hip-Hop and English Education: Production, Poetics, Pedagogy, and Praxis” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Twelve: November 26 – Jen Johnson, Ph.D. Candidate (English Education, Teachers College, Columbia University) – “Hip-Hop Debate: Remixing Literacies and Textual Possibilities for the 21st Century Classroom” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Thirteen: December 3 – Dr. Christopher Emdin, Assistant Professor Dept. of Mathematics, Science and Technology (Teachers College, Columbia University) – “Reality Pedagogy: #HipHopEd and Stem Education” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Week Fourteen: December 10 – Sam Seidel, Education Consultant, Teaching Artist and Author – “High School for Recording Arts Presents… A Model for Flip-Hop Pedagogy, School Design and Leadership” UW-Madison Pyle Room 325/326, NYU Metropolitan Center Room 503 & Columbia 144 Horace Mann
Getting Real III Bios
Gloria Ladson-Billings is the Kellner Family Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association. Her research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students. Her work has won numerous scholarly awards, including the H.I. Romnes faculty fellowship, the Spencer Post-doctoral Fellowship, and the Palmer O. Johnson Outstanding research award. In 2002, Ladson-Billings was awarded an honorary doctorate from Umea University in Umea, Sweden and in 2003-2004 was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She is also the 2004 recipient of the George and Louise Spindler Award for ongoing contributions in educational anthropology, given by the Council on Anthropology & Education of the American Anthropological Association.
Faisal Abdu’Allah graduated from the Royal College of Art, his first solo show ‘Censored’ received wide acclaim and was quoted as ’one to watch’ by art critic Sarah Kent. Abdu’ Allah’s work primarily evolves from the interface of photography, the printed image and lens-based installation, more recently moving image has featured in his practice. This has enabled him to reposition values and ideologies pertaining to representation. Abdu’Allah continues to broker disparate worlds through his practice best exemplified in ‘The Garden of Eden’ 2003 with architect David Adjaye, ‘Gold Finger’ 2007 with the late Joey Pyle from the British Mafia and more recently ‘Double Pendulum’ 2011 featuring Jeanette Kwakye of Team GB, described as an exploration of breathing through training rituals of sports athletes. Abdu’Allah has participated in Sharjah, Torino and Tallinn Biennales and has been the recipient of the Decibel Artist Award 2005, Tallinn Print Triennial 2007 and IDA award 2010. A senior lecturer in Fine art at the University of East London, visiting professor Stanford University, California and University of Wisconsin, Madison. Abdu’Allah is currently in collaboration with Christian Boltanski on ’14 years in between’ which will be showcased in his retrospective at the CAAM Gran Canaria 2012.
Maisha T. Winn is the Susan J. Cellmer Chair in English Education in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison School of Education. As a former public elementary and high school teacher, Winn has worked extensively with youth in urban schools and in out-of-school contexts. After completing her graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, Winn worked with a community of youth poets, the Power Writers in the Bronx, New York. Her ethnography, Writing in Rhythm: Spoken word poetry in urban classrooms (published under Maisha T. Fisher by Teachers College Press), follows the lives of student poets and their teachers and she currently serves as an education advisor to the documentary “To be heard” about this collective. Winn is also the author of an ethno-history of Black readers, writers and speakers entitled Black Literate Lives: Historical and contemporary perspectives (published under Maisha T. Fisher by Routledge). Most recently, Winn examines the intersection of youth justice and literacy in her ethnography, Girl Time: Literacy, justice, and the school-to-prison pipeline (Teachers College Press). Her research has also been published in numerous journals including Harvard Educational Review; Race, Ethnicity and Education; Review of Research in Education, Anthropology and Education, Research in the Teaching of English, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and others.
Dr. Damon Williams is the Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer and a member of the faculty in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In this role, Dr. Williams provides leadership on issues of access, equity, inclusion, and diversity. He heads a division with more than 100 employees and several of the nation’s most innovative leadership development, inclusion, research, and college preparation programs, including the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI/First Wave), the Precollege Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence (PEOPLE), the Wisconsin Equity and Inclusion (Wei) Laboratory, and the largest Posse Foundation partnership in the nation.
Dr. Williams is considered to be among the nation’s most dynamic and innovative leaders around issues of diversity, organizational change, and creating powerful educational platforms for the hip-hop generation. He has worked with or lectured for more than 200 organizations across the world and will publish two new books in January of 2013 – “Strategic Diversity Leadership: Activating Change and Transformation in Higher Education” and “The Chief Diversity Officer: Strategy, Structure, and Change Management” with Stylus Publishing Press.
MC Lyte: Lyricist, pioneer, icon, inspirational speaker, veteran and entrepreneur describe one of the most prolific and well-respected female Hip Hop artists of our time: MC Lyte. A piorneer in the industry, she opened the door for future female Hip Hop artists by daring to do what had never been done while doing something she loved. A role model to women and respected by men everywhere, Lyte never compromises who she is and consistently displays that a woman can turn heads fully clothed! Whenever possible, Lyte enjoys traveling across the nation to use her expertise and story of success to motivate others to take ownership of the world around them while striving to be the best they can possibly be. MC Lyte’s latest endeavor as founding member of the Hip Hop Sisters Netword, is a groundbreaking partnership with the UW-Madison Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI), to offer the MC Lyte & UW-Madison $100,000 First Wave Scholarship Presented by Hip Hop Sisters Network. Author of “Unstoppable: Igniting the Power Within to Achieve Your Greatest Potential,” Lyte is also very active in many social projects, including anti-violence campaigns and Rock the Vote.
Chris Walker, Assistant Professor of Dance, is the Artistic Director of the First Wave Hip Hop Theater Ensemble at UW-Madison and the co-founder and artistic director of NuMoRune Collaborative – an ensemble of dancers, choreographers, storytellers and musicians, who come together under a united artistic vision to create collaborative works. Walker has taken First Wave, which received the Governor’s Arts Award in 2010, on local, national and international tours, performing in New York, Mexico, Panama and the U.K. First Wave was selected to represent North America in the prestigious Contacting the World Theatre Festival 2010, in Manchester, U.K., an international theater project linking young people’s theater groups from around the world to create theater across the boundaries of geography and culture. Walker has received numerous awards including the New York Thayer Fellowship and the Hefty Faculty Support Award for his choreographic work, which has been presented nationally and internationally in the Caribbean, North and South America, South East Asia and Europe.
Dr. Pedro Noguera is the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University and the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. He is the author of seven books and over 150 articles and monographs. His most recent books are “Creating the Opportunity to Learn” with A. Wade Boykin (ASCD, 2011). He is a regular commentator on educational issues on CNN, National Public Radio, and other national news outlets. He serves on the boards of numerous national and local organizations including the Economic Policy Institute and The Nation Magazine.
Dr. Marcella Runell Hall is a scholar and author, who holds a doctorate in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Hall has worked as a freelance writer for the New York Times Learning Network and VIBE magazine. Hall co-edited three award winning books, The Hip-Hop Education Guidebook (2007) with Martha Diaz, Conscious Women Rock the Page: Using Hip-Hop Fiction to Incite Social Change (2008) and Love, Race & Liberation: ‘Til the White Day is Done; as well as a children’s book entitled the Ten Most Influential Hip-Hop Artists (Scholastic 2008). She has received numerous awards for teaching and writing about social justice and diversity including the prestigious Association of American Colleges & University’s K. Patricia Cross Future Scholar Award (2009) as well as a Social Justice Citation from the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office. Marcella currently serves as the Director of the Center for Spiritual Life at New York University, and holds a Clinical Faculty appointment in the Silver School of Social Work.
A 2010 USA Artist Nominee, and a 2010 HHTF Creative Grant award winner, Carlos “Mare 139″ Rodriguez is a sculptor/painter who in 1985 pioneered a novel version of urban graffiti as modern sculpture. Throughout his career as a sculptor, Mare139 has consistently brought innovation to the genreʼs aesthetic and vocabulary. Exhibiting and lecturing throughout the US and Europe his uniquely qualified experience lends voice to importance of arts advocacy and art literacy to ensure and promote the rich cultural legacy of urban arts. Beyond fine art Mare139 designed and created the award for the Annual BET/Black Entertainment Award, recipients include Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Prince, Jay Z, Prince Snoop Dog, Beyonce, Kobe Bryant, and many others. He also designed the G-Unit Award expressly for 50 Cent commissioned for him by fashion designer Marc Ecko. Other award projects include the 2005 and 2007 Red Bull Beat Battle Award and the SPY Award for the 30th Anniversary of the Rock Steady Crew. He has also earned the prestigious 2006 Webby Award for his launch of the Hip Hop documentary Style Wars website. His writings have been published in collaboration with Martha Coopers brilliant photo book Street Play that documents the imaginative ʻplayʼ of children in the streets of NYC in the late 1970ʼs. Currently, he is exhibiting sculpture and painting, and is a creative consultant to companies like NIKE, Jordan Brand, Red Bull and many others.
Martha Diaz is a community organizer, media producer, archivist, social entrepreneur, and an Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Gallatin School. Diaz has been dedicated to innovating communities, advancing social justice, cultivating leaders and artists, and mentoring youth for nearly 20 years. Her intuition for success can be traced back to her days as an aspiring production assistant for the late Ted Demme, the seminal TV and film producer/director behind Yo! MTV Raps (1988), Life (1999), Blow (2001), and A Decade Under the Influence (2003). Diaz has worked with MTV, The Hakuhodo Agency, African Heritage Network, Americans for the Arts, Classic Concept, 88HipHop, Source-All-Access, Black Filmmaker Foundation, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, SONY and PBS. In 2002, Diaz formed the H2O International Film Festival, and subsequently, developed the H2Ed [Hip-Hop Education] Summit and the non-profit Hip-Hop Association [H2A]. Diaz co-edited the Hip-Hop Education Guidebook, Vol.I with Dr. Marcella Runell Hall. In 2010, she founded the Hip-Hop Education Center, in partnership with Dr. Pedro Noguera of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Behavior.
Christopher Emdin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he also serves as Director of Secondary School Initiatives at the Urban Science Education Center. He is author of the book, Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation, and also a columnist for the Huffington Post, where he writes the “Emdin 5″ series. Dr. Emdin holds a Ph.D. in Urban Education with a concentration in Mathematics, Science and Technology, Masters degrees in both Natural Sciences, and Education Administration, and Bachelors degrees in Physical Anthropology, Biology, and Chemistry. Dr. Emdin has coauthored proposals to start New York City Public Schools, taught middle school mathematics and general science, and high school physics, and chemistry. He has also been a researcher on many NSF funded research projects in mathematics and science education.
Dr. Emdin was recently awarded the “Best paper for Innovation in Teaching” by the The Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE) and was named ”Groundbreaking Educator” by Arrive Magazine. He was also awarded the Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) Outstanding Dissertation and Emerging Leader Awards. His research focuses on issues of race, class, and diversity in urban science classrooms, the use of new theoretical frameworks to transform education, and urban school reform. Dr. Emdin researches, consults, and delivers speeches on various issues in schools such as science technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, urban education, school and classroom climate, fostering dialogue in schools, and student engagement. He is a noted public speaker on issues such as the Obama Effect on Urban Education, Hip-hop culture and education, improving STEM education, and various educational and socio-political issues related to urban youth of color.
Sam Seidel is an education writer and consultant. His work focuses on developing and spreading innovative solutions for problems faced by schools, prisons, and community organizations. As an author, Sam writes for the Husslington Post, GOOD, and national education journals, and has contributed to several anthologies. His book, Hip Hop Genius: Remixing High School Education, explores existing and potential intersections between hip-hop and education. As a consultant, Sam has worked for several national education organizations, including the Black Alliance for Educational Options, Big Picture Learning, Diploma Plus, Jobs for the Future, and the National Center on Time and Learning, as well as a spectrum of other clients on a diverse set of projects, ranging from redesigning a statewide juvenile justice system to working with the Rockefeller family to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Sam served as the Director of Annual Reviews and Partnerships for the Alternative High School Initiative, a national network of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded school development organizations, such as EdVisions and YouthBuild USA. Trained and certified as a high school Language Arts teacher, Sam has taught in a variety of settings—from first grade at a public elementary school to post-secondary courses in a state prison. Sam directed AS220 Broad Street Studio, a grassroots arts program for young people in and transitioning out of incarceration and was the founding director of the Maysles Institute’s youth documentary film program. Sam currently serves on the boards of three organizations: AS220, a non-profit arts organization in Providence, RI; Operation Reach, a non-profit youth development organization in New Orleans, LA; and Resource Generation, a national non-profit that works with wealthy young people committed to social change. Sam holds a degree in Education History and Policy from Brown University. To learn more, visit: www.hiphopgenius.org, www.husslingtonpost.com, and follow Sam on Twitter: www.twitter.com/husslington
