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To provide innovative, culturally relevant hip-hop art programs to inspire engagement, learning, and activism for diverse communities.
Administered by the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI), the First Wave Learning Community is the first university program in the country centered on urban arts, spoken word and hip-hop culture.
International tours to: London, England/Manchester, England/Corby, England/Kingston, Jamaica/Panama City, Panama/Cuernavaca, Mexico
The 9th cohort has First Wave’s first international student (from China)!
First Wave students are published authors, nationally renowned and internationally ranked poets, rappers making noise on the underground, and community organizers.
First Wave students and Alumni have received jobs and internships from the United States Embassy, The New York Knicks, Teach For America, Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam, and many more groundbreaking institutions.
Presented by the UW-Madison's Division of Diversity, Equity & Achievement and produced by the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives’ (OMAI), Line Breaks Festival brings the top new aesthetics in contemporary performance art to the UW-Madison campus and the surrounding community. It has evolved into a space for the investigation of contemporary American culture through the lens of hip-hop performance. For more information, please visit the festival page.
