Frisoli Arts Day

On Saturday May 1, 2010, Breathe Cambridge went to the Frisoli Arts Day, “Show Me What You Got”. It was a fun occasion where many artistic youth performers got the chance to express their ideas and talents. Not only was there delicious food and great weather, there were many creative performances and people with fantastic abilities that performed for the audience at Frisoli. Some of the acts included a dance team, a poet reciting his work, singers, a krumping team, and more. Since we, at Breathe Cambridge, are artists striving to collect voices and communicate with our community using poetry, we decided to have a performance and set up a table where people could have their poems written and recorded for us.

Our performance was a creative combination of movement, spoken word, and singing. The theme of our performance was acknowledging that people often feel left out but there are always ways to feel included. After spending only a few days rehearsing the choreography, we were set up to perform. It was slightly disorganized due to a few of our performers being absent, but we managed to replace them and make the routine work. We began our act with each of us walking onto the stage one by one, until we were all drifting around the stage aimlessly. We then each stopped and asked the audience a question in line with the theme of being left out, like “Have you ever felt lonely?” and “Have you ever felt afraid?”. Munah was the last to address the audience with the words “I am nobody”. This was to demonstrate a person feeling excluded. Following this piece, we were planning on having a singing performance and a transition into the next part using a negative space activity, but the key member of this section, Solome, couldn’t be there. We ended up skipping to the next part of our performance which entailed a person sitting on the floor with the group surrounding her but looking away. This was done to express the feeling of being ignored and isolated. After this, we had the city scene, which included all us of standing in straight, rigid positions while swaying emulating time and movement in the city. While we did this, Munah walked around us and recited her original poem named “Miss Sorrow”. When Munah finished, we all rushed to her, all except for Dami, who performed a singing piece. In the lyrics of the song, she called for people to come to her and as she did so, one by one, we surrounded her. At the conclusion of Dami’s song, Christina was lifted by the group and said “I am who I want to be”, at which point the rest of the group made a positive affirmation by saying their “I am” lines as well.

-Christina

Athena Day

There were many girls from different areas of Massachusetts like Cambridge, Dorchester, and Brighton that came to take part in Harvard’s Athena Day workshops. Breathe Cambridge was asked to host one of the many workshops that took place.

For the introduction we shared our names and explained to our group what Breathe Cambridge was all about. We broke the ice leading our group through a game we play often called the "I Am". Everybody forms circle and one person says something true to them and strikes a pose. If others in the group find was what said true about themselves they mimic the pose. We all had a lot of fun playing. It was an effective way to bring us together and start up conversations with our peers.

Our team led the group through our process of writing poetry in the "Breathe" poem templates. The template is set up with prompts to evoke ideas in the author while unifying topics of the poem. This is so the poems can be pieced together with other poems to make our audio installation piece. We worked in small groups building bonds and helping our peers gain a better understanding of the project. Once girls completed their poem we all listened to them read aloud and they went on to a quiet room to have their voices recorded reading their work.

I felt the workshop was a success because it was the first time our team of Breathe Teens really took the leading roles in running a workshop. We also got a chance to make new friends and build connections with other females in our area.

-Samentha

 

Lesley Workshop

Breathe is a service based public art project in Cambridge. We are a group of teens going around the city collecting peoples’ voices. We usually prefer female voices but everybody’s voice and participation is helpful and respected. We record participants reading their original work written in breathe poem template. The participant responds to the prompts of the template and can pick and choose what lines to use. It’s a choice to be recorded or filmed but we would appreciate your participation because it’s your opinions and thoughts made visible to the rest of the community.
One of my favorite events was at Lesley College. We presented our project in front of a class of females, they usually learn about women throughout history. It was a small group so it wasn’t as nerve wrecking as I thought it would be.
-Munah

Fresh Pond

Hi, my name is Makaila. My experience at Fresh Pond Day was interesting. I wasn’t even planning to come. I was pretty nervous at first and because of that I didn’t really want to participate but I decided to take a chance. I went up to a few people attending the event and invited them to participate in our project. It was almost like my nervousness actually convinced people to participate. I realized approaching people wasn’t that bad. After a while I got used to it and apparently good at it because whomever I asked to participate said yes! There were very few people who would say no and the ones who did actually changed their mind after I explained the project.
While working at Fresh Pond I got to meet Ellen Semenoff, who is a very important person in our community along with Councilman Leland Chung! I also got a chance to excel as leader in this project and overcome my nervousness.
-Makaila