The hip-hop dance group The Company, from Daly City, CA, collaborated with my brand Empire in the Air to create a dance summit called Art of Us. Art of Us served the children and nanays (mother in Tagalog) of Project PEARLS. Our youth instructors from The Company were Melissa Batesting, Jolo Cabrera, and KJ Estudillo. Empire in the Air's Aiko Tanzawa taught the nanays.
Project PEARLS is an NGO that aims to alleviate children from slum communities out of poverty through education and health. Its main community is Helping Land of Tondo, Manila in which the children not only live in a garbage dumpsite but also depend on garbage for food.
We spent nearly a week dancing with the children with two goals in mind: 1)provide the PEARLS children a positive outlet from their harsh realities and 2) show the PEARLS kids that dance has the power to be an extension of themselves.
I served as the liaison between the dance teachers and Project PEARLS as well as the host for the Art of Us team.
Comments