During the Spring, The Hip Hop Competition lasted roughly 2 hours. This Event was put together in the ARC Gymnasium. This was the first Hip Hop competition ever held.
Hoping for more events like this in the future.
Enthusiastic Dancers are eager to put their skills to the test. The organizations that were behind this event are: U.N.I.T.E, L.E.T.C (Low End Theory Collaboration), J.B.C Joint Budget Committee and Kaeb.
All funding this event.
UNITE is the community diversity center for American River College, and the Joint Budget Committee and Kaeb funded the competition.
Joshua Bonzo’s idea was set forth the production of this project. Another contributor of this project was Moses Rodriguez. Bonzo has been break dancing since the age of seven or eight.
This competition had a guest star Ken Smith, who lead everyone through each move. Smith was interviewed for more information regarding the culture of Hip Hop. It was originated in New York, and Smith was among its cultural colors from its first developments. He currently teaches intermediate Hip Hop at UCLA lecture and lab Arts and Cultures Department despite braving through several physical injuries to his hip, knees, ankles, and fingers.
Some modern Hip Hop moves are: turfing and crumping. Ken Smith describes Hip Hop as a culture, not just a dance style. He associates the culture of Hip Hop with graffiti, break dancing, DJ-ing, and rapping. Smith strongly emphasizes how the elements of Hip Hop are based on style and not technique. He danced in street competitions and freestyle competitions after it bloomed in California.
They want to bring hip hop culture into the American River College campus, along with break dancing!!
Design Hub student Shayn found inspiration in his teacher’s words: “You just gotta do it!” Quoted from none other than the welding professor here at ARC, Chris Messier. “When he’s not teaching his students all he knows, he’s creating vacuum chambers with gloved hands and sheet metal. He is pictured giving an example of the TIG- or GTAW- welding process, something that is proven to be a pretty tricky task. Shayn tells us that he is taking his fabrication and blueprints reading class in the welding department at ARC. As Shayn explains this process, he gives us a piece of welding slang: “stacking dimes”, which is the process of getting the weld to look like dimes that have been melted on top of each other. “It’s actually the sign of a job well done,” Says Shayn. Seeing students inspired by their professors is always a great thing to see. Teachers leave not only an impression on the students, but on the campus community of makers, including those here at the Design Hub. Thank you Chris Messier for all that you do, and thanks to Shayn for sharing! More of Professor Messier’s work can be found on his instagram page: @mez_welds