Hip Hop at the Arts Foundation Futures

Crop of Arts Foundation Futures invitation

I’m off to the Arts Foundation Futures awards on Monday night. They’re a small 25 year-old charity who look to champion areas of the arts that might not otherwise be supported. I believe that their inclusion of hip hoptonight marks the turning point in what will soon become a sea change in the way hip hop dance is viewed.

I know all the nominees; Chris Reyes, Juan Gaviria, Julia Cheng and the inimitable Kwame Asafo-Adjei so you’d think that it would be easy to pitch and write an in-depth article about each. It’s what I had planned to do when I was first told about what would happen. Unfortunately life isn’t that simple and the confusion between what PRs and journalists do, what makes a story interesting enough for editors to want to run with it, the availability of the nominees themselves for interview, my own health and the need to earn a living while setting DanceGRiST up has meant that this post is all I’ve been able to do so far. Hopefully I’ll get more on the night, but I know it’ll be rather challenging.

Meanwhile it’s a reassuring reminder that I’m on the right track with DanceGRiST. Once the training is up and running more dancers will understand the difference between bloggers, PRs, journalists and content aggregators. They’ll be more sure which sort of media they want to work with and more prepared to help whichever one get what they need.

Onwards and upwards!

Edit. Kwame Asafo-Adjei won, Kenrick Sandy OBE gave a wonderful introduction to the class and Robert Hylton accepted the prize on Kwame’s behalf as he was not there. I’m on deadline (new tiny-but-wonderful contract w00t) and will write more when I can.