From far and near they take hip-hop to heart

Jenny Ebsworth brings her grandson, Benjali, from Blacktown to learn the strange art of break-dance and confesses: ''I've been watching the dancing show, and it's more like acrobatics.''

The classes are part of a CarriageWorks project to bring the arts venue closer to its neighbours in Redfern.

Three years ago CarriageWorks staged its first hip-hop festival, Platform 1, hoping Redfern youth would venture down Abercrombie Street for the event. Thousands came from across Sydney, but there were few local faces.

So the venue's executive producer, Jamie Dawson, and the Redfern Community Centre's cultural development officer, Lily Shearer, decided to take the hip-hop festival to the heart of Redfern, introducing a three-year program and starting with break-dancing classes for indigenous children.

''Like any program of community engagement, it turns on a level of trust, and my feeling is a place that appears at first glance to be white and middle-class offers no active reason for engagement,'' Dawson says of the locals' apparent reluctance.

Dawson and the festival's artistic director, Nick Power, enlisted two break-dancing coaches Scott Fox, aka Scotty Doo Rok, and B*Boy 2Ezy, to resurrect the Redfern City Rockers, which formed after the riots following the death of Thomas (T. J.) Hickey, 17, in 2004. They disbanded in 2006 when Fox went overseas.

Fox knocked on doors to find the original members only to discover six of them had either left Redfern or were in juvenile detention. So he searched for replacements and found the ''little ones'' to be ''super enthusiastic''.

Joining the 10-member crew are Daniel and Jeremiah, second cousins of Anthony Mundine who go by the street names C Jay and DJ Hero. A friend, Adrian Vargas, otherwise known as Zero Gravity, has a brother studying ballet and a father famous for flamenco dance. But it is hip-hop that stirs his soul - and feet.

Fox says: ''What appeals to these boys is the same thing that appeals to kids of a particular socio-economic background in New York and the Bronx, and that is it gives them a social voice and provides an avenue of music and performance.''

Dawson hopes to stage a hip-hop party at The Block next year to strengthen relationships formed in the workshops.

Source: www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/arts/from-far-and-near-they-take-hiphop-to-heart/2010/03/11/1268203351476.html