Downtown campus just got a little more hip on Thursday night.
The ASU Hip-Hop Coalition offered a hip-hop dance clinic at the First Amendment Forum in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where the group performed an original piece of choreography and taught another routine to the six students in attendance.
Andrea Coffey, the Hip-Hop Coalition member who led the dance clinic portion of the event, said she developed the routine “on the spot” to create a comfortable and spontaneous atmosphere. She said she hoped the event got the audience interested in the positive aspects of hip-hop culture.
“We like to reach out for the hip-hop community because we love hip-hop, and I want other people to love hip-hop as much as I do,” she said. “It’s a culture we try to influence and keep alive.”
Coffey, a communications sophomore, said the low attendance might be because of fewer students and less club information available on the Downtown campus. However, she still felt the clinic was a success because the performers got a chance to practice their passion and share it with an enthusiastic audience.
Shannon O’Connor, a print journalism senior, said the clinic’s lively atmosphere and music was a welcome release from a busy schedule, as well as a good excuse to just dance.
“I had fun tonight because — hold on, let me catch my breath,” she said. “Because the beat makes you want to get up and move.”
She attributed the low attendance to the location on Downtown campus, not the event itself.
“It’s hard getting students down here,” said O’Connor, who lives in Tempe. “If I wasn’t [on the Downtown campus] already for class, I probably wouldn’t have come down here tonight.”
Marcela Pino, president of the ASU Hip-Hop Coalition, said the Downtown campus location of Thursday night’s clinic was a great way to advertise the club to new members, and that the ASU students were an enthusiastic audience.
“They give us feedback when we’re performing, and because of the age similarity, they give us really good hype when we’re performing,” she said.
The free event was part of “Thursday Night Live,” a public events series sponsored by the Cronkite School to host live entertainment each week.
The group has also worked with a variety of organizations offering similar clinics, including elementary schools, Boys and Girls Club of Phoenix, and Girls for a Change, a national nonprofit that promotes teen girls’ taking proactive roles in their community, she said.
Pino, a supply-chain management junior, said the group’s goal in holding these clinics is to steer the public perception of hip-hop away from its current negative portrayal in the media and back toward its roots as a creative outlet and source of inspiration.
“Hip-hop is all about enlightenment and uplifting messages and true struggles about life, and family, and love, rather than an escape from it,” she said. “We’re here to educate people on what hip-hop really is, and let them know what it isn’t.”
Reach the reporter at trabens@asu.edu.
