Poet Denice Frohman is featured at the 4th annual Teen Summit
February 26, 2017
“Everybody in the 515 put your hands up high cause we’re ‘bout to get live!”. This is one of the several chants yelled throughout the day at the 4th Annual teen Summit. Teen Summit is a student-lead and student-based event where both performance and writing skills will be sharpened with the help of a nationally recognized poet, Denice Frohman. On Friday February 24th, the Kum & Go Theatre was filled with bright faces ready for the day ahead of them.
The day started out with Jalesha Johnson performing her “black girl magic” poem followed by Chloe OConnor and Briyanh Warner performing their group piece. There was also a performance by Caden “fade” Hunt performing his song “Unapologetic”. After the basic introductions, the teens were released to go to one of four town halls. The town halls were created and led by students to create a safe space for youth to talk about issues happing in our community. The town halls offered were Black Girl Magic, Living in a Trump Era, Self-love, and Rape Culture.
After the town halls, lunch was catered by Gateway Market. Music played while everyone ate and eventually, it erupted in to a dance party. Soon after, everyone was released to go their respected workshops. This year there were 2 new workshops in addition to the usual 3. Offered were as follows: Intro to Spoken Word with Words and Melody Taylor, Advanced Spoken Word with Denice Frohman, Graffitti with Asphate, Brazillian Jiu Jitsu with @@@@, and Street Art Photography with Jamie Miline.
With that concluding Fridays’ festivities, everyone got on their buses how ready for Saturday’s showcase
The next day, Saturday, February 25, a showcase was held at Drake University’s Harmon Fine Arts Hall to highlight all the work Urban Leaderships have put in to their performance leading up to that day. Some 20 students performed with Denice Frohman as their host and featured poet. After all students performed, Denice frohman closed them out with 5 of her own poems. Frohman gave the youth this quote, “Your wound is probably not your fault, but your healing is your responsibility,” Frohman says.
