Workshop #2

Dr. Towani Duchscher is a Black, mixed-race educator, dancer, and poet. She is a postdoctoral associate and teaches as a sessional instructor for the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. She also teaches as an artist in residence, teaching core curriculum outcomes through movement in Elementary schools. Towani holds a doctorate in the specialization of Curriculum and Learning. Her doctoral research used the arts-based research methods of dance, poetry, and pedagogical documentation to examine the embodied lessons that students learn from the hidden curriculum of public schooling. Her research interests include arts-based research, hidden curriculum, education for decolonization, and anti-racist education. She has authored publications in peer-reviewed journals including Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry and Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies. Towani Duchscher is passionate about listening carefully to our bodies, attending to the language of movement, and finding ways to invite our embodied knowledge to emerge.

Presentation: 

As locator for the embodied literacies in arts-based literacies workshop, Towani will speak to the opportunities the arts offer as both languages and ways of knowing.  She will share insights into the opportunities the arts offer students to attend to their full, interconnected, body of knowledge, disrupting the brain/body binary and communication hierarchies as well. Her presentation will speak to ways that we can access our embodied knowledge through the arts to learn more about the world and express our knowledge with more complexity, transcending the limitations of textual expression.  The arts have played an important role in the communication practices of the people of the African diaspora. This presentation will locate the need to offer opportunities for students to learn and express knowledge through the arts making space for them to connect to both their embodied and cultural ways of knowing and being. 

Dr. Bianca Nightengale-Lee currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the department of Curriculum Culture & Educational Inquiry at Florida Atlantic University.  As a critically engaged community scholar, her work centers on academic, school, and community-based settings. With over 15 years as an educator and curriculum developer, her expertise is grounded in a deep understanding of pedagogical practice that focuses on equity and culturally relevant instruction.  Located at the intersections of critical literacy, hip-hop, and decolonial pedagogies her research relates to socially conscious and humanizing educational practice, which resists, and re-frames traditionalized notions of curriculum to produce equitable learning conditions for culturally and linguistically diverse students. She is committed to preparing the next generation of educators to meet the demands of 21st century learning contexts, which reflect the racially, socially, and politically charged structures that shape education, and the practical pathways that lead to more humanizing modes of curriculum and instruction. 

The theoretical underpinnings of Anti-Racism pedagogies predicates on a departure from colonized notions of literate acceptability and traditionality. Though literacy has been traditionally translated through a Colonial lens that relies on Eurocentric and patriarchal schemas of epistemology, ontology, and axiology; decolonial understandings aim to re-appropriate and center African and Indigenous scholarship that have been historically overlooked, and ignored across literacy research, theory and praxis.  Counter to traditional modes of literacy instruction that simply focus on a prescribed set of concrete skills, Hip-Hop Literacy broadens the latitude of what it means to be literate to encompass a spectrum of communicative forms that mirror the cultural practices of urban life through song, art, and dance and self expression. In this session Dr. Nightengale-Lee will discuss the shifts necessary to widen the scope of what literacy means for the cultures, colors, and languages of today through the lens of hip-hop.

AJA Louden is a muralist, designer and educator working out of Treaty 6 territory in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Born to a family tree with roots split between Jamaica and Canada, AJA is a child of contrast. Whether itʼs his bold, detailed freehand spray-painted portraits of figures as divergent as Jimi Hendrix and Richard Nixon, or his work using hand lettering, stylewriting and sign painting to celebrate the beauty of language and the written word, AJA uses painting as a lens through which he may more clearly see, and as a tool to help others be seen. His artwork has been shown at the AGA (Alberta Gallery of Art in Edmonton), the TU Gallery, Latitude 53, and he has participated in several annual arts festivals around Edmonton and area including Rust Magic, Kaliedo Festival, the Works, Hip Hop in the Park, and Rock the Rails. 

Graffiti Writing for Embodied Literacies in Arts-based Education 

As workshop learning encounter facilitator for Workshop 2 (Embodied Literacies in Arts-based Education) Louden will teach participants about the history, culture, tools and techniques of graffiti and street art. Based on his program, Aerosol Academy, his workshop will both teach the skills and techniques of graffiti and street art and introduce participants to the history of how these art forms connect to the contemporary muralism movement and art history. His workshop will provide  a fresh avenue into the arts, particularly for those who don't feel connected to or have access to the artwork found in galleries or museums. Students will learn about expressive lettering through hands-on exercises, experimenting with letter bending and stylewriting, and understanding language and typography through the lens of Graffiti. 

Ajay Musodi, a Black dance artist and educator with 8+ years of experience as a dancer, choreographer and teacher, leads residencies in English and French allowing students to learn and explore dance movement/history in a bilingual or francophone setting. He has trained in various styles such as Hip Hop, Ndombolo, Afro-House and creative movement. He has gained his formation and knowledge from world renowned teachers in New York, Mexico, France, Las Vegas, Vancouver,  Edmonton and Calgary. Ajay’s credits include receiving 1st Place at World Of Dance Las Vegas 2019, 1st Place Monsters Santa Clara 2019, Radix Oregon 2018 Top Scoring Jr Hip Hop Choreographer and 1st Place AE Vancouver 2018. Aside from competitive choreography, Ajay Musodi dedicates his time teaching in-school Hip Hop residency programs to schools across Canada; sharing the culture of Hip Hop dance which teaches the youth the importance of acknowledgement, self love and appreciation of diversity.

Workshop:  Hip Hop Dance for Embodied Literacies in Arts-based Education

As workshop learning encounter facilitator for Workshop 2 (Embodied Literacies in Arts-based Education), Ajay Musodi will teach Hip Hop dance acknowledging dance as a mode of communication and collaboration. Hip Hop dance is a social experience rooted in call and response. Each movement has a specific intention, a story that is particular to the experience of the dancers who created it. His workshop will celebrate the diversity within the classroom using it to reflect the diversity of the people who created Hip Hop culture. With the use of teaching techniques, dance concepts and social dance activities students will learn Hip Hop dance and implement values of appreciation, acknowledgment, collaboration and self love, all done in a safe, encouraging and captivating way. This workshop will encourage participants to understand and value each other through dance and to uplift the amazing skills of dance expression otherwise forgotten.  

Rosman Valencia (he/him/siya), a Filipino-Canadian, is currently in his 2nd year of teaching K-6 Music at Bowcroft Elementary School in Mohkintsis (Calgary), Alberta. He is passionate about finding ways to interconnect music with other disciplines, integrating Social Emotional Learning (SEL) with music, and most especially, decolonizing music education. 

As a panel member, Valencia will participate in the learning encounter, reflect on the potential of this work to impact student learning in classrooms, and share his reflections during the panel discussion. Following the learning experience, he will provide reflection and commentary addressing the following questions:

• What is the potential of this approach for disrupting and broadening classroom literacies? 
• What challenges do you see?
• What does this invite you to consider as an educator/artist/community leader? 
• What might these approaches to literacy education offer as steps toward a decolonized, anti-racist society? 

Dwight Farahat, a Blackfoot artist and educator, is well-known for his powerful storytelling, motivational  speaking and work with Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth. His unique style of facilitation is a blend of social work, Hip Hop, arts, and Social-Emotional Learning. Dwight has an in-depth understanding of the issues that cause youth to feel disempowered and employs that knowledge to help youth realize their power and change the belief systems that are holding them back. Dwight also has a deep understanding of Indigenous issues and how colonization affects our belief systems. Since 2009, Dwight Farahat has been animating communities running art programs and indigenous groups. Today, he is the Executive Director of the Tribe Artist Society where he continues to do this work and help people fall deeper in love with themselves.

As a panel member, Farahat will participate in the learning encounter, reflect on the potential of this work to impact student learning in classrooms, and share his reflections during the panel discussion. Following the learning experience, he will provide reflection and commentary addressing the following questions:

• What is the potential of this approach for disrupting and broadening classroom literacies? 
• What challenges do you see?
• What does this invite you to consider as an educator/artist/community leader? 
• What might these approaches to literacy education offer as steps toward a decolonized, anti-racist society?