Hip-Hop in Arctic Bay ... Day 4

Saturday ..... and it's early in the morning for many kids / youth up here in the North. Final practice began this morning at 9:00 am. There were many tired looking bodies in the gym this morning, but they all got energized pretty quickly once warm-up got running.

Myself ... well, I had all of the intentions of being there at 9:00am to do the warm up with the crew ... except I fell asleep drinking my morning cup of coffee while watching the news before I was to start hiking down the hill. I made it there for 10:15 am ... and got many "You're late Kendra"'s from the group. I laughed, and told them "I know, I'm late ... what-ch'a gonna do about it?" .. I had to do a bunch of six-steps as punishment - lol.

Morning practice went smoothly - all of the groups were practicing their routines and getting them down pat for the big night. The pressure was on everyone - but they were all laughing and having a great time. It was amazing seeing how much they have all improved in their movements and routines from the first day until now. Everyone kept practicing and going strong until lunch break and all came back ready to go again.

After lunch there was some large group practices of the basic movements that they all learned and some additional finalization of routines. The crews also all got together for crew photo's and we had a large cypher to check out many of the routines that were going to be presented / performed this evening.

Today's "talk" revolved around abuse, it's consequences, and suicide (prevention and healing after the fact). It was a fairly deep talk this afternoon and not much was said by the listeners, but I think the messages did get across to them all. During this time, a couple of us volunteers went out to get the gift bags ready for Buddah and his crew leaving them (Buddah, CFM's and the participants) some space for the "talk".

More details from tonight's battle and pictures of the day to follow.