15 November 2012
Newsdesk
Sadler’s Wells’ hip hop dance project Breakin’ Convention has received funding from BBC Children In Need to continue its acclaimed Hip Hop Hospital, a project delivering a programme of hip hop related activity to children’s hospital wards across the country.
The Hip Hop Hospital sees Breakin’ Convention Artistic Director Jonzi D and artists from the company’s education team visit children’s hospitals across the UK to bring interactive workshops in rap, music, dance and graffiti to hospital bedsides and social areas.
Breakin' Convention has been awarded £63,000 by BBC Children In Need to deliver the Hip Hop Hospital to a further six children’s hospitals over the next three years.
Hip Hop Hospital, which began in 2009 with an inaugural programme at Great Ormond Street, offers a combination of group work and one-to-one sessions with the industry leading artists Breakin’ Convention provides. Young patients learn many of the key skills involved in hip hop culture, from how to sketch graffiti and spray paint, to writing raps, recording tracks and making beats. They also learn elements of filming and photography, as well as discovering more about hip hop history.
Each of the workshops are filmed and documented as a short film incorporating the children’s music and raps as soundtracks, their art work as visuals, and recording the interaction between the patients and the artists for the children to keep after the project.
Breakin’ Convention’s Hip Hop Hospital crew have previously visited Great Ormond Street, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool. A short documentary on Breakin’ Convention’s visit to Liverpool Alder Hey can be found online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8OjYK3tYxg
