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Getting Into the Swing of Things
District 5 students explore Harlem's past
through its music, dance, art and architecture

By Emily Weinstein

Salvadori staff member Meena Aggarwal (left) teaches I.S. 275 students Stephanie Hutton and Sheena Suckoo the two-step.

March 2002 - It's 4:00 on a Tuesday afternoon, and the late winter sunlight is fading. When Meena Aggarwal and Tom O'Connor walk into Room 204, Ericka McGhee's classroom at I.S. 275 in Harlem, ten sixth-graders and their teacher are coming to the end of a long day. Uniform shirts are untucked and chins are slumped on hands.

But with the arrival of the Salvadori staff, the classroom springs back to life. Desk chairs screech as a space is cleared for dancing. The room reverberates with the sound of a big band and the unmistakable voice of Ella Fitzgerald. Meena posts a rehearsal schedule on the blackboard, counting down to the performance that is now less than a month away.

Program Background
The students at I.S. 275 are participating in our after-school initiative, a program called, "Harlem: Past, Present and Future." The initiative is funded by a three-year federal grant, the 21st Century Learning Program, which awarded $5 million to District 5 in Harlem.

In addition to the program at I.S. 275, there are two other participating schools: a class of sixth graders at P.S. 195, and a seventh-grade class at I.S. 256. The program is taught by four design professionals who pushed beyond traditional boundaries to bring their skills into the community. Meena is a structural engineer; the other three teachers, Janny Gédéon, Lisa Quatrale and Pat Shuford, are architects.

Connecting Past and Present
Bringing students into contact with their neighborhood's past through its music, dance, art and architecture is the main goal of this phase of the after-school program. It's done, to paraphrase one Harlem icon, by any means necessary.

Lisa, who teaches the after-school program at I.S. 286, realized that to an eleven-year-old, "break dancing is from the past." So to get her students thinking even further back, she had them compare "A Great Day in Harlem," a group photograph of 57 jazz greats taken by Art Kane in 1958, with "Another Great Day," a recreation of the photo taken in 1999, this time with hip-hop artists.

© artkane.com The original "A Great Day in Harlem" photograph. Photo by Art Kane for Esquire Magazine.

"Connecting current cultural trends and the experience of elders in their families to the past made the history more accessible and relevant to the students," Lisa explains. Her students' 20-week program will culminate in a videotaped performance.

Being Flexible
"I thought we would be building models," Meena commented as we walked over to the school. Last year, her students built a scale model of the four blocks surrounding their school. This year the group was more excited about doing a performance than a building project, so the classroom teachers and Salvadori staff adapted.

"Another Great Day," the 1999 version, helped Lisa Quatrale's students reflect on the evolution of Harlem's musical legacy. Photo by Gordon Parks © XXL Magazine 1998.

Before they began swing dancing, the after-school students at I.S. 275 studied billboards and advertising, learned about the Harlem Renaissance, wrote their own poetry and completed streetscapes and projects about Harlem's past and present.

Freestyling, With Structure
When the kids in room 204 gather together, Meena and Tom work to get them to focus on the day's task: nailing down the choreography of the dance portion of their performance. Tom asks the kids to pay particular attention to Ella Fitzgerald's freestyle lyrics. "Do you guys know what freestyling is?" he asks.

Linking past to present means finding the influence of greats like Ella Fitzgerald (above) in the music of current pop and R & B stars like Alicia Keys (right). Photo: Library of Congress archives

"Yes!" they immediately respond. "When you make it up as you go along," and "like when rappers improvise" are some of the answers. "Like Alicia Keys?" asks one student.

"Exactly," Tom answers. He explains how modern rappers and R & B artists actually inherited freestyling from jazz musicians like Ella Fitzgerald, whose song, "Lady Be Good," is the one the kids have chosen to dance to.

Meena encourages the kids to build on what they remember from last week, following Tom's lead. Though officially he's the bookkeeper at Salvadori, he's pinch-hitting as co-teacher for the afternoon, sharing his professional dance background.

After a while, Meena, Tom and Ms. McGhee ask the kids to nail down the choreography of their dance. They are full of ideas. Magati Pierre comes up with an entrance sequence, then proudly leads it. As they practice over and over, the students add more steps to the choreography Meena is writing out on the board.

Ms. McGhee works on choreography with Magati Pierre.

Everyone involved in Salvadori agrees that the most successful programs are the ones in which classroom teachers are committed to making it work.

Salvadori is important for Ms. McGhee's students because in a classroom of thirty-three kids, "they don't get enough opportunities to create things." Project-oriented learning, she feels, is the single most important thing her students need more of.

Keeping the Energy Up
With about half an hour left to practice, the kids are running out of steam. They slump on their chairs, grumbling and complaining. It takes a team effort from all three teachers to get them back on their feet.

Ms. McGhee admonishes, "I taught thirty-three kids all day! You can dance for twenty more minutes!"

Tom O'Connor dances with Sheena Suckoo.

Tom points out that if they don't like to turn up in class without their homework, the kids will really hate showing up at a performance without enough preparation. Meena reminds them that next week, they'll need to build sets. They find the energy for a few more run-throughs.

Lately, some controversy has been swirling about the costumes. Ja'net Stevens, 11, has a very firm opinion. "They should almost match-they should be in different colors, but still matching."

Stephanie Hutton and Sheena Suckoo practice partner kicks.

Christina Worrell, 11, inventories what she's learned in Salvadori so far. "I learned how to swing dance, about billboards, more about Harlem, about the Apollo, the Hotel Theresa, and a lot of dance steps."

Lesha McPhie, 12, says that Salvadori is "more fun" than regular school because there are "new activities, more practice, and new things."

Do you have comments or questions about this article? Email emily@salvadori.org