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Chicago's Young Slam Poets Tackle Social Justice with 'Black Girl Magic'

By Dong Jin Oh | July 26, 2016 6:31am | Updated on July 29, 2016 11:58am

THE LOOP — “See my body, hear my tongue; Black Girl Magic, you better run,” chant the spoken-word poets of the Goodman Youth Poetry Ensemble in unison, closing their performance with a bang. The crowd gives a standing ovation as the four performers confidently exit the stage without missing a beat.

The Goodman Youth Poetry Ensemble is a poetry slam group composed of teenagers Ariya Hawkins, Tina Calhoun, Aisha June and Joss Green. Many of the team members joined the crew through the Goodman Theatre’s PlayBuild Youth Intensive, a program that began in 2007 as a six-week-long summer curriculum that provides free professional theater training for Chicago kids.

Their performance of “Black Girl Magic,” the title of which refers to a popular term that celebrates achievements of black women in the face of discrimination and adversity, led the troupe to open for the finals of this year’s Louder Than A Bomb, an annual youth poetry slam competition held in Chicago.

Aisha June (from left), Tina Calhoun, Joss Green, Ariya Hawkins of the Goodman Youth Poetry Ensemble. [DNAinfo/Dong Jin Oh]

It took the group of young poets almost a year to perfect their original work. The topics addressed in the socially aware piece might be heavy — racism, sexuality, beauty standards — but the team’s energetic performance that includes singing and dancing creates a powerful, lively act.

“It’s a celebration piece,” said Ariya, 17. “It’s a piece that, I guess, demonstrates the power and strength that black women have in all sorts of different outlets.”

To tackle every definition of being a black female, the girls each separately wrote personal poems on various subjects related to black empowerment before editing and combinin the four narratives into a single cohesive act.

Even though the process was grueling, the wealth of ideas and personal experiences helped shape the poem into a strong collection of many aspects of African- American identity.

“I think we all came from a different angle with it,” said Calhoun, 18. “We are all different black bodies with different narratives and what that means to us.”

As if to showcase that range of narrative diversity, the four members of the ensemble are all from different neighborhoods, including East Garfield Park, Bronzeville and even south suburban Flossmoor.

Because each element of the poem is “very truthful” and “perfectly thought out to be each one of [the members],” the group was able to create a socially and racially representative performance that audience could easily connect to, Calhoun said.

The girls said they see poetry slams as perfect vehicles for bringing attention to issues such as social justice and social change, and the Goodman as an ideal platform for driving the conversation forward.

“It’s a really good place to share your stories and be able to hear other people and have them hear you just as loudly,” said Joss, 17.

The young poets credit their creative growth to the Goodman Theatre and its staff for providing the space and resources for them to experiment and create.

“Life-changing” is a word they often use in describing their experience at the Goodman, a place that has become synonymous with inclusion and tolerance.

“To have this space and to have it be an intersection between poetry and activism, it’s a one-in-a-million thing,” Calhoun said. “It’s a really a great place to be as a youth in Chicago.”

The Goodman Poetry Ensemble will perform Friday at the fifth annual Scene Soirée, a fundraising party hosted by the Goodman Theatre’s Scenemakers Board that aims to support programs like PlayBuild to continue promoting education and creativity for Chicago youth.

Board President Gordon Liao decided to create the signature evening party to support the Goodman’s education initiatives after being “blown away” by a play written and performed by the PlayBuild program students.

“Some of these kids in certain parts of the city, they don't even have a theater program in their high school,” Liao said. “And at the end of the day of the Scene Soirée, it all comes down to raising money to change people's lives so they can find their voice.”

Thanks to fundraising efforts like the Scene Soirée that helps fund the Goodman’s various educational programs, more students like the poets of the Goodman Youth Poetry Ensemble are finding a place to express themselves.

To work from curiosity and not from judgment — that’s the poetry troupe’s motto.

“[The poetry program at the Goodman] doesn’t make you put a filter on it,” said June, 16. “It doesn’t make you put a cap on it. The only expectation is to be the best that you can.”

You can purchase tickets to the 2016 Scene Soirée here.

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