What's Your Favorite Detroit Summer Memory?

Summer is almost here. Can't you feel it? Our memories make up who we are. Our stories become history -- behind us and moving us forward. Read our memories and add your own Detroit summer memory in the comments.

Family Fun!!

My favorite memory of a summer in detroit would have to be going down to the RiverFront with my family. It was me, my little sister, my little brother and my mommy. The youngest was yet to be born. We would all play, jump,yell, and chase each other until we all caught each other and we would all fall down in laughter. A day of fun as well as love.... Mother...Kids.... her hope for the future. Giving us her love, love pure and raw. Teaching us to love each other as well as our future children. Seeing her take pride in the city where she chose to raise her children is what really keeps me here enjoying each and every memory that I make each year!!^_^ ())>-%`Br-yee`

Summer Fun

Rijke

walking over my grandmother's house with my cuzo Br-yee in the hot sun playing, having fun all night with friends.

State of Mind

"Your age or gender doesn't make you a man or a woman. But spiritual, mental and emotional maturity. Your state of mind." Giselle

First of all I am a very appreciative observer....Of nature and life. My favorite summer memory in Detroit would be sitting home on the porch after a long depressing day. I looked up at the sky and the sun was setting. I remember pink and yellows and orange... All different colors. I felt peaceful... A lot of people can't grasp certain things like that..I did... It got my creative juices flowing and I felt invincible. It was definitely a BLACKLIGHT moment for me. I thought about what I felt and where that was coming from and i wrote about it........... where the energy came from and then I danced to it......... And then I thought about the simplicity of it and then I let my imagination run wild...... I guess its just my state of mind.

GROW WITH US

Giselle


I am 18 years old. Dance is an escape for me. Dance is an escape from my everyday impoverished life and negative energy. I like writing because you can create different things away from reality. I like to read too because it deals with the imagination and you can get away from your problems.

I wanted to create BlackLight to share with other young women and help them with their self esteem. I think a lot of young women don’t have self confidence. I hope we can teach them to use creative expression as an alternative to dealing negatively with everyday life. It can be a positive thing. I want to show people how to develop a relationship with dance, develop a relationship with themselves.

People in Detroit need better resources and more positive places to go.

Br-yee

I am 21 years old. I have been writing since I was 12. I lost interest when I was 19 because someone told me I couldn’t write. So, I stopped writing for a while. I came back to it because someone else told me that if I like to write, why worry about what someone else says. Another teacher also told me I was an excellent writer but just lack focus. I’ve been dancing since I was little. Rijke keeps me dancing.

Why BlackLight?
Why is creative expression important? Because no one gets the help they need in the world. So, if they learn how to express how they feel and what is going on in their lives it will make them feel better and things will get better for all of us.

I want to see all young women develop a sense of self-respect and self-esteem and know that they can have a voice in the world.

Detroit
I want Detroit to get back to where people stop hating on us.
I want for Detroit to become more than what it is. They say it is such a bad place but there is no one here to nurture it for it to be where it should be. Everyone wants to go where they think it is going to be so much better. Why can’t we be that place where people want to go to and stay.

Core Collaborators

Rijke

I am 17 going on 18. I have been dancing since I was in the 7th grade. I am fun and outgoing but a little shy. I took some classes at the Alvin Ailey school this spring. Being open to different experiences is important to me, so this is why I wanted to create BlackLight.

I want young women to learn that they can do more with their time than talking on the phone and looking at videos all day like I used to do. BlackLight can show young women how to be more outspoken.

I am concerned about crime in Detroit and the young people who are dying. I want them to see that there is more for them to do then to just be out on the streets.

Who What When Where is BlackLight?

WE are BlackLight, a group of passionate young women inspiring positive change in Detroit, other young women and ourselves. Dance, poetry, oral history, creative writing, music, and the visual arts are the media and methodology we use to challenge, educate, transform, empower, and heal our community. BlackLight facilitates workshops for youth and adults using creative arts expression to address personal and community issues from emotional health and physical well being to unemployment, public education and apathy. We also write, choreograph and perform our own theatrical productions.

BlackLight believes that social change begins within each of us and is fueled by our capacity to create, imagine and express the world in which we want to live. We chose the name, BlackLight, because we disrupt the negative connotations and deceptive definitions associated with youth in general, (certain) young women in particular, the city of Detroit, and blackness. Since the word black has been misused as synonymous with all things bad, we are reclaiming black and "appropriately reappropriating" it to reflect the possibility, hope and LIGHT in all our lives regardless of what we look like, where we come from or who others think we should be.


TRUST! This is just the beginning
We are only getting started so...stay posted here for WHAT'S NEXT!

LATE SUMMER '07:
KICK OFF EVENT -- COMMUNITY PERFORMANCE
MOVEMENT AND WRITING WORKSHOP SERIES

FALL '07:
FALL INTENSIVE TRAINING SERIES FOR YOUNG WOMEN

Don't worry, full details coming soon!

STRENGTH & LOVE,

BlackLight