B.YOUNG B.SUPREME

As I've mentioned before women are the beating heart and soul of the sampler-cultureclash project. There has been a long tradition of embroidery as part of a young woman's education, social upbringing and cultural activity. Through the sampler project research we've been studying amazing embroidered samplers created by girls as young as 8 years old, such as this one from the V&A's collection by Mary Wakeling aged 10 yrs in 1742.


As part of the project we've been exploring the connection between embroidery made by young women in the 17th,18th and 19th centuries and the cultural, educational and social activities of young women (particularly urban young women)at the start of the 21st century. As part of that interest we've been looking at young women dj's, b-girls, spoken words artists and beatboxers and starting to find ways to involve them in the project and make those connections. Here's an awesome clip of 8 yr old (yes only 8 yrs old!) japanese turntablist sarascratch, she's tough!DJ Sara

Last evening I attended the b.young b.supreme event at the South Bank Centre in London, organised by Independance. Bsupreme aims to champion and support the development of women in hip-hop, and B.YOUNG is an initiative to give young women the opportunity to develop their dance skills, through a training and mentoring programme working with Nike artists D-Clash

The b-girls Hattie, Azara and Joanne who helped us out at the sampler-cultureclash event the other week in Brixton were taking part in the Dare2dance competition, as part of the dance group Stylinquents, mentored over the summer by Suzette Brissett. It was great to go along and give them my support. And..it was a close call but fantastic news..they won. I'm sure they're going to go on to bigger and better things as they develop as artists. Just being involved must have been a rewarding experience for all the dancers. It was a fantastic event, which needs more support in order that it can continue and develop. The highlight for me, alongside H,A and J taking part and winning was the octagon battle later in the evening.

here's a link to the b-supreme website for more info on the programme.B.SUPREME
and here's a clip of a couple of the UK dancers taking part the other night.http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7dtHRZnwVOs&feature=related

and a huge thanks to Judi and everyone at Independance for the invite.