by Samantha White
Northwest Asia Weekly
2021 Summer Courses
In 2005, about 30 young artists gathered in the basement of a Seattle home. Their shared vision was to create a more positive hip-hop scene for young people—and wanted a scene that was more purposeful than it was at the time.
From that meeting, a hip-hop dance outreach was held in 2006 at the Chong Wa Benevolent Association building in Chinatown. This jam called 4theluvofit goes beyond seeing who is the best b-boy or b-girl. People also shared what they were doing to give back to the community, said May Praseuth, who attended that conference more than a decade ago.
The Good Foot Arts Collective, which Praseuth co-founded with her husband, Louie Praseuth, also emerged from the basement meeting. “Good Feet” is inspired by the godfather of soul James Brown (known to many spoilers and dances to his music), while “Collective” represents the different skills, talents, passions, characters and identities that the artist brings to the table. According to its website The group has focused from the beginning on ending violence before it begins, and has since refined that focus, providing domestic abuse awareness and youth violence prevention through arts education, said the group.
“We believe in mentoring platforms, [hip-hop] Artistic expression and culturally relevant youth programmes are critical for young people to express themselves creatively, as we provide a safe space to learn, grow and thrive,” the Good Foot website states.
Create a community they want to see
May Praseuth speaks about their No Excuses campaign at Massive Monkees Day.
As an organization rooted in hip-hop, May said at The Good Foot that they hold the highest respect for those who came before them and strive to honor the black and brown people who started it all.
This culture originated in New York from people who were not allowed to enter certain spaces because of their dark skin. So, May said, they created their own community. Since then, hip-hop has touched people from all walks of life, cultures and ethnic backgrounds. In Seattle, it touches kids of color more deeply because culture comes from struggle.
While violence prevention has always been part of The Good Foot’s ethos, the organization started out as a high-performance arts space, hosting dance workshops and introducing choreography. Around 2010 or 2011, they started focusing on domestic abuse education and advocacy, May said.
May said toxicity problems kept coming up — female members of their community were not being heard or seen, and all of a sudden, they were no longer part of the scene.
Around this time, May was working at a domestic violence centre and began to learn about such issues in intimate partnerships. But what she learned was mostly from middle-aged white women who had no real interest in the Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) community, which is what The Good Foot is focused on serving.
May also realized that in order to fix her feet, she needed to address the same issues in her own relationship. She points out that you can’t operate a well-lubricated machine if there are rusted parts.
One of these is The Good Foot’s No Excuses campaign, which “advocates for safety and empowerment of youth in BIPOC youth communities and [hip-hop]the hip-hop community,” according to its website.
In addition to the prevention training course manual, No Excuses has produced educational flipbooks. Drawn and designed by Chris Kaku in collaboration with South Seattle Youth, Ayiana Hernandez-Kiehn, Kymberli Owens, Ajani Kemp, Jermaine Ly, and Kaycee Casio, the books cover jealousy, destructive anger, peer pressure, threats, gaslighting, and mental health.
At last month’s massive Monkees Day, May spoke to the crowd about No Excuses, offering free flipbooks as well as shared training resources for those interested in learning how to keep their communities safe. With the 2024 Olympics just around the corner, May told Northwest Asia Weekly it is especially important to create safe spaces for young people who want to participate.
bring into the classroom
In addition to No Excuses, The Good Foot has developed Creative Leaders Affirming Youth (CLAY), 10 sessions on Healthy Relationships, Social/Emotional Support and Youth Violence Prevention. They started at Rainier Beach High School in 2014 and were also at Franklin High School in 2017 when the CLAY curriculum was formalized.
CLAY teaches in ninth grade health classes — May says they want to reach students as young as possible — and teaches students about teen dating violence awareness, warning signs, sexual assault education, healthy communities, gender stereotypes and gender-based knowledge of violence. Through this program, young people are empowered and empowered to address domestic violence directly. As May says, CLAY is practical and provides young people with resources on how to talk to people they think may be disadvantaged.
“We have a very strong partnership with the school and we are very grateful,” May said, adding that sexual harassment and domestic violence have grown exponentially during the pandemic, as well as increased cyberbullying and harassment, The Good Foot said. The partnership continues to conduct distance learning and teach CLAY virtually.
The people who teach CLAY are BIPOCs, and many are young people themselves. May said they were either contractors for The Good Foot or employees.
Preparing young people for high school
As the school year draws to a close, The Good Foot also offers a summer program called Level UP and Power UP for incoming ninth graders at Rainier Beach and Franklin High Schools, respectively.
This four-week program focuses on preparing students for the transition to high school and covers topics including social and emotional literacy, identity development, public speaking and organizational skills, financial literacy, redlining, and generational wealth. At the end of the program, scholars will earn 0.5 elective credit hours and 10 graduation service hours.
This summer, Level UP and Power UP will run Monday-Friday, July 1-29, 9am-3pm (regular holidays), with Friday reserved for fieldwork days or field trips.
There are 60 open places per program and The Good Foot is accepting applications until June 17.To apply, please visit thegoodfootarts.org/summer-programs.
Samantha is available at info@nwasianweekly.com.
