Components of the DC Urban Arts Academy:
- Interactive Workshops
- The Brotherhood and Pearls
- Apprentice Program
- Hustlenomics
- College Material
Interactive Workshops
The Interactive Workshops are a staple of every student’s experience at the Urban Arts Academy. Our standard class schedule offerings included Djing and Beat Production, Emceeing, Graffiti, Digital Photography, B-boying and Slam Poetry. More specialized workshops have included Fashion and Design, Graphic Arts, Introduction to Visual Arts, Creative Writing, Lyrical Analysis, Graffiti Muraling, Hip-Hop Dance, Event Planning and Chess. Please contact us at ... or 202-667-1192 for our current class schedules.
The Brotherhood and Pearls
The Brotherhood and Pearls are gender-based leadership groups who participate in activities that create a gender centric, age appropriate space in which bonds are created between young men or young women of the Academy in weekly meetings. Participation is limited.
College Material
“College Material” is the component of The DCUAA Apprentice Program that aims to equip Apprentices in the Academy to reach beyond the classroom and create a link between the artistic elements of hip-hop and higher education. Students are encouraged to actively participate in our arts programming and see themselves as “college material”: someone with the ability to succeed and flourish in a post-secondary educational environment. By linking each student with a personal “College Material Coach”, the program provides the individualized resources, skills, and support needed for DC Urban Arts Academy Apprentices to achieve their goals while simultaneously developing meaningful intergenerational relationships rooted in a common love for the hip-hop culture. Because our students range in age from 5 to 23, we developed “College Material” to not only provide resources to our students, but to also equip our students to be resources to their peers.
“Hustlenomics”
“Hustlenomics” is a hip-hop incentive-based ‘bucks’ system developed to help teach financial literacy to participants in the Apprentice Program. Apprentice students are assigned a ‘level’ (beginning, intermediate, advanced, or master) and are given a corresponding ‘pay rate’ depending on their skill mastery in their particular crafts. Throughout the session, the teachers will record attendance for the students, which include recording class attendance, meeting attendance, and event attendance. At the end of the session, Apprentice students can ‘cash out’ their hours for “Hustlenomics ‘bucks’” which can be exchanged for items relevant to their elements. For example, DJ students can purchase needles and scratch records.
DCUAA Program Levels & Bucks System
Beginning Apprentice 0 Bucks/hr
Intermediate Apprentice 10 Bucks/hr
Advanced Apprentice 18 Bucks/hr
Master Apprentice 25 Bucks/hr
*”Hustlenomics Bucks” cannot be exchanged for their equivalent cash value*
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