What’s Right With Our Schools: East Side Dance Performance at Coosa Mill

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – Students at East Side Elementary in Chattanooga have spent months working on a colorful and creative dance routine. They recently put on a show for all to enjoy, and that was a moving example of what’s right with our schools.

Louie Marin-Howard is the Director of Outreach and Education for P0p-Up Project.

He says, “We’ve been able to introduce every third, fourth, fifth grader to dance, and have been working with the third fourth and fifth grade; and then in our afterschool program. To me, nothing exemplifies community more than taking it to the streets.”

Marin-Howard continues, “We were able to take our classwork and show it, showcase what we’ve done, what we’ve been doing in our class is out for everyone to see. So, it is our goal to be able to introduce our students not only to dance, but it is to culture, it is it is too storytelling.  It was especially here at East Side where the majority, where it’s predominantly Latino Community, predominantly Guatemalan and Mexican. Which ironically, I am as well. My father is Mexican, my mother is Guatemala, and you know it was just wonderful to be in this, in the same space with space with some of these students that I know; would see someone like me and say that could be me.”

Jules Downum is the co-founder and director at Pop Up Project.

Jules says, “Our youth program, we currently serve 400 children every single week with, free to them, dance classes. We’re working with a variety of schools and community centers, city community centers. Dance is our passion for sure. Every single person involved in the Pop-Up Project has a passion for dance. But more than our passion it’s our tool, and it’s a tool we use to build relationships, to build community, to impact the lives of children. And to… kind of change people’s expectations of what Chattanooga and Chattanooga artists are capable of.”

Marin-Howard concludes, “The dancers here at East Side are so pure. They have loved to dance, and I don’t know what it is about, you know, this purity, here where; we’ve been able to really tap in and getting them to understand that their body is an instrument.”