Our Youth Arts grant is a 2-year grant that supports equitable access to arts and cultural learning opportunities for Seattle’s middle and high school-aged youth. Programs occur outside of school hours and are led by experienced artists and teaching artists working in communities across Seattle to increase arts and cultural opportunities for young people from diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Data shows that the greatest disparities between young people who have access to arts education and those who don’t are based on race, socioeconomics, home language, and disabilities. As with all the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s Creative Youth Programs, the Youth Arts grant prioritizes programs serving young people within the above demographic groups.
Recipients receive a total of $12,000 distributed over two years. In 2022, Youth Arts awarded $144,000 to 24 artists, art/cultural organizations, youth service agencies, and higher education institutions serving youth.
Youth Arts 2022 Funding Awardees
206 Universal – $6,000
The Beats to the Rhyme program provides students with an in-depth knowledge of current music industry practices, standards and tools to navigate forward as an emerging artist. Students will get hands-on experience with music production, recording an album, professional photo shoot and create a music video in the process. As a culminating project, students will perform at a concert to showcase their work.
Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association – $6,000
The EcoArts Mural Project offers youth at Croft Place Townhomes a chance to explore the power of visual symbolism, promote community identity and shape urban landscapes. With the guidance of DNDA Teaching Artists, youth will create and install a residential mural as part of their art project designed to engage their talents as community leaders, visionaries, and creative artists. $6,000
Eritrean Association in Greater Seattle – $6,000
The Eritrean Dance Group will meet at the Eritrean Association’s Community Center. Youth dance instruction will focus on the traditional dances of Eritrean’s nine tribal groups. Youth will learn Eritrean songs, study other aspects of Eritrean history and culture and learn Tigrigna and Kunama. The group will perform at a variety of cultural and community events throughout the year.
Extraordinary Futures – $6,000
The Extraordinary Futures youth program provides dance lessons and open practice sessions and will be led by world-class award-winning instructors. Students will learn life & leadership skills and participate in monthly dance competitions as part of a Middle and High School Breakdance League. They will hone their skill and prepare for the culminating events Massive Break Challenge and Massive Monkees Day Youth Breaking Battles.
Haida Roots – $6,000
Haida Roots program teaches unique sounds and sentence structure of Xaad kíl (Haida Language) through vocabulary quizzes, study posters from our new Haida Home Immersion Space curriculum, Quizlets, songs etc. For art and regalia making, youth will learn to follow patterns and work alongside Elder/teaching artist to learn our cultural ancestral knowledge.
Jack Straw Foundation – $6,000
Blind and visually impaired youth will work with a team of theater artists, musicians, sound artists, radio producers, installation artists, and audio engineers in Jack Straw’s professional recording studios. Students will learn to create radio theater, sound effects and soundscapes, conduct interviews, tell stories with sound, and create music. Students will share their work through an event, podcast, or online.
Lauren Holloway – $6,000
AR&R is a student-led art activism club based out of Franklin High School. The club will partner with local social and environmental justice activists and organizations to gain an in-depth understanding of chosen social and environmental justice issues that impact their communities. This exchange will help prepare students for the creation of large collaborative public artworks based on themes investigated. Projects include murals, screen printing, banners, signs, buttons, and other forms of protest art.
The Rhapsody Project – $6,000
The Rhapsody Project’s Heritage Songwriting program teaches students to use traditional and original song forms to express their culture and selves. Youth will learn tools to discover their own cultural heritage, a highlight is the historic contributions of Black American musicians to the development of American culture.
South End Stories, fiscally sponsored by Intiman Theatre – $6,000
The South End Stories Youth Blog, is the first fully virtual program, born during the pandemic. The blog will serve as a support network for youth through authentic relationship building with adult mentors and peer contributors, as well as a space for students to showcase their poetry, art, photography, film, and writing.
Urban Artworks – $6,000
The Mural Apprentice Program provides paid arts-based employment training. Apprentices work alongside teaching artists to research, design, and install public art projects. Students will receive training and hands-on experience that expands employment and design skills, while also providing a creative outlet for self-empowerment.
Wing Luke Memorial Foundation – $6,000
YouthCAN is the Wing Luke Museum’s free, out-of-school Asian American & Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander arts, heritage, and leadership program for high school youth. Students are mentored by local artists of similar backgrounds, and build arts and leadership skills, develop community connections and portfolios, and take on leadership roles through exhibit development and internships. Original artworks are displayed virtually and/or in the Museum’s Youth Gallery three times a year.
Youth Speaks – $6,000
Seattle SPOKES internships brings together a cohort of youth to develop themselves as artists, organizers, and mentors. Participants will hone their craft as writers, speakers, and performers. Ongoing programming for creative consultation on poems, projects and general mentorship are also available.
Youth Arts 2021-2022 Second Year of Funding Awardees
British-American Youth Festival Theatre – $6,000
The “Active Arts” program is for students at Chief Sealth International High School and Denny International Middle School. The project will serve middle and high school students during weekly sessions that will rotate teaching artists through several cycles, teaching drama, dance and movement, improvisation, and storytelling, culminating in a joint performance/showing.
Big World Breaks, LLC – $6,000
“Beat Our Future”, centered within the BWB Drumline is an intergenerational Big World Breaks collective of percussionists that will empower 4 high school aged members with paid training and teaching assistant experience in Central and South Seattle programs. Prioritizing Black and brown youth, Big World Breaks will align our Teaching Assistants with residency experience and resources designed to support their transition into adulthood; informed by their personal, professional, and artistic goals.
Gay City Health Project – $6,000
Seattle’s LGBTQ Center’s Youth Arts Program is a mentorship program for LGBTQ BIPOC youth. Multidisciplinary artist mentors support the artistic passions and goals of the youth cohort, leading the cohort through a series of workshops, culminating in a showcase of solo performances during the Gay City/Velocity Arts Pride Showcase. The program uses art as a medium to cultivate self-determination practices that boost protective factors and support the decreased risk factors.
Northwest Folklife – $6,000
Northwest Folklife will work with local youth artists to participate in an in-depth artist residency. This project is aimed at building an intentional experience for Latinx-identifying youth to envision a new future while amplifying and nurturing pride of heritage and community. Led by various culture bearers and established artists in the community, participants are able to work on their craft while engaging with peers and working towards a collaborative vision and presentation.
Penguin Productions – $6,000
This program offers a series of workshops anchored by the Penguin Advisory Council and open to city-wide youth approaching theater skills from an antiracist lens, building body awareness, values-based ensemble building, inclusive storytelling practices, and an intersectional, multi-disciplinary foundation for arts practice and leadership.
Pongo Publishing – $6,000
Pongo Poetry Project uses personal poetry to facilitate healing among those coping with devastating traumas, such as abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence. Instructors provide therapeutic poetry writing workshops for King County Juvenile Detention youth, offering them the opportunity to process severe trauma through creative expression. Youth derive short and long-term benefits, including emotional relief, therapeutic healing, and a healthy coping mechanism to use when encountering future challenges.
Sawhorse Revolution – $6,000
Sawhorse Revolution will offer a Design/Build Program Suite for youth to participate in a program focused on designing and building a unique community structure. Working alongside professional carpenters and designers, youth will gain experience in STEM skills while developing their sense of creativity, imagination, and ability to see the built world as an artistic medium which changes along with styles, technologies, and cultural adaptations.
Seattle Repertory Theatre – $6,000
The Narrative Monologue Competition introduces high-school students to new works from contemporary Black playwrights that explore 21st century themes. Through workshops, coaching, and a multi-round competition, students prepare a monologue and compete for a spot in a national competition on Broadway. The program provides opportunities to enhance skills and knowledge of the performing arts, inspire social action, and gain a deeper understanding of the cultural/historical relevance of theater.
Spectrum Dance Theater – $6,000
Global DanceSpeak and Dance For All Week are free programs including classes and workshops designed provide a vibrant exchange with Seattle-based artists from a range of dance genres. Participants will be introduced to the fundamentals of multiple global dance practices including, but not limited to, West African, Afro-Modern, Street Dance, and Contemporary.
TeenTix – $6,000
TeenTix’s M-TAC & The New Guard project connects teens with artists and arts administrators within the Seattle community. The program will prioritize youth and mentors who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color with the goal to advance racial equity across the arts and cultural sector. This multidisciplinary mentorship program creates the space for young people to hone their craft, explore a career in the arts, and help break down racial and social barriers in the arts.
The Residency – $6,000
The Residency seeks to build a powerful community of young hip-hop artists equipped with the artistic and leadership skills, business acumen, and mentorship necessary to become professional artists and cultural change makers. The program will do this through our Audio Engineering Internship & Studio Sessions. Young artists will have the opportunity to gain in- depth sound engineering skills and record their own music and learn the ins and outs of a true music recording session.
Youth in Focus – $6,000
Creative Career Cohort is a career-connected program for BIPOC youth to learn photography and digital media. Youth will receive a stipend, job training in creative industries, work on professional projects in collaboration with our corporate partner, and develop their portfolio. In addition, students gain job interview skills, plus the social capital of a professional network. Following the program, participants are eligible for hire on photo shoots, event photography, and commissioned projects.
