Culture & Community | Education & Youth | Arts & Culture | Westville | Youth Arts Journalism Initiative | Arts & Anti-racism | Monk Youth Jazz
Marcella Monk Flake and Emoni Joyner. Abiba Biao Photos.
Four-year-old Emoni Joyner approached the microphone, looked at the packed crowd filling up the seats—and promptly lost her voice. Butterflies danced in her stomach. It was only after Marcella Monk Flake came to her side that she took a deep breath, found her footing, and started to sing the alphabet in a voice clear as a bell.
“A-B-C-D-E-F-G—” she began, and soon the voices of the crowd harmonized and joined along. They sang with her all the way to Z.
That was the scene last Thursday night, as 150 people gathered at Davis Street Arts and Academics Interdistrict Magnet School to hear the sounds and melodies of the youth. The performance marked the culmination of a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) focused summer camp that is in its third year at the school, thanks to the Monk Center for Academic Enrichment and Monk Youth Jazz and STEAM Collective Inc.
The program is a collaboration between The Monk Center and NHPS’ “Summer of Fun” initiative, which funds summer programs across the city.
The “Buds of Promise” (3- to 6-year-olds) performing.
The camp is five-week singing and dancing intensive that ends in a summer performance for friends and family members. During the performance, which lasted well over two hours, families are able to see what their kids have been up to for the past weeks. In total, over 40 students are enrolled, with sections that ranged from ages three to six, seven to nine, and ten to 14.
Flake’s efforts also expand well beyond the camp hosting efforts year-round to engage kids and build community.
“We have more than just the camp. We have community events that are supported by New Haven public schools,” she said. “And we're housed at the Trowbridge Environmental Center, and we have violin there, we have dance, we have STEM, after school activities … and those events bring people from all parts of the city.”
At the start of every performance, assistant director of the Monk Center, Makeda Flake-Brown whipped out her camera and Rode microphone, not wanting to miss a second of the action. She eagerly recorded and nodded her head to the rhythm, smiling behind the camera.
Makeda Flake-Brown.
To Flake-Brown, the concert goes beyond a performance. At the heart of the program is “character building,” she said: teachers want their students to grow up and become “great humans.”
“We had one student who just lost her mom. And so, you know, everybody was able to rally around her one day … and those are the things that mean the most to me,” she said.
While Flake-Brown manned the camera, her brother Doron Flake ran back and forth from his seat to the back of the stage to keep the band’s sound crisp. An independent musician, Flake is a vocal coach and part-time guitarist at the Monk Center. He praised the program as both keeping creativity alive and passing music from generation to generation.
“To me, it [the concert] is the culmination of five weeks with these little people, chasing them around, dragging the music out of them … to the point where now they have something that I'm so happy to see them perform,” he said. “I haven't stopped crying since I’ve been here.”
He called the concert a testament to the power of music in an increasingly digitized age. For him, live music and performance is a display of true creativity.
“When you get old, you say ‘Oh, good music is dying. You got to save it.’ But I feel like it kind of is. Like it's getting more digital, it’s getting more AI, it's getting more autotuned and more away from the natural instrument … And some things I hope you can’t digitize, but when you do, it has to come from somewhere, right? And so this is our chance to preserve this.”
As the performance went on intermission Iamaris and his son Elijah Bellamy chilled outside of the school breathing in the fresh air. Outside, Elijah took out his energy, running laps around his dad.
Iamaris and his son Elijah Bellamy.
Bellamy found out about the program through his wife and enrolled his two sons, he said. While he wasn’t sure what the Monk Center was about in the beginning, he immediately grew to love it.
“It brings [out] another side of him like letting him perform and stuff,” Bellamy said. “I didn't know too much of what they were doing but now that I see it, I love it. I'd definitely bring them back.”
Bellamy raved about Flake and the program, adding that his kids don't want to be picked up when he drops them off to practice.
“All the kids love what they do and they want to be involved," he said. "You could tell they want to be involved. Mrs. Flake is doing a great job ... kids don't want to do stuff and they don't want to get on stage [because of stage fright] but they all looking forward to it.”
Inaya Tatman.
Inaya Tatman, a former Monk Center student who is now a counselor, stressed the importance of that creativity. Now a rising junior at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, she is coming full circle, serving the program that she once used to be a part of. Tatman began attending Monk Center classes when she was 10.
To her, the pull towards volunteerism stemmed from the positive experience and character building that she went through, including learning to be patient with self-improvement and wanting to bring that experience to other kids.
“At first when I came to this camp to really be like a singer in the camp. I've always been really shy, stage fright, all of that,” she said. “But the longer I've been in the camp, the more confident I've grown in myself.”
To get over her fear, she embodied the advice Flake still gives out extensively: “You've got to get on that stage, open your mouth, and sing.”
“I know that's hard within itself, but as soon as you break that ice, I feel like there's really nothing that can stop you because the only thing that is stopping you is you,” she said.
Tatman also emphasized the communicative power of music. She’s seen how parents and grandparents delight in classics and knows that the youth will be in the same position in the future, carrying both tunes and traditions into the next generation.
“Of course, we all have our different opinions, but having young people seeing older music brings in older generations and makes them feel appreciated, makes us feel appreciated because they come in to see these kids perform,” she said.
Harris: “Culture is a thing that if you blink your eyes, you'll miss it. Right?”
Clapping up a storm near the entryway of the auditorium was Newhallville resident and community activist Kim Harris.
While Harris stays busy managing her nonprofit Inspired Communities Inc. and heading Harris and Tucker School, she said she had to make time to see the children perform.
Harris first met Flake at the International Festival Arts and Ideas, where she learned about the Monk Center and the five-week summer camp. She kept the program in mind this year and ultimately sent student Nylee Williams, a rising fourth grader at Barack Obama Magnet University School. Thursday, she was excited to see her rock out onstage.
“She loves coming to the camp. This is her thing, singing and dancing,” Harris said. “It's just beautiful to see children preserve history and it's beautiful to see the children really, really sport their talents and their skills,” she said.
To Harris the program not only exemplifies artistic expression, but the artistic culture of New Haven.
“Culture is a thing that if you blink your eyes, you'll miss it. Right?” she said. “I also think that as we cultivate, and as we share, once we came from, I think it's just very, very important for the children to see it, to live it, to just like all the senses taste it, smell it.”