Performers young and old put hip-hop moves on display at Detroit dance studio
Motor City Street Dance Academy Empowering Youth Through Hip hop
Motor City Street Dance Academy (MCSDA) is building community through teaching local youth hip-hop and the influence of hip hop culture. Other activities Motor City Street Dance Academy offers include yoga, art, and music classes. The goal of MCSDC is to empower young people to be expressive and find their true selves. For more information about Motor City Street Dance Academy go to their website www.motorcitysda.com to learn more. It is located on Michigan Avenue in Detroit
DETROIT (FOX 2) - Seven-year-old Elijah practices two of life's lessons every time he gets on the dance floor.
"You can always keep improving," he says. Call that lesson number one. Lesson number two is celebrating your own style and expertise.
And it was Elijah's commitment to those principals that caught the eye of Aurora Abilio. She found her own way to the Motor Street Dance Academy, which seeks to empower youth through hip hop culture.
"There aren't a lot of women and their weren't a lot of women when i started so it was a place for me to be where I fit in," she said.
Both Abilio and Elijah execute their best dance moves at the academy under the guise of May One, the executive director of the facility.
"I grew up in the neighborhood involved in the hip hop culture," he said. "This was the late 90s early 2000s, it was what was ingrained in the culture around here."
He opened the studio in 2016.
"The impact is the access. It's affordable, it's represented by people from the community location-wise. It's in the neighborhood," he said.
Through MCSDA, a mentorship program with the same mission as the hip hop studio, programming has been made available for others to join the spot as well.
"It's a very welcoming household. People are always willing to share, always willing to help, and we want to make people feel welcome because that's who we are," said Abilio.