Masha, Mart and Pavel 

Recognition is achieved in many ways, in this instance, Masha, a young hip hop dance artist is struggling as a young person to get her ideas for dance events to be heard or acknowledged. With the assistance of a local youth organisation she is given the opportunity to organise a series of dance events across Tallinn, Estonia as part of its summer festival for youth.

Through the support of youth work and youth workers, the hip hop dance community got to know about youth work and the Tallinn city council gained confidence in cooperating with the youth sector because the festival was a success and the various events were organised professionally and successfully. The festival, including Masha’s dance event, took place again in 2021 and was again organised by the young people and the youth organisation.

 

 

  Hello! My name is Masha and I am a professional hip-hop dancer. 

 

I have been into Hip-Hop culture for around 10 years already. I always feel blessed and happy that I was able to get into hip-hop freestyle classes all those years ago. It changed my life! This journey has surrounded me with the best friends ever, incredible trips around the world and keeps gifting me many awesome memories.

Besides dancing with my friends, competing in battles, I also give training to young people and adults. But some years ago I got to the point where I wanted to organise dance events as well. I felt that I have this organising talent and passion inside me. Me and my friend created two dope events "Challenge your style" and "All the way up", but after this nothing else happened. I had so many ideas and I knew I needed a strong team. Few years after I met my dance partner Mart, who had the same passion for organising dance battles as well as his own experience in this. We discussed a lot of ideas together and at some point I suggested we meet my friend Pavel. Pavel is from the youth organisation Shokkin Group. He knows everything about writing projects and organising events! 

By magic connection with the universe, it turned out that we called Pavel just in the right moment! Pavel had received an offer from the Tallinn city to contribute to outdoor activities during the city’s summer progamme for youth. That was the summer of 2020. It was a perfect match! We created the concept of 4 dance events, wrote the project and made it happen! Tallinn Sports and Youth Department loved the idea of dance cyphers and battles and approved our project! This is how “HOODie Cyphers” was created! It was an amazing summer for the Estonian dance community! 

We had four battles in total, and they were held in the four biggest skateparks in Tallinn. Skateparks are the perfect place for such events – they have that street cool vibe and also a lot of teenagers hanging around. As a result: our local dancers, as well as me and Mart, finally got an opportunity to dance and express ourselves, adults and young people got a chance to watch an incredible show and join the open floor! It was a success! 

This summer we continue to organise events that bring people so much emotions, beautiful memories and an opportunity to participate and grow in dance! This summer 2021 we will have 3 outdoor events: 3rd and 17th of July and 28th of August! We want to expand our limits: bring judges from abroad, organise the workshops, maybe even the afterparty! I am 100% sure that it will be super dope and I am so thankful that I found my team with whom we can organise dance events on that level. It is very important and needs to be continued because we have a lot of talented dancers in Estonia, but very few opportunities to grow and compete, as well as platforms where you can show and express yourself! HOODie Cyphers was created to give space and opportunities for dancers, MCs, DJs and artists! 

 

 The youth worker’s perspective: 

Hey! My name is Pavel and I have been running a youth organisation in Tallinn for the last 10 years called Shokkin Group. One of the aims of the organisation is to be a platform for young people to initiate their own activities and to support them in orientating their way through the world of proposals, bureaucracy, networking, project writing and management. As a youth worker, I don’t see as much initiative support and trust into young people’s projects as I would like to see from youth organisations, municipal and governmental structures. This is something that can be changed by the young people and the youth organisations and the case of Masha and her dream is a prime example of this happening. The journey for a young person’s initiative to come to reality is a long process.

I was very happy when a young person involved with the organisation on an occasional basis came to us with a solid idea and lots of motivation to implement it. As often happens the combination of “right people”, “right place” and “right time” played its role this time also. The timing was perfect because I had just returned to the office from a meeting with the City Council Youth Department about the Tallinn summer youth program when I got a call from Masha and her friend Mart with an idea of organising dance battles in the city. And of course we agreed to meet and design a common concept for this. As time went on and we were providing mentor support to Masha and Mart in developing HOODie Cyphers, the project gained the trust of the City authorities. The summer program was successful and the HOODie Cyphers part of it particularly. The City authorities automatically accepted HOODie Cyphers for Tallinn’s 2021 summer programme. Masha and Mart showed such passion for their initiative that as a youth organisation we only had to support them in the least fun side of every project management process – the project application, financial planning and bookkeeping, and reporting. 

While the success of HOODie Cyphers part of the festival was seen and appreciated, the city authorities were equally impressed with the level of cooperation they received from Masha concerning everything from the practical implementation to reporting and completed finances. City or local authorities in general are too often sceptical and think that young people and youth organisations are unreliable, so it feels good to prove the other way. This project in all its simpleness showed the value of youth work to the local authorities and that they can get good cooperation with grass-roots youth organisations and young people and such cooperation brings results and is worth the effort. A project such as this means recognition for youth work, for our youth work and for young people involved in youth work.