Surface & Symbol (Scarborough Arts Council)
July/August 2010

It Was Big, Bam and Boom

By Asana Sri

The second annual Big Bam Boom 2010 event for AFCY’s Youth Arts Festival at Harbourfront Centre was a blast. As the AFCY’s signature event, it showcases the talents of over 500 young people from Toronto’s under-served communities.

The lively stage performances were full of urban culture with hip hop dancers, dub poets, break dancers, beat boxers, djembe drummers and vocal performers by students in school across Toronto, including Beverley Heights, Valley Park, Dr. Marian Hilliard and Rockcliffe middle schools. The stage show was managed and executed entirely by AFCY’s Youth Advisory Council. Special guest performers were Amara Kante, world-famous for being one of the greatest players of the djembe drum which originated from West Africa, and Linda Luztono, an uprising Canadian R&B recording artist.

The art exhibition component included murals, mosaics, digital photography, papier-mâché, dub poetry, batik art, African clay masks, and video and sound art located in the Marilyn Brewer Community Space.

AFCY has won the Toronto Mayor’s Arts for Youth Award in 2007. It has charitable status and provides arts-educational programming in 64 schools, 34 community sites and with more than 40 afterschool programs in Toronto’s priority neighbourhoods. The festival’s youth performers are current or past participants in AFCY’s programming.

“Some people are born for academics and others are born for the arts. AFCY helps facilitate that other side that children or youth need in their lives to express their emotions and ideas,” says Balu Kanagalingam, who is part of AFCY’s Youth Advisory Council as well as a co-host at the event.