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IKPIARJUK/ARCTIC BAY - Youth in Arctic Bay are getting organized to promote the positive influences of hip hop culture.

More than 100 youth aged 12 to 30 in the community enjoyed five days of dance, spoken word performance and graffiti art appreciation workshops earlier this month.

Matthew Akikuluk is taking a leadership role in his community to help promote hip hop dance for youth. - photo courtesy of Ron Elliott

Working under the umbrella of the non-profit Nunavut Youth Consulting group, local youth leaders organized funding from the Department of Health and Social Services and the Embrace Life Council to bring an Ottawa-based hip hop dance troupe called the Canadian Floor Masters to the community to share their skills.

Matthew Akikluk is one of the young people who has taken a leadership role to help bring in 10 members of the Floor Masters to promote hip hop, self-esteem, self-confidence and self-expression among his peers.

He developed a couple of different dance routines during the week, mixing top rock moves with new footwork, spins and lots of freezes.

He said he enjoyed the massive B-boy battle held at the end of the week in the Inuujaq school gymnasium.

"The battle was the best part of the whole event because everybody had fun," Akikluk said.

"We were all winners because this was the first time we did hip hop in Arctic Bay and everyone learned something."

The youth formed two teams of dancers: the Ikpiarjuk Soldiers and the Arctic Wolf Pack. After two days of intensive practice, the members of each team presented their best routines while DJ Jammin spun hip hop tracks on the turntable.

Akikluk's fellow youth leader, Don Oyukuluk, performed a corkscrew, complicated footwork, floor moves and backspins.

"It was the best battle ever," said Oyukuluk. "I learned a lot."

Akikluk and Oyukuluk are meeting with other youth leaders and volunteers in the community to build a sustainable strategy to keep up momentum by organizing more hip hop events in Arctic Bay.

Dancers are now gathering at the school gym to practice from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. every Saturday.

Eventually the organizers hope to arrange practices on two evenings a week.

"I would like big people like government to know about it for funding because it took us two years to get (the Floor Masters) up here," Akikluk said.

In addition to dance, the Ottawa hip hop artists showed youth other methods for self-expression such as beat-box rapping and graffiti art.

The visitors learned a little as well when local throat singers collaborated with the southern rappers.

They also facilitated discussions and sharing circles that addressed difficult issues youth often face such as bullying and substance abuse. After building trust in the group, the youth and the facilitators also discussed issues like violence in the home and the destruction people sometimes bring upon themselves through substance abuse.

Other communities have hosted workshops by the Floor Masters in recent years. The Ilisaqsivik Society in Clyde River brought the group in three times.

The Ottawa dancers have also spread hip hop to Cambridge Bay, Rankin Inlet, Pangnirtung, Cape Dorset, Pond Inlet and Iqaluit.

The youth leaders in Arctic Bay are starting to collaborate with youth in Clyde River to co-ordinate a dance battle between communities in the near future.

The Floor Masters have been active since 1983. They have opened for James Brown, La La La Human Steps, Ice T, Grand Master Flash, Black Eyed Peas and George Clinton. They also performed for Russia's Kirov Ballet and conducted workshops for Cirque du Soleil.

Stephen Leafloor, also known as Buddha, the founder and director of the Ottawa group, earned his Master's degree in social work before becoming a hip hop artist.

"Our message is that hip hop was not meant to be a New York thing or a Toronto thing," he said.

"Hip hop is reaching into the pit of your own belly and bringing out your own culture and finding your own unique voice."

He said the joy young people experience through dance and self-expression is a means of inspiring strength and empowerment and in remote communities young people often need hope to cope.

"A lot of the pain comes from a lot of the complicated social issues that young people are sometimes going on in people's families," he said.

"But you need to be able to give kids a vision that life is worth living despite all that."