After School Project Lands NYC Girls An Album
They're called Grade 13 and for 17-year-old Alex Olivier of Brooklyn, NY, there's a lot of symbolism in that name. The program is with the viBe Theater Experience, a group that "empowers underserved teenage girls by providing creative opportunities and training for them to write and produce original, collaborative theater and music that confronts the injustices in their community, celebrates their strengths and challenges audiences to listen to their stories, understand their experiences and respect urban girls as individuals with powerful voices."
Alex Olivier
For Alex, it's a whole lot more. Far from an ordinary high school senior, she's involved with the viBe Theater, a community park service group, she's writing her own internet magazine AND she's a varsity cheerleader. Ah yes, about her grades. With all she's got going on, she consistently maintains honor roll status. Poetry being her thing, she wrote this to describe herself.
17 years young
There is no need to make fun
Of the wise crackin', intelligent young woman the streets and books have
made me.
Haitian ethnicity, peaceful personality
I am a friend, sister and some ways a mother.
Society doesn't make me, I love the color purple, have real hair no tracks
Love my family, friends and the crew M.E.G-
Aspire to be a writer and own my own magazine.
Poetry is an outlet where I lose myself, in the alphabet to construct words
and form sentences,
To communicate what I cannot say because it may not be acceptable.
I am my own spectacle, movie or television show
When asked who am I?
I reply gracefully-
I am me.
The viBe program Songmakers put her into a group of 5 other girls from the New York City area with one goal--write, create and produce a CD.
"There's 6 girls in our group with the youngest being 16 and the oldest 18. We have different tastes. We go to different schools but we all bonded immediately. We made up our own name, wrote our own songs and with the help of one of the staff, made changes and worked together to create the beat. It's our project but we had a lot of help."
"We struggled to come up with a name for our group. We were all thinking about where we are going in the future and we came up with Grade 13. It's not a real grade but rather that point in your life where you're in between high school and college--that weird transition where you're going up in the ranks but kind of not there yet. It's our way of saying we're all going in separate directions after school ends and we wanted our name to show where we are going."
The group is made up of Ricky Suarez, Mawia Khogali, MoMo Letamendi, Shanae Esquilin, Sabrina Lopez, and of course, Alex. Their album is called Sidewalk Chalk and features 10 diverse songs ranging from rap to rock highlighting each young woman's particular tastes. "The album is filled with a bunch of different sounds. It's not a set genre. We chose the name Sidewalk Chalk, because I personally think we are all 4-year-olds at heart. Whenever we'd get together for rehearsals we'd always be clowning around. always talking...it was like a kindergarten class. And the name came up because there was one metaphor that always came up. We wanted our words on the floor so everyone could see. Ricky and I were talking and we came up with Sidewalk Chalk--it's colorful, we're colorful and you have the freedom to write whatever you want on the sidewalk.
Grade 13 debuts their CD at The Cake Shop in New York City Sunday with a free release party.
"At first I was scared of performing before all those people, but now, I'm just ready to have fun with my friends."
Alex plans on having fun with her newfound friends well into the future. As for her future, she plans on attending college next fall, hopefully Temple, and she wants to build a must read online magazine.
The Cake Shop is located at 152 Ludlow Street in New York and the music kicks off at 6p.
Alex Olivier
For Alex, it's a whole lot more. Far from an ordinary high school senior, she's involved with the viBe Theater, a community park service group, she's writing her own internet magazine AND she's a varsity cheerleader. Ah yes, about her grades. With all she's got going on, she consistently maintains honor roll status. Poetry being her thing, she wrote this to describe herself.
17 years young
There is no need to make fun
Of the wise crackin', intelligent young woman the streets and books have
made me.
Haitian ethnicity, peaceful personality
I am a friend, sister and some ways a mother.
Society doesn't make me, I love the color purple, have real hair no tracks
Love my family, friends and the crew M.E.G-
Aspire to be a writer and own my own magazine.
Poetry is an outlet where I lose myself, in the alphabet to construct words
and form sentences,
To communicate what I cannot say because it may not be acceptable.
I am my own spectacle, movie or television show
When asked who am I?
I reply gracefully-
I am me.
The viBe program Songmakers put her into a group of 5 other girls from the New York City area with one goal--write, create and produce a CD.
"There's 6 girls in our group with the youngest being 16 and the oldest 18. We have different tastes. We go to different schools but we all bonded immediately. We made up our own name, wrote our own songs and with the help of one of the staff, made changes and worked together to create the beat. It's our project but we had a lot of help."
"We struggled to come up with a name for our group. We were all thinking about where we are going in the future and we came up with Grade 13. It's not a real grade but rather that point in your life where you're in between high school and college--that weird transition where you're going up in the ranks but kind of not there yet. It's our way of saying we're all going in separate directions after school ends and we wanted our name to show where we are going."
The group is made up of Ricky Suarez, Mawia Khogali, MoMo Letamendi, Shanae Esquilin, Sabrina Lopez, and of course, Alex. Their album is called Sidewalk Chalk and features 10 diverse songs ranging from rap to rock highlighting each young woman's particular tastes. "The album is filled with a bunch of different sounds. It's not a set genre. We chose the name Sidewalk Chalk, because I personally think we are all 4-year-olds at heart. Whenever we'd get together for rehearsals we'd always be clowning around. always talking...it was like a kindergarten class. And the name came up because there was one metaphor that always came up. We wanted our words on the floor so everyone could see. Ricky and I were talking and we came up with Sidewalk Chalk--it's colorful, we're colorful and you have the freedom to write whatever you want on the sidewalk.
Grade 13 debuts their CD at The Cake Shop in New York City Sunday with a free release party.
"At first I was scared of performing before all those people, but now, I'm just ready to have fun with my friends."
Alex plans on having fun with her newfound friends well into the future. As for her future, she plans on attending college next fall, hopefully Temple, and she wants to build a must read online magazine.
The Cake Shop is located at 152 Ludlow Street in New York and the music kicks off at 6p.
This is a great story! And a great girl! She is going to go far.
Thank you for sharing some good news with us Holliston.
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