Working Draft: Passion and Precarity
"You might think that to make a living as a hip hop dancer, you’d need to move to Toronto or Vancouver, but after moving from Colombia to Winnipeg, Salomón Peña found a tight-knit crew of likeminded creatives and is hustling to make it in Winnipeg’s hip hop scene."
Working Draft
Working Draft is a student magazine produced from Red River College Polytechnic that showcases long form writing such as white papers, feature articles, and creative non-fiction pieces.
What Was The Challenge?
The challenge for this piece was to honour Salomón's personal story, while balancing facts and experiences to shed light on the disparities in the Winnipeg hip hop community. This required navigating the complexities of representation — giving voice to Salomón's experiences, but not reducing them to a single narrative.
The Process
I already had a decent understanding of the dance culture here in Winnipeg, so my process started with meeting with Salomón to interview him and get a better idea of his upbringing and background. We spoke about his upbringing, background, and what led him to dance. From there, I needed to layer in additional research and fact-checking to pull in more context. I attended his rehearsals and performances to better capture his artistry in motion. It was important to me that I reflect not only his words and story, but his presence and movement as well. I also needed to speak to other dance studios and teachers, to do a comparative analysis for different dance cultures in Canada and Colombia.
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The Impact
My piece was published in the Arts + Culture section of Working Draft magazine, with many dancers reaching out and expressing their positive opinions on it. This resulted in conversation about representation, opportunity, and the often-overlooked challenges faced by BIPOC dancers in Winnipeg. It gave Salomón a platform to share his story, and encouraged others in the community to reflect on their own experiences and speak up.