First Person POV: Saint City Session

Last night in Santa Ana, there was a progressive arts community gathering at a venue - 511 East Santa Ana Blvd in Santa Ana, CA - known as Saint City Session. Held on bimonthly Thursday evenings, Saint City Session has been a focal point to grow a hip hop community of bboys, bgirls, graffiti writers, DJs, emcees and spoken word artists. It's rare to find a practice spot where these different artists gather to represent as many of the elements of hip hop culture as possible. Often, dancers are segregated from writers and emcees simply because of logistics of the practice location. Now, Orange County has a place to gather and save on gas instead of commuting to Los Angeles.

You can see more info at Saint City Session here:

http://www.urbanartsoutreach.org/

And there's more info on the 511 Creative Space here:

http://www.511sa.com/

Saint City Session is growing. And last night, there was a feeling of starting something new. Right now, the dance crowd is mostly bboys but that could diversify in the future, especially with the burgeoning choreo and street dance communities at local UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton, and the city of Garden Grove. Any community that gathers needs time to figure out their identity and tone. So the faith-based organizers behind Saint City Session will face these challenges, but they've provided a great start for locals as well as taking measures to reach out to the neighborhood by sponsoring laundry service. In the meantime, we're looking forward to seeing the OC community grow through venues such as Saint City Session.