Tickets coming soon to MetroTix!
Over 10 years, Story Stitchers have collaborated with artists 16 to 83 years old on music, storytelling, neighborhood block parties performances, public service announcement campaigns, and multi-year signature projects focusing efforts on high quality art and innovative youth violence prevention programs. Artists have built an archive of Black voices from 2014, through Ferguson and Michael Brown’s death, the Covid-19 pandemic, George Floyd, and through years of heartbreaking violence in our beautiful city to bring unheard voices to light. Together, with you, we are reshaping the future of our region through youth empowerment that builds from exposure and experiences in high quality artistic practice. So let’s celebrate!!
Youth Empowerment Summit
August 9
11:00-3:00
.ZACK Theatre, 3224 Locust
REGISTER
Saint Louis Story Stitchers uses Creative Youth Development
to build holistic wellness in young people.
Story Stitchers collect stories, reframe, and retell them
through hip hop, spoken word, photography, and videography
to promote understanding, civic pride, intergenerational relationships, and literacy.
The Summit builds youth empowerment by exploring 5 elements of hip hop:
DJ-ing, Graffiti, MCing, Breaking, and Knowledge.
Have a story or a memory from a Story Stitchers experience?
Are you a Story Stitchers artist? We want to hear from you!
Please tell us your story!
Our History –
Once upon a time there was a stitcher who liked to embroider stories from the newspaper. One day she was stitching about two sisters who were shot on their porch in University City. One sister died. Two brothers were arrested for the crime. The stitcher reflected on the power of stitching throughout history; of the Aids quilt and quilts on the Underground Railroad. She determined to join with others to create change. In August 2013 eight artists gathered in Old North St. Louis and founded the Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective — to make change. On December 24, 2014, Saint Louis Story Stitchers was incorporated as a charitable organization in the Great State of Missouri.
Artists Susan Colangelo, Juan William Chavez, Kiersten Torrez, KP Dennis, John A Wright, Sr., Sylvia Wright, Denise Ward Brown, and Marilee Keys met over the next 3 months and applied for a community engagement opportunity at PXSTL.
This award was Story Stitchers’ very first public project. The check issued to the artists for $1,500 was made out to “Saint Louis Story Stitchers”. Within the next few months, Susan Colangelo, KP Dennis, and Waheed Abdul Muhaimin went to the Washington University Law Clinic, founded the nonprofit and opened a bank account with this check.
More soon…
