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Syracuse Community Leaders Bridge the Gap Between Hip-Hop and STEM at CFAC

Syracuse community leaders bridge the gap between hip-hop and STEM

BY Michelle Houston Syracuse| PUBLISHED 3:55 PM ET Apr. 27, 2026

The Community Folk Art Center partnered with the Hip Hop Education Center and National Grid last week for a professional development event in Syracuse. The event featured multiple interactive workshops, including a live DJ set. The goal was to show families and educators how hip-hop can help students become more engaged in the classroom and even lead to a career in STEM.

Tanisha Jackson, the executive director of the Community Folk Art Center, said that hip-hop and STEM are gateways to opportunities for underrepresented communities in STEM.

“This is a way to really create more accessibility, more equity, and for people to see they belong in STEM,” said Jackson.

Justis Lopez is the senior director of teaching and learning at the Hip Hop Education Center. He emphasized the importance of using hip-hop to meet students where they are.

“Hip-hop has the voice of the youth; hip-hop is the voice of youth, and hip-hop is youth culture,” Lopez said. “If we really want to be intentional about supporting our young people, we need to follow their lead, and we need to follow what they’re already doing.”

Some students are already putting their skills to the test, including a 10-year-old DJ known as DJ Pop Pop. He said that being a DJ has helped build his confidence.

“Just being in front of an audience has made me confident and helped my self-esteem,” DJ Pop Pop said.

Overall, industry leaders want people to understand that hip-hop is more than a genre; it’s a community.

“It’s a genre of music that has really had an impact globally, it’s intergenerational, it really is a form of expression that really allows people to see something that is achievable, reachable in ways that connect with STEM,” Jackson said.

Finding peace in piano at Community Folk Art Center

Finding peace in piano at Community Folk Art Center

By Desiree Robinson | April 11 2026 


Piano Students at Community Folk Art Center build confidence and connection through their shared love of music | See Video

Inside the Community Folk Art Center, beginners are discovering that learning piano is not just about technique. It is about confidence, creativity, and connection. The beginner-friendly class welcomes students of all experience levels. Some arrive with years of musical background, while others are touching the keys for the first time. Instructor Bernard Wiliford focuses on building comfort and curiosity, helping students feel encouraged as they grow. Learning an instrument can strengthen both mental focus and emotional well-being.

   “ Not only will it teach you some sort of dexterity, it’s also good for the mind and the soul,” Wiliford said. “Whatever comes from your brain to your fingers is usually backed by whatever emotion you may be feeling at the time.” Wiliford says the class encourages students to explore sound and build confidence at their own pace. The goal is not perfection. It is progress.

For student Raymond Joseph, piano has become more than a hobby. It is both a creative outlet and a personal challenge. His journey with music spans more than 15 years, and he believes learning should never stop. “As long as you’re living you should be learning,” Joseph said. Joseph says playing piano allows him to express emotion while connecting with others through music. “It’s a good stress relief,” Joseph said. “A way to express myself. To bring smiles to people’s faces.” Learning piano requires patience and persistence. Students must coordinate both hands while staying focused on timing and rhythm. Joseph says that challenge is part of what makes piano unique.“Usually with piano, you’re like the main person that holds the whole band down,” Joseph said. “So the pressure could be on.”

Wiliford encourages students to stay motivated, reminding them growth happens over time “Never be discouraged,” Wiliford said. “Anything can be done at any time. It keeps your brain fresh and keeps you striving to be better.” Beyond learning notes and technique, students say piano provides a sense of calm that extends into daily life.“Peaceful,” Joseph said, when describing what playing piano feels like.

Each note played is another reminder that learning something new can open the door to confidence, expression, and joy.

CFAC Film Festival (April 16th – 18th)

 

Join us Thursday, April 16th – Saturday, April 18th for Reel Stories: A CFAC Film Festival. Enjoy a weekend of storytelling, screenings, panel discussions, and more!

 

Schedule of Events

Thursday, April 16th:
Join us Thursday, April 16, at 6:00 PM in the Blackbox Theatre for our opening reception and screening of Space to Breathe, directed by Juicebox P. Burton. Space to Breathe is an Afrofuturist science fiction hybrid documentary, framed with a future where there are no prisons or police. The year is 2070, and Sojourner is a young, genderqueer filmmaker who sets out to understand how abolition came to be, through history’s archives on the movements of the early 21st century. After the film join us for a fireside chat with Professor Isiah Lavender III, Ph.D., and leading actor, Nish Newton.

Friday, April 17th: Starting at 5:00 PM, enjoy an evening of short dramas, international, and experimental films:

Teens with a Movie Camera  

Chickadee Overcomes Gravity
Teens with a Movie Camera
Stuck on the ground but dreaming of the stars, an audacious chicken sets out to go where no chicken has gone before. Created in collaboration with young artists using everyday tools, smartphones, and imagination, this two-minute epic celebrates the power of persistence. Bok bok!

OUR PLACE IN SPACE
Teens with a Movie Camera
Tired of being weighed down by Earth’s gravity, a small but ambitious team of teens works together to accomplish the seemingly impossible in search of another world. Adapting a simple tent into a spaceship powered by imagination and orange juice, they take their own trip to the moon and befriend extraterrestrial neighbors.

Another Other
Dir. Bex Oluwatoyin Thompson
A Black police officer and university president are interrogated by multiple white state officials after their failures to sufficiently comply with their respective institutions’ plans. An experiment in image, sound and subtitle, Another Other identifies these figures as collaborators with racist systems, even as those systems betray them.

Della Can Fly!
Dir. jasmine lynea
Della Can Fly! is a Black folktale set in the early 2000s. In hopes of reuniting with his long-lost sister, an eccentric old man is in desperate need to prove to his family that she flew away. With the help of his grieving 10-year-old great-niece, they rectify the family myth, proving it to be true.

Lana
Dir. Laetitia Angba + Julie R. Lissouba
In the turmoil of adolescence, Lana does not lead a life completely like the others. As a daily fight goes on in silence, Lana learns that her father, Benjemin, must leave Canada permanently. She must then muster her courage to confront her father before he leaves.

Nada Fuera de la Isla: Puentes (Nothing Out of the Island: Bridges)
Dir. Dalissa Montes de Oca
Fragmented Memories and visions find a home in light and shadows, bridging the gap between past, the present, and loss of a mother.

Natimorto
Dir. Ibrahem Hasan + Leandro HBL

In Bahia, Brazil, Benicio is born into silence, loss and ancestral grief. Haunted by inherited pain, he turns inward, recording messages to his unborn self. Through remembrance and release, he begins to break the cycle. By embracing his darkness with acceptance, he confronts his past, rewrites his story and creates space for healing.

nobody’s word
Dir. camara taylor
Based on a voicenote received 500 years after the “start of slavery,” nobody’s word seeks to complicate notions of ancestor, inheritance and implication across time and space. Within the film, camara taylor digitizes and disintegrates the family archive in order to reframe accounts, destabilize claims, and inhabit the spaces between fact and fiction.

Objectionable Fruit
Dir. Gabby Follett
An experimental documentary in collaboration with artist Hogan Seidel that explores the enigmatic world of the Ginkgo tree, a living fossil that has silently witnessed the unfolding of Earth’s deep time. Ginkgo trees have endured since the days of the prehistoric, surviving through myriad epochs of pollution, aggressive urban planning, and escalating climate disasters. Known scientifically as Ginkgo biloba, this species possesses a fascinating biological characteristic: the ability to switch sexes, blurring the lines traditionally used to define male and female in plant reproduction. This unique adaptability serves as a powerful metaphor in the pieces, echoing the complexities and fluidities of gender identity as experienced and interpreted by the film’s creator.

Same Water
Martine Granby
Archival materials and research revive the story of Florida’s Paradise Park, a waterpark that served as a leisure destination for Black middle-class families during the Jim Crow era.

SEEDS
Brittany Shyne
Seeds is a portrait of centennial farmers in the American South. Using lyrical black-and-white imagery, this meditative film examines the decline of generational Black farmers and the significance of owning land.

St. Andrews
Dir. Erin Ramirez
Coming to terms with her family’s racial prejudice, a Chinese-Jamaican teenager is pushed to carry out a subtle act of defiance—one which may have permanent consequences.

Youlogy/No Ghosts
Dir. Darryl Daley
Youlogy/No Ghosts explores cyclical motifs of arrival and departure through the artist’s grandmother’s migration to the United Kingdom and her posthumous return to Jamaica, creating a transcendental frame where memory and time merge. In this speculative space, the film navigates beyond the confines of mortality, reimagining a future where inherited stories resist linearity.

Saturday, April 18th, starting at 11:00 AM

TCB: The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing
Louis Massiah + Monica Henriquez
TCB: The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing is a biography of the influential writer Toni Cade Bambara, whose literary works and film collaborations were a catalyzing force in the 20th century cultural and political movements. The documentary is made up of stories shared by friends and colleagues including Toni Morrison, Nikky Finney and Haile Gerima.

The Bombing of Osage Avenue, 1987
Louis Massiah
This film documents the communal response to the 1985 bombing of the MOVE organization’s house in West Philadelphia, killing 11 and destroying 65 houses in the neighborhood.

 

 

 

In The News : Masterminds Chess Club Teaches Youth Critical Thinking Skills

CAA Chess students hold Match at Salt City Market in Syracuse

Creative Arts Academy students visit Salt City Market for Masterminds Chess Club | See Video

Syracuse man uses chess to teach children critical thinking skills

BY Michelle Houston Syracuse | Spectrum News 1 
PUBLISHED 1:20 PM ET Mar. 18, 2026

The Masterminds Chess Club is passing down knowledge to the younger generation in Syracuse.

The club meets every Friday at the Salt City Market.

During the lessons, students get to play against each other or, in some cases, against the instructors.

John Elliot, one of multiple instructors for the chess club, says the goal of the event isn’t for students to become grandmasters; it’s to develop stronger critical-thinking skills.

“It’s all about kids need to think about what they do before they do it, think about what they say before they say it, and it’s just like life,” Elliot said. “Chess is on the chess board. You got to think about what move you make.”

Elliot started teaching young people the game long before he started the club. One of his early success stories is Julius Tyler, who says the game helps him make better decisions.

“We met when I was younger,” he said. “I was in a group home facility, making certain decisions in my life, and he introduced me to chess, and that’s when chess changed my life. It’s more than just a game; it’s based on decision-making and stuff like that. Two people, 16 pieces, black and white; just make moves on your thought process, and it teaches you not to make the wrong moves.”

Elliot says the Masterminds Chess Club has taught more than 100 kids to play chess in the past three years.

Creative Arts Academy – Artist Spotlight

Creative Arts Academy and beyond, CAA student, Alyssa Seward shares her artistic journey and talents with NewsChannel 9’s Carrie Lazarus, journalist and founder of the Fund for Extraordinary Talent. Advanced beyond her years, Alyssa began dancing at the age of five. She is currently studying  piano, flute, and ballet with Dance Technique Coach, Charles Haislah. This summer Alyssa will train at the Chautauqua Institute School of Dance alongside dancers from the New York City Ballet.

See the full episode – HERE

New Exhibition – Healing Forward: Rituals of Self-Repair, Cultivation of Community, and Collective Activation

The Community Folk Art Center presents – Healing Forward: Rituals of Self-Repair, Cultivation of Community, and Collective Activation: A Retrospective Exhibition by Amber Robles Gordon

Montgomery Brawl, Mixed Media Collage on Wood, 44 x 47 in., 2023

The Community Folk Art Center presents “Healing Forward: Rituals of Self Repair, Cultivation of Community, and Collective Activation.” A retrospective exhibition of over 60 multimedia and quilted works by Amber Robles Gordon, an interdisciplinary visual artist of Puerto Rican and Caribbean descent who resides in Washington, DC. This body of work traces the through-line of healing—personal, communal, spiritual, and ecological frameworks—across the artistic career of Amber Robles-Gordon. Bringing together installations, quilts, assemblages, and collages created over more than a decade, the exhibition reveals how healing has functioned not only as a thematic concern, but as a methodology and ethical framework within the artist’s practice. This exhibition will be on view in The Herbert T, Williams Gallery at the Community Folk Art Center, located at 805 E. Genesee Street, Syracuse, New York, 13210. The works will be on view from February 9th–April 30th, 2026

This immersive exhibition bridges past and present, artistically blending history, culture, and creativity into a transformative experience. Drawing from Afro-Caribbean spiritual traditions, decolonial histories, feminist thought, and ecological consciousness, her artworks operate as sites of reckoning and renewal. They ask viewers to confront inherited systems of harm while offering space for breath, ritual, protection, and transformation. The exhibition is organized into three interrelated sections, each articulating a distinct yet overlapping mode of healing and awareness.

About Amber Robles-Gordon :  Robles-Gordon is an advocate with over fifteen years of exhibiting her artwork, as an art educator, and coordinating exhibitions. She received a Bachelor of Science, Business Administration in 2005 at Trinity University, and subsequently completed her Master’s in Fine Arts (Painting) in 2011 from Howard University. Her artwork has been reviewed/featured in national media and art publications. Robles-Gordon has been awarded artist and artist teaching residencies and exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. She has been commissioned by art museums, galleries, art centers, universities/colleges, radio and television stations to teach workshops, lectures, and create temporary/permanent public art installations for art fairs, agencies, and institutions.

 

 

Black History Month at CFAC

This year we invite you to reflect on this year’s Black History Month Focus : A Century of Black History Commemorations. “2026 marks a century of national commemorations of Black history. Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, George Cleveland Hall, William D. Hartgrove, Jesse E. Moorland, Alexander L. Jackson, and James E. Stamps institutionalized the teaching, study, dissemination, and commemoration of Black history when they  founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) on September 9, 1915. In 1925, when Dr. Carter G. Woodson planned the inaugural week-long observance of Black history, he could hardly have anticipated the imprint he would leave on the world. From Negro History Week to Black History Month, ASALH has carried forth the tradition, and the observances have become part of the warp and weft of American culture and increasingly the global community. For our 100th theme, the founders of Black History Month urge us to explore the impact and meaning of Black history and life commemorations in transforming the status of Black peoples in the modern world.” – asalh.org 

 

Career Opportunities At CFAC – Education Outreach Program Coordinator

The Community Folk Art Center (CFAC) is seeking an Education Outreach Program Coordinator to support and expand our educational and creative programming. This role focuses on planning and implementing exhibitions, film screenings, gallery talks, workshops, studio courses, Creative Arts Academy (CAA) programs, and performing and expressive arts initiatives. You’ll work closely with the Executive Director to execute outreach goals, collaborate with community partners (including schools, libraries, and youth programs), coordinate project teams, and manage program scheduling and registration. If you’re passionate about arts education, community engagement, and working with youth and university audiences, we’d love to connect.

Apply Here

Book Signing : Black Women’s Art Ecosystems Sites of Wellness and Self-Care

Join us for a thought-provoking book talk with author, Dr. Tanisha Jackson, moderated by Dr. Gwendolyn Pough, Syracuse University College of A&S Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives on Black Women’s Art Ecosystems Sites of Wellness and Self-Care.This event is free and open to the public, light  refreshments will be provided. RSVP Here

About the book: Delving into historical and contemporary practices, Jackson looks at Black women who use their artwork as acts of resistance, self-expression, and holistic wellness. Jackson’s multidisciplinary approach blends art history, Black studies, and personal narratives to examine the ways that the art ecosystems created by these women foster resilience and empowerment. Their dramatic stories underscore the transformative power of art in cultivating activism and mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being, but also provide a framework for understanding how art can be a vital component of self-care and communal wellness. A meticulous portrait and inspiring roadmap, Black Women’s Art Ecosystems celebrates Black women’s artistic achievements while revealing how their work creates communities of restoration and mental health.