Positioned for Radical Joy, A Message from Your Program Director

Sanovia (she/her)

Sanovia Leading Guitar Instruction at 2022 Summer Rock Camp!

Hey y’all!

I am Sanovia (she/her), the GRP Program Director. I have been around for the last year with GRP. I came in at a time of meaningful change to the organization and started to learn more about the happenings, the name change, and the climate and the importance of that. Soon after I started to plan a camp that successfully happened about 4 months later (talk about a miracle!). I am a cisgender black woman with a MA in Urban Studies (Community Arts). I’m also a performance artist, singer, songwriter, and poet with a knack for joy-based events. 

I’m new here, but if anything I’ve learned in the last year, GRP is a welcoming space where there’s a no-BS attitude. It’s a space of the most genuine forms of authenticity. It’s a space that MANY have called home and a special place where I can learn the intricacies of my trans and gender-nonconforming friends. To become a better ally. I am striving to continue to hold GRP as the sacred space it always has been.

There have been many changes in the GRP community and landscape in the last year and; we understand that may feel uncomfortable for many. It may appear that the fight is lost, that the work you’ve put in was in vain – but the fight is still very present, albeit presented differently.

We ask for grace. We are a lot of I (Sanovia).

I have been working on researching the roots to be sure that we continue to positively impact every person we get the opportunity to serve and come in contact with. 

Although smaller than we’ve ever been as a staff, we still strive to continue the work that every predecessor has done. And for that, I personally say Thank you. 

JOY

After discussing the 2023 theme with our Youth Action Council, I am happy to announce our focus has been emphatically declared as Radicalized JOY. This is nothing new for GRP. Rooting us back to the core of our work. 

OUR ROOTS

Girls Rock! has its roots in the start of a 2001 Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Oregon. Growing from the birthplace of Grunge and riot grrrl, Girls Rock camps are all over the world in places like Ireland, London, DC, and here in Philadelphia. 

The Girls Rock Alliance, the global umbrella organization that unites camp leaders, says the ethos is simple: all camps believe that gender and culture should not dictate whether a person can play music. 

OUR OFFERING (Sprouts)

  • Our offerings will embody all that is propulsive joy. 

  • Our offerings will propagate in spaces where we will sing, dance, express, and play. 

  • Our offerings will continue to honor the legacy of GRP which is building an intergenerational community of girls, women, and trans and gender-expansive people. 

  • Our offerings will oppose injustice through song and joy.

OUR BRANCHES & LEAVES (Positioning)

The following will be a series of where we position ourselves, henceforth known as our Positioning Statements.

  • Joy is a Propulsive Force that acts as a shift in energy. Or as Audrey Lorde puts it as “energy for change.” 

  • We are positioning ourselves to reclaim the reviled practices like dancing and music that were taken from native peoples in the wake of colonialism. 

  • We are positioning ourselves to counter oppressive systems with radical expressions of joy. 

  • We are positioning ourselves to celebrate loudly in spaces of communal joy where all will have a seat at the table. 

  • We are positioning ourselves to embrace and lean into the realities of an ever-changing way we all experience life. 

  • “What dictators know is that joy has a propulsive force, and that anything that gathers and channels that energy threatens to upend the rigid control of a population. Music, dance, art, all of these fuels an emotional response that creates momentum, one that can be hard to control.” - The Aesthetics of Joy

  • We position ourselves for liberation and joy by way of radical expression. 

  • We position ourselves to create experiences of synchrony through gatherings that sync heart and body. 

  • We position ourselves to promote hope in a humanity that embraces each individual and group of people in the way they decide to show up. 

  • We position ourselves to unashamedly center the voices of BIPOC women, trans, and gender non-conforming people.

Please feel free to reach out to me at sanoviag@girlsrockphilly.org. I look forward to connecting with you.

Joyfully,

Sanovia

Girls Rock Philly