Desdamona is an internationally recognized, award-winning poet, Hip Hop artist, and teaching artist whose work combines performance, youth development, and community engagement. Since beginning her performance career in Minneapolis/Saint Paul in 1996, she has used poetry, storytelling, and Hip Hop as tools for self-expression, connection, and personal transformation.
For nearly three decades, Desdamona has facilitated workshops and artist residencies in more than 300 schools, prisons, and community spaces throughout the United States and France. Her workshops encourage participants to explore their own voices through writing, performance, collaboration, and creative play. She believes every person has an innate creative intelligence and works to create welcoming spaces where participants of all experience levels can experiment, take risks, and build confidence.
More About the Artist
In addition to her work as an educator, Desdamona is an accomplished recording and performing artist. She co-founded B-Girl Be, the groundbreaking Minneapolis festival celebrating women’s contributions to Hip Hop culture, and has toured internationally, including numerous performances throughout Canada and France. Her collaborations include Grammy Award-winning reggae legends Sly & Robbie, commissioned work for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and being featured in a National Ad Campaign for K-Mart.
Whether working with elementary students, teens, or adults, Desdamona brings warmth, curiosity, and flexibility to every learning environment. She is passionate about helping participants discover that their stories matter and that creativity is a lifelong practice available to everyone.
Learn more about Desdamona in her May 2019 Artist Spotlight Interview.
Program Offerings
Workshop
Strengthening our Community through Spoken Word
This workshop will provide new avenues to explore community issues through spoken word poetry. With inspiration from a text tailored to the learning community, the group will discuss community issues and write new work that shines a light on those issues. Texts often used for inspiration include nursery rhymes, popular music, youth slam, and/or the poetry of Amiri Baraka. The workshop will end with a sharing of the new work.
Games of Change
Through story sharing and creative collaborative brainstorming, we’ll move through a process to connect themes of social justice, personal struggles, and shared human experiences. Then we’ll weave those ideas with the structure and symbolism from playground games and songs. Transforming our writing into poems or spoken word pieces that offer new perspectives. By linking innocence with experience, participants can turn difficult conversations into powerful, imaginative art.
Best for: Middle School (5-8), High School (9-12), Folks with Disabilities, Teens & Young Adults, Adults, Older Adults, Intergenerational, Educators; Duration: 60 minutes, but can be modified for a drop-in or pop-up event.
Residency
Developing Your Voice through Spoken Word
In this one-week classroom programs, this residency that focuses on process, students explore their voices through a variety of approaches.
Day 1: Storytelling and Community Building! Students get to know Desdamona, the goals for the week, and each other through storytelling exercises that get everyone to open up, see commonalities, and find value in sharing their thoughts, ideas, and stories.
Day 2: Identity Development! Desdamona leads students through an identity prompt. Options include I Am Poems about people, places, and things (emphasizing imagery and specificity) or Affirmation Poems.
Day 3: Poetic Forms! Students explore their voice within the constraints of a form poem. Form poems can emphasize rhythm, rhyme, process, etc. Options include haiku poetry, cascade poetry, blackout poetry of a text the students are already familiar with, and more.
Day 4: Poetry and Social Justice! Students explore an issue in their community through a refrain poem. Texts used for inspiration include nursery rhymes, popular music, youth slam performances, and or the poetry of Amiri Baraka.
Day 5: Final Edits, Sharing Your Voice, and Reflection! Students use this last class to finalize one piece to share with the group. Sharing can be informal or a community event can be planned. Evaluation/feedback through discussion or surveys can also be included.
In community programs:
This residency focuses on process; participants explore their voices through a variety of approaches. Des begins each residency with storytelling exercises that encourage everyone to open up, see commonalities, and find value in sharing their thoughts, ideas, and stories. The group explores identity, poetic forms, social justice poetry throughout their time together. Participants are invited to share their work in an informal or community event.
Teaching Artist Statement
My approach as a teaching artist begins with curiosity rather than certainty. I see myself as a perpetual student, even when I am leading a workshop or facilitating a classroom. Instead of teaching a “right way,” I create opportunities for participants to discover their own creative process. I ask questions like, “What feels natural to you?” and, when the answer isn’t immediately clear, I encourage experimentation. I believe creativity grows through a feeling a safety, exploration and play.
This philosophy is deeply personal. As a child, I struggled in traditional school settings but thrived in environments that valued flexibility, imagination, and creative expression. Because of those experiences, I enter every classroom remembering what it felt like to be the age of the young people in front of me. I think about the students who learn differently, who may not always fit neatly into expectations, and who are often carrying gifts that have yet to find the right outlet.
I strive to meet participants where they are, recognizing each participant as a whole human being with unique experiences, strengths, and ways of learning. Behaviors that are sometimes labeled as disruptive or difficult can often be expressions of untapped creativity, curiosity, or a need for connection. Rather than trying to suppress that energy, I work to help channel it into artistic expression.
My role is not to shape participants into artists who work like me, but to help them recognize and trust their own voices. I create multiple entry points into the creative process so that everyone can find a way in. I believe every person has an intuitive creative intelligence, and my work is to nurture the conditions where that intelligence can emerge.
Whether I am facilitating a poetry workshop, leading a Hip Hop writing session, or creating space for storytelling, my goal is to cultivate environments where people feel safe enough to explore, brave enough to take risks, and empowered to discover that their stories, perspectives, and creativity already have value.
“Desdamona is a true gift to any school that she enters. She meets the students exactly where they are, respects the process that they go through, and encourages incredible growth and courage. She is highly receptive to ideas and willing to go the extra mile for the students and teachers.”
— Sarah Plumb, Teacher, Oak Hill Montessori
