Lyric Opera 2023-2024 Issue 3 - Daughter of the Regiment

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 70 Growing and Growing When it comes to Empower Youth! , a program of Lyric Unlimited, the company’s learning and creative engagement division, Tanji Harper has seen it all—quite literally. The Chicago-based choreographer, dancer, and educator has been a dance mentor with the program since it launched six years ago. From the first large-scale, student-driven productions, through the complex pivots necessitated by the pandemic, to today, Harper has been an energizing force for the initiative and its participants. Perhaps most remarkably, as the seventh year began this fall, Harper’s enthusiasm was undiminished. “I’ve been here since the beginning, and it is my favorite job,” she says. “It’s really life changing for the young people who are involved.” The core mission of Empower Youth! is “to ignite creativity through the arts.” In partnership with the Chicago Urban League, the program encourages and guides Black Chicago teens in the creation of an original production drawn from the stories of their lives and how they deal with issues pertinent to them. Participants work with professional artistic staff and facilitators to learn how principles of performance, the written word, theater, music, and dance can translate to their everyday lives—and also they see up-close how the arts offer numerous, sometimes unexpected career paths. The Urban League helps find the cohort through its partnerships with various schools around the city. More than a century old, the organization Entering its seventh year, the Empower Youth! program continues to thrive—and a dance mentor helps lead the way Dance mentor Tanji Harper (at right) with students during January 2020 rehearsals. By David Zivan Kyle Flubacker