NASHVILLE, TENN. (HAGGARD) — Southern Girls Rock Camp gives young girls aged 10-to-17 the opportunity to learn and instrument, form a band and perform a showcase at a weeklong day camp. Now the organization that puts on SGRC is putting on similar camps for adult women.
Hailey Rowe with Youth Empowerment through Arts & Humanities says they started the Ladies Rock Camp to give women and gender nonconforming people the chance to learn something new in a supportive environment.
“Music has largely been considered sort of male-dominated — specifically rock ’n’ roll music. And females and gender nonconforming youth are often told not to take up space — adults as well,” Rowe says.
The adult camp also acts as a fundraiser for scholarships for the kids camp. The March Ladies Rock camp raised $2,700, which can send eight kids to camp this summer. When reporter Amanda Haggard went to camp to learn bass at the end of March, it was exactly the experience Rowe outlined when she decided YEAH would put on an adult camp.
“There’s something so empowering about that in four days someone is able to master a song enough to play it in front of friends and family. That’s just a powerful thing to be like: ‘I’m unapologetically rocking out right now, and no one knows that I didn’t know how to pick up this instrument three days ago.’”
The next rock camp for kids is in July, and the next for adults is slated for October.