When Jess passed away, we decided to create a scholarship fund. People told us that while that was nice that it wouldn't have staying power - after all who was going to care about a 13 year dancer from Quakertown who was killed in a car accident? Clearly, they had never really known Jessica Karrat or been touched by her spirit. A spirit that inspired us and made us care. So we spend the 4th quarter of last year raising the $3000 necessary to become part of the Philadelphia Foundation. On January 28, 2004, the Jessica Karrat Dance Scholarship Fund became a component fund at the Foundation thereby establishing a permanent endowment that would remember Jess in perpetuity.

Having reached that milestone, we set out to raise money for to be able to give out a scholarship this year - a very ambitious goal. In order to do that we would need to put together a major fund-raising event. We had this idea for a hip hop show. One that would combine non-professionals, pre-professionals, semi-professionals, and professional dancers all in the same forum. We choose a date and counted up the weeks - six weeks from date of conception to date of execution. And once again, people said nice idea but there's no way that you can get that together in such a short amount of time - and even if you did, who would come to Quakertown High School? Clearly, they did not understand the generosity of spirit and support that exists in the hip hop, dance and artistic communities or how many people were touched by the story of Jess's life. On March 27, 2004, the "Jam for Jess" became a reality as the hip hop community came together to honor one of its own and many other artists and volunteers came to lend their special talents to support the event as well. We raised $3500 and after accounting for startup costs and show expenses, we netted $2500 for scholarships.

The Jam for Jess is now an annual event that will always include a mix of dancers - community-based dancers, street dancers, studio dancers, stage dancers, people who just dance for fun and pleasure. And it may not always be total hip hop show, since Jess loved all forms of dance, but on March 27, 2004, we had a hip hop show ...

The show's base was the culture of hip hop (did you know that hip hop is first and foremost a culture?). We had all the elements represented: graffiti - the art of hip hop, rap - the spoken word poetry of hip hop, music - a live DJ pumped up the volume, and dancers - did we have the dancers. And the dancers did it all covering the entire range of the dance from the early days of swing, Motown, soul, and funk, to breakin', power moves, poppin', lockin' which combined with the newer forms of house, street, club, pop hip hop and to top it off we even added a touch of hip hop fusion.

We began the show with all the dancers on the stage…
Fresh Revolution (official dance crew for the Jam for Jess) - Kelly Burke, Courtney Klinger, Sav Dowling, Shawn Juliano, and Nyle Emerson
Gil Keough - a boogie-down Bronx B-boy who brought with him local b-boys from Allentown and Norristown
76ers Dance Team
Pure Energy & High Voltage (hip hop crews from the Pennsylvania Performing Arts Academy of North Wales) - Ryan Bonner, Tina Bucci, Kim Dolan, Casie Goshow, Jason Hess, Tom Masucci, Sam Pottash, Kristen Rogerson, Francesca Roley Emily Sullivan, Jade Zeller
B.boy Dance School of Philadelphia - Amani Olu
FloMotion - Aleksa Chmiel, Tori Closson, Desire Feliciano, Melissa Devlin, Michelle Stewart, Cheryl Lynn Schwartz, and Samantha Amissah
FloMotion Too - the Junior Hip Hop Company to the adult company. These kids are some of the Delaware Valley's funkiest kid Hip Hop Dancers. They range in age from 8 to 17 and demonstrate a wide variety of talent.
Moncell Durden - who dances with Rennie Harris Puremovement
Montazh - La'Tonya Grant, Ritajean Clark, Jessica Gaines, Diane Critchlow, Misia Denea, Melanie Cotton, Jade Carneiro, Tien Nghiem, Sonia Rodrigues, Michele Byrd-McPhee

… and we ended the show with a time-honored tradition - the hip hop circle - with all the dancers jammin' to Rapper's Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang.

For information about scholarships or the scholarship fund, contact Barbara Klinger at pbskling@bellatlantic.net

To learn more about the dancers, visit these Websites!

76ers Dance Team
FloMotion
Montazh
Rennie Harris Puremovement
B.boy Dance School of Philadelphia
High Voltage