Eva Yaa Asantewaa visited Dance TRaC in March. She is the author of the Dance website InfiniteBody.blogspot.com. (Photo by Deborah Feller)

Having a special guest speaker who is a professional dance writer come into our Dance Teen Reviewers and Critics workshop and critique our writing has opened my eyes to different perspectives. I learned much from my experience with Eva Yaa Asantewaa.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa’s writing on dance has appeared in Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, Soho Weekly News and Gay City News. She has been writing about dance since 1976.

Yaa Asantewaa explained that in order to be understood and taken seriously, young writers need to be aware of their grammar and punctuation. 
We must show respect for ourselves and the  the people we write about by spelling their names correctly and capitalizing properly. Details matter.

I understand how Yaa Asantewaa critiques.  First she tells the good things about our work, then she tells us what we have to work on to make our writing better.

As Yaa Anstanewaa says, “”You need to know the rules before you can break them.”

Hearing  encouraging words from a strong, intelligent black woman means a lot.

I like the way Eva Yaa Asantewaa thinks. I respect to her and  the  journey she has taken to become who she is today. Eva Yaa Asantewaa is a great black woman to look up to.