Summer Shake Up
DJ Camp with the Chulita Vinyl Club
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Ballroom joined forces with Summer Shake Up for DJ Camp 2023, offered by Marfa ISD in collaboration with several community partner organizations. The 2023 DJ Camp was a vinyl-only workshop led by members of the Chulita Vinyl Club ATX for Marfa students in grades five through eight.
The four-day camp is designed to engage the imagination of youth from all backgrounds and introduce them to the world of vinyl. Throughout the week, students learn and practice beat-matching, mixing, scratching, and more. While offering practical experience with turntables and vinyl records, The Chulita Vinyl Club ATX also presented DJing as an art form with a rich culture and history, with portions of each class covering the history of DJ culture, music collectives, and an introduction to zine-making. Students are encouraged to use found music and images to create their own narratives, celebrating personal history and cultural exploration.
About the Instructors
Chulita Vinyl Club ATX. Photo by Jinny J @heyjinni.
Chulita Vinyl Club ATX
Chulita Vinyl Club (CVC) is an all-vinyl, all-genre DJ collective made up of women, gender-non-conforming, non-binary, LGBTQ+, and self-identifying people of color. CVC launched in 2014 with the context of providing a safe space for empowerment, and togetherness, and utilizing music and vinyl as a form of resistance against the erasure of culture. The CVC ATX chapter puts an emphasis on individuals of mixed-heritage combining narratives to speak crucially about intersectional identities. Each Chulita has their own unique identity. They are not to be classified as one nationality or culture; they can be brown, black, or white and all shades in between. The unifying denominator is the belief that el disco es cultura and they have established a strong coalition deliberately choosing to only play vinyl with the goal of activating a musical history that might not otherwise be shared in the digital age.
Xochi Solis
Xochi Solis (she/her) aka Mira Mira is a mixed media artist born and raised in Austin, TX. In addition to her studio practice, she manages and spins records with the Austin chapter of Chulita Vinyl Club with a focus on the preservation and performance of Tejanx culture. // @xochisolis
Alejandra De La Huerta González
Alejandra De La Huerta González (she/her) aka Ale-Ale-Jandra is an Audio Engineer in the making. // @a.glz_atx
Claudia Saenz
Claudia Saenz (she/her) aka Tear Drop is a first-generation Tejana/Mexican-American, founder, creative, and community builder. Growing up on the South Texas-Mexico border, she learned the importance of uplifting a community. Claudia founded Chulita Vinyl Club in 2014, a nationwide DJ organization that uses vinyl records to reclaim identity and form a community. Claudia lives in the Rio Grande Valley and enjoys being a devoted sister, daughter, partner, vinyl collector, and music lover. // @hardouthereforamija
Natalia Rocafuerte
Natalia Rocafuerte (she/her) aka Dj Dada is an audio/ visual artist experimenting with broadcasts and dreams. She is from the Rio Grande Valley and just completed her MFA at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. // @nataliarocafuerte
Acknowledgments
DJ Camp is made possible by the generous support of Brown Foundation, Inc, Houston; Permian Basin Area Foundation; Ballroom Marfa Board of Trustees; and Ballroom Marfa Members.
In kind support provided by the Capri.
Special thanks to Chulita Vinyl Club, Marfa Independent School District, Michael Roch, and the parents and students of Marfa.
