Hip opera?
Sacramento City Unified School District kicks off Red Ribbon Week – a national drug-abuse awareness campaign – tomorrow (Friday, October 21) with performances by opera singers and hip-hop dancers at Mark Hopkins Elementary School.

Internationally acclaimed opera duo Roy Stevens and Annalisa Winberg, who perform as AmazingVox, will perform “The Amazing Human Voice…aka Ancient Rap” at two assemblies for students, the first beginning at 8:20 a.m. Following the singers, student hip-hop dancers and spoken-word poetry artists will perform a rap (“It’s Up to Me to Be Drug Free.”) Kids at the school will be wearing sunglasses to support the event’s theme “Shade-Out Drugs.”

Red Ribbon Week (this year from Monday, October 24 through Friday, October 28) is the oldest and largest drug prevention campaign in the country. It commemorates the death of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, who died at the hands of drug traffickers in Mexico in 1988.

WHAT:  National Red Ribbon Week Kick-Off Event
WHEN:   8:20 a.m. on Friday, October 21
WHERE:  Mark Hopkins Elementary School 
  2221 Matson Drive (media must check in at the front office)
WHO:  AmazingVox
Student Hip-Hop Dancers, Rappers and Cheerleaders
SCUSD Superintendent Jonathan Raymond

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