Ben Lozada learned early in life that everyone is faced with hard choices. “We may not always be able to change our neighbors or our neighborhood, but we can make a change in ourselves,” he said.
Lozada, 15, of Joliet made his choice–to stay away from drugs and gangs, to give up his beloved basketball–when he joined the Happiness Club, a critically acclaimed musical group composed of kids ages 6 to 17 who write and perform their own material. Lozada, a dancer and gymnast, has been with the group since its inception.
“Six long years,” he said, laughing. “But I devote every minute I can to the group. I’m there when they need me.”
During a recent rehearsal, Lozada helped younger performers sharpen their dance moves as creative director Gigi Farachi Harris watched the group work through a new routine. Singers flanked the group, three on a side; two rappers stalked the middle ground; the dancers swayed, shimmied, and a few executed daring back flips. Harris stopped the music. She pointed to a knot of youngsters in the back of the makeshift rehearsal hall.
“Walk with intention,” she commanded, illustrating her words with a purposeful prowl that brought smiles to the faces of the members of the Happiness Club.
Order eventually emerged from the chaotic and colorful gathering, and the performers coalesced into a rhythmic unit that resounded joyfully throughout the Paul Revere Fieldhouse, 2509 W. Irving Park Rd. in Chicago
“The group is about basic values, about common sense, about happiness,” said Harris, 41, of Schaumburg.
Representing a racial rainbow and a mix of economic backgrounds, the Happiness Club recently performed during the opening ceremonies at the 1997 National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. The 50 kids from Chicago and the suburbs keep a hectic schedule of nearly 60 performances a year, with rehearsals each Sunday.
The Happiness Club officially came into being seven years ago, but its seed was planted many years previously, just after Harris graduated with a degree in theater and art from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“A friend from college was murdered,” Harris said. “She was from the Robert Taylor Homes, and she told me about the situation there but it never seemed real to me. She was home only a few weeks and was killed in a gang crossfire.
“I learned there are a lot of good people in bad situations,” Harris said. “And I knew I had a chance to make a difference.”
Harris, who grew up in Glenview, helped found Child’s Play with a group of actors who met in Champaign. The troupe traveled internationally performing works written by children, and Harris toured with them from 1978 to 1982.
Harris developed a glandular disorder, and it took numerous hospital stays and, finally, alternative treatment in Switzerland before she recovered and was able to return to the theater–at least behind the scenes. She began teaching theater and art at a small private school in Mt. Prospect. Harris quickly organized her young students into an acting troupe, which won a national competition in 1991 for its student-written and performed play, “The Way to Happiness.”
As part of their winning project, the suburban youngsters, ages 6 through 10, performed at community centers in inner-city neighborhoods, and the audiences responded in a warm and wonderful way.
“There was no color, no difference,” Harris said. “And so many kids in the city wanted to be involved.”
That’s when Harris decided to start a new, independent group. “This one would be more musical, it would be based on doing the right thing, and it would bring together kids from the city and suburbs,” she said.
The Happiness Club has as its motto, “Kids Make Values Cool.” Its members, drawn from neighborhoods throughout Chicago and suburbs south, west and north of the city, reflect the diversity of the metropolitan region, but all have in common certain values and attitudes.
“We care about making a difference and changing conditions,” Harris said.
“It is an adjustment for the kids, especially those from the suburbs,” who may not have encountered students from different social, economic and racial backgrounds, she said.
“But we have a common purpose: to contribute to society,” Harris said. “Young people need to be able to contribute, to be taken seriously.”
Seriousness, however, was in short supply during rehearsals as kids in overalls, leggings or baggy jeans, wearing T-shirts and sweatshirts in bright hues, their colorful caps askew, bounced, jumped, danced and sang, perfecting the routines for original songs including “THC” (which stands for The Happiness Club), “Children for the Future” and “It Takes a Village.” The latter was written especially for Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the group has performed it for President Clinton and the First Lady.
Harris, dressed in boots, a short skirt, a sweater and embroidered vest, and her blond hair tied up with an orange scarf, was a whirlwind of motion, stomping, skipping, waving and twirling, as she directed the 50 children and teenagers.
Parents spilled in from the hallway, some assisting with the equipment, some setting up a pizza lunch. Everyone offered the performers encouraging shouts of “smile” and “energy.”
“My kids loved this from day one,” said Emily Diaz, 37, who lives on Chicago’s Northwest Side. She and daughters Emily, 13, and Samantha, 9, were visiting the adjacent park last summer, heard the music from the fieldhouse and decided to investigate.
“The kids really learn values,” she said. “And they communicate those values to others through song and dance.”
“Peers listen to peers,” said Claudia Hoover, 51, of Lemont. “The kids can really get a message across. It’s not a lecture. It is music and a way to relate.”
Hoover’s daughter, Tori, 12, has been involved with the Happiness Club for two years. “We saw them at the Lemont library,” Tori said. “Afterward I talked to some kids, and they said I had to audition.
“I was really nervous, but I danced a little bit and I sang a song,” she said.
Tori is also versed in sign language and often interprets the routines during performances.
The Happiness Club has provided Tori with a new perspective about people, especially in teaching her to accept people for who they are, Hoover said.
“We live in a small suburb, and it is really great for Tori because she gets to meet a lot of different people from different ethnic and social backgrounds,” she said.
Tori, who has taken formal dance lessons, also likes the opportunity to learn free-form moves from the other dancers. “I’m really working on hip-hop,” she said. “It’s kind of like street dancing, kind of jazzy.”
John Washington, 16, a featured singer and dancer, is a junior at Orr High School on Chicago’s West Side. “I didn’t like the club at first,” he said. “They didn’t do the same kind of dance I did, but I eventually made it my own style.”
Washington brought his brand of James Brown-inspired street dancing, and Lozada added moves by Michael Jackson and M.C. Hammer to the mix, and the two helped teach it to the suburban kids, while suburban kids with dance training have helped instill an appreciation for ballet and jazz.
The Happiness Club has performed at Navy Pier and on the Bozo show. The group has also performed at Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Theatre. They have performed at the United Center, Comiskey Park, the Arlington International Racecourse and Lambs Farm in Libertyville. The group regularly puts on shows at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago and area hospitals and works with the Chicago Police Department’s DARE program, an anti-drug effort.
The Happiness Club will be working with severely handicapped kids this month, conducting a one-day program for youngsters at the Council for Physically Challenged Children’s Camp in Yorkville.
“It’s not just a performance,” said Tori Hoover, who participated in last year’s camp. “We visit with the campers, make up songs, have a cookout. It’s a lot of fun.”
The Happiness Club has produced its own video, “Kids Make Values Cool” (A&G Productions, $14.99). Harris and the group are also negotiating with WTTW and its production facility to produce a weekly television show that would focus on issues important to children and teens.
As exciting as that prospect is, many of the performers have already appeared on television numerous times. Melissa Gonzalez, 16, of the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago, who joined the Happiness Club at its inception, plays “Gabby” on the PBS series “Ghostwriters.” Other members have worked in local television productions, including “There Are No Children Here,” and in a number of theatrical presentations, among them “Showboat” and “That’s Christmas” with Sandy Duncan.
Lozada, a student at Joliet Township West High School, spent last summer working with Child’s Play in Chicago, teaching dance and theater to inner-city kids, and he hopes to major in drama in college.
“Working that summer made me feel like a professional,” he said. “By having the dancing, I think it has made me understand the negative things in life and given me a chance to do something different.”
“There is the opportunity to sing and dance, and to write songs,” Harris said. “Each kid has a special talent.”
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To contact the Happiness Club, call 847-843-3970.
