Youth Arts Internship Program Helps Students March to the Beat of Their Own Drum

“What’s next?”

It’s a question many students ask as they near the end of high school, approaching a life-stage they’ll have more agency in than ever. It’s especially puzzling for those passionate in the arts, as post-secondary opportunities in the field are often more ill-defined than usual. 

Dawry Ruiz, an MMSD artist-in-residence, witnessed this experience firsthand while providing arts expertise in MMSD classes. 

“We had a lot of students who, after they had me in their classes for a week, were like ‘what do we do next? How do we do all the things you’re talking about?’” Ruiz said. 

In 2025, Ruiz took these questions as a call to action, founding CueThe608 as part of the MMSD Summer Arts Seats program, a partnership program started by MMSD to provide funding for artistic learning opportunities to students who might not otherwise have access to them.

Cue’s impact goes deeper than just extracurricular experience for students who need it, though, as the program also focuses on an educational domain Ruiz finds to be filled with untapped potential. 

“Stuff like hip-hop, music production, Latin music, these more culturally specific and individualized arts I include in an umbrella called the “urban arts,” Ruiz said. “There’s much less programming dedicated to exploring these in the Madison area.” 

With CueThe608, Ruiz set out to change that.

Students in Cue practice a diverse array of arts: musicians range from rappers to Latin artists, dancers dabble in hip-hop and K-pop, and visual artists both draw digitally and get their hands dirty with charcoal and pastels. Many artists express themselves in more mediums than one. 

What they all have in common is the uniquely personal nature of their journeys. That’s what Cue seeks to foster, through artist work days and connecting students to professional opportunities and organizations for their work. 

At Cue’s Artist Work Days, students develop their craft using their peers, Ruiz, and East high school’s music lab as resources, getting the time and space to hone their skills amid a supportive, artistically rich community.

More than that, Cue teaches students the necessary skills to successfully show their art to the world, through workshops focused on important topics beyond artistic creation.

“One was a media day, where we got media training. Another one was how to have stage presence: how to hold a mic, how to keep moving, keep talking so the crowd doesn’t get bored, just how to really keep an audience engaged,” Angel T, a rising Vel Phillips Memorial High School junior and Cue musician, said. 

Vitally, Cue offers students the chance to put these skills to use, partnering with organizations around Madison to host events where students can put their art on display. 

Events such as Make Music Madison, where students played pop covers and original hip-hop tracks on the Madison Capitol Square, or the Briarpatch Youth Arts Festival, where students performed corridos and sold their art physically to festival-goers. 

Crucially, in addition to the valuable professional experience, Cue student interns are paid for the time they spend in the program: an hourly rate and an additional stipend for their live performances. 

“They’re showing students they can make a living doing what they love to do,” Avery Haworth said, speaking from experience as one of two student interns who has participated in Cue both years. Haworth, a Vel Phillips Memorial graduate, is set to attend UW-Milwaukee to study musical theater this fall.

The program works as a stepping stone towards other opportunities, as Ruiz also connects students in the program with organizations in Madison and beyond, such as YoungArts or the UW-Madison First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts program. 

“Cue and Dawry do such a good job of finding opportunities where my love for music can continue to grow,” Alyne Espinoza-Mora, an East High School graduate, said.

Espinoza-Mora will be studying music education at UW-Madison this fall with a full-ride from First Wave, which she credits CueThe608 and Ruiz for helping her get involved in. It’s just one of many success stories Ruiz hopes to foster with resources like Cue. 

When CueThe608’s eight week program came to an end in August, it was once again time to ask the ever-vital question: what’s next? 

For the students, it’s the newfound confidence that comes with real-world experience and the support of a community. 

“It's definitely made me more confident in, like, actually sharing my art to people not just online, but in real life,” Lina, a visual artist with Cue, said. 

“If I did this on my own, I’d be way more nervous to put myself out there, but knowing that I have this community in CueThe608, I'm able to fully express how I think about my musical ideas,” Carlos, a musician and music producer with Cue, said. 

For Ruiz, he hopes the impact of a program like Cue will inspire students to take that sense of community with them, and in turn expand the community that Cue represents. 

“One of the things I really wanted to do with CueThe608 is make it a space for students of any background or any musical talent, whether they feel like they already have a community or not,” Ruiz said.“Through word of mouth, I hope we continue to bring in students who feel like they need this space, and by doing that we can help those students become more involved in the community.”

In the short term, CueThe608 has its final event Friday, Aug. 28 from 6-8 p.m. at Peace Park called The FUNction, an event open to the public which serves as a culmination and celebration of the program’s work this summer. 

In the long term, CueThe608 knows the future post-high school can feel unknown. However, the experiences and community provided by programs like Cue ensure that MMSD student artists can enter their future with solid foundations, marching to the beat of a song they helped write.