 Good evening. Welcome to Boston Center for the Arts. My name is Lindsay Allen Cox. I'm the director of theater arts, and I'm here with my colleague who most of you probably already know, Andrea Blesow, Albuquerque. We just wanted to take a minute before this wonderful discussion got started to welcome you to Boston Center for the Arts to thank you for being here tonight and to go over a couple of logistics. You are inside the Calderwood Pavilion at Boston Center for the Arts in Martin Hall. This is our beautiful space where lots of dance and creation happens. Right outside this door if you go to your left and down the hall to your right is where the bathrooms are located and there's also a water fountain there as well. In the case of the emergency, we have a house manager here who will help us get out of the building. But your best bet is to go out the exact way that you came in. If you have any questions afterwards about BCA and any of our programs, I'll be here. Andrea will be around for a little while and we're happy to answer those questions. And without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague from Arts Boston in NAC, Audrey Serven. Okay. Hi, run. Thank you so much for being here and welcome on behalf of the Network of Arts Administrators of Color Boston, which is a program of Arts Boston. So this is the third of three panels we have done this season, the September to August season, I suppose, which are genre-specific conversations with leaders of color in the arts, specifically classical music, visual arts, and now dance. So before I start, I'd like to thank our partners on this event, our incredible hosts, the Boston Center for the Arts, hosted two of our three panels, truly could not do it without them. Thank you to our friends at HowlRound. Hello to everyone. This event is being live streamed, which is pretty exciting. So hello to those folks. And thank you to my incredible volunteer NAC Steering Committee for making this possible, extra love to Lindsay Allen Cox and Melissa Molinar for making this happen. Lastly, of course, we'd like to, yes, snaps from her, so I'm going to say more nice things about her very soon. And of course, our funders, without whom NAC Boston would not exist. So Bank of America, the Mass Cultural Council, National Endowment for the Arts and Boston Cultural Council. Lindsay took care of my housekeeping agenda, but I will just say there's lots of food, bars open, please feel free to eat and drink. We have to get rid of it all, so please help me eat it. And yes, so hang out and enjoy. And lastly, I would like to introduce Marissa Molinar, who's our moderator for this evening. If you haven't met her yet, you're in for a treat. I know many of you know and love her just like I do. But for those of you who don't, Marissa is a professional dancer, arts administrative activist and the founder and curator of Midday Movement Series, a grassroots initiative designed to train Boston's future contemporary dance teachers while offering a consistent schedule of rigorous classes for advanced and professional dancers. She's the outreach coordinator for Debra Basin Performing Arts Center. And as of this April, the NAC coordinator at Arts Boston and a freelance consultant and social media marketing grit writing and administration. Marissa is also a freelance contemporary dancer with a background in Mexican folkloric dance and classical South Indian dance. And she recently received a New England Dance Fund grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts to create choreography to embody a lecture star, one of the fine arts superheroes from local visual artists, Basil L. Halwagi. I know you are here and I am sorry if I did that wrong. I wrote down all the pronunciations and I can't read it. Marissa has danced with companies throughout the Boston area and she is currently performing with Nathan T. Rice Rituals Dance Theater in New York and she's a founding member of Wreck-It's Dance based here in Boston. She's also one of the kindest, most generous folks you'll ever meet when curating this panel. I truly could not think of a better guide for this conversation as she is so beloved by the artist community here. So give it up for Marissa. Thanks y'all. So I am so excited to be having this conversation today. This is my first time leading a discussion and oftentimes you'll either have discussions with me one-on-one. You'll also see me dancing on stage, so this is the first time I have a microphone, which is super exciting. And I'm super excited to be joined by these phenomenal artists who I will be introducing. I would like to start off just giving some introductions about Melissa Alexis. Melissa is a dance artist, a certified yoga instructor, a facilitator, writer, and entrepreneur. Passionate about sharing movements utility both in and beyond the studio and stage, Melissa founded Cultural Fabric in 2016 to help people tap into their inner power to elevate internal consciousness and transform external environments. Her core program, The Healing Arts Institute, guides participants to conduct movement research as critical race inquiry for self and collective healing. Melissa's work also takes the form of leadership coaching, public speaking, workshops, performances, and customized business consulting solutions. She is a performer, phenomenal performer, choreographer, also phenomenal, and teacher, whose recent credits include choreographing Marcus Gardley's acclaimed play Black Odyssey Boston, teaching on faculty at Bates Dance Festival 2019, and performing her own original work in Boston Center for the Arts Hella Black, which was amazing. So thank you for being here, Melissa. We welcome you. Next up, I'd like to introduce Ana Masacote. Ana is an award-winning Latin dance specialist, educator, and womanpreneur who passionately believes that through dance, we can facilitate social change within communities. She is a co-founder and partner of Masacote Entertainment and has spread the salsa bug to more than 30 countries across five continents. Ana is also the producer and executive director of Yo Soy Lola, which is a movement to reclaim the Latina narrative through artistic platforms and a scholarship initiative for Massachusetts-based Latinx artists, and the founder of Dance to Power, LLC, an online Afro-Latin dance academy dedicated to educating and uplifting women and allies around the world through Afro-Latin dance. Ana was a recipient of the 2015 New England Sansa Music Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance, right? She was a recipient of the SBA's Massachusetts Minority Owned Business of the Year Award and holds a bachelor's in Management Science from MIT in Cambridge. She began her formal dance training with folkloric dance at age five and salsa at age 15, and she has been a judge and guest of honor at salsa competitions and festivals worldwide. Bienvenida, Ana. Next up, I would like to introduce the one and only Jenny Oliver. Jenny is the founder of Modern Connections Collective, who has spent the past decade navigating a dance career in performance, teaching, and research. As a magna cum laude graduate with a bachelor's degree in dance from Dean College and having received the Excellence in Achievement Award from the school at Jacobs Pillow, Jenny has used her years of extensive dance training to create intricate choreographies and to develop integrated teaching practices. She is currently on faculty at Emerson College, Debra Mason Performing Arts Center, and the Dance Complex, and she is a guest lecturer at Tufts University, where she teaches a course on Haitian folkloric dancing culture and designed a workshop course entitled African Dance in the Diaspora, in which students explore the Africanist movement as it transitioned through the transatlantic slave route. She is the director of Connections Dance Theater, which has performed at the Boston Center for the Arts 2019 Gala. The Arts Emerson Welcome Party for Pelota, and which held a successful six-show run of their premier evening-length performance, Hot Water Over Raised Fists here at the Boston Center for the Arts. In addition, Jenny is one of two inaugural recipients of the Boston Dance Maker's residency from the BCA and Boston Dance Alliance, and she is the first choreographer for the Museum of Fine Arts Dance in the Galleries Program, activating the Ansel Adams in our time gallery, along with her company. We welcome you, Jenny. And last, but most certainly not least, I would like to welcome Ashton Stigidesack-Lites, owner and founder of Stigidesack's Worldwide. Ashton has been regarded as one of Boston's most renowned veteran urban dance specialists. As a dancer, he picks apart movement. He has gleaned from over 10 years of journeying and styles including crump, popping, locking, house, hip hop, ballet, tap and jazz, to name a few, and pieces it back together to articulate his own fusion of the applications of dance. Ashton's experience compiling knowledge from urban dance legends and innovators from Boston and around the world has allowed him to have major success in the professional dance world as well as in the underground competition circuit. Beyond dancing and instructing, Ashton has established himself as a creative inspiration specialist and life coach through his journey of activism and public speaking in the city of Boston. He is also currently operating a startup corporation centered around lifebuilding through urban art. This company has many moving parts, but mainly involves using urban art as a tool to help people build in areas including finances, health, spirituality, purpose and creativity. Ashton believes that if artists can thrive in these aspects in their own life, they can be of better service to their communities. Welcome Ashton. So I think we all have a pretty clear picture now of how phenomenal these people are. Coming from a wide background as educators, studio owners, consultants, festival curators and producers and wearing tons of other hats. You have a lot of experience in many different facets with the Boston Dance community, but in addition to that you also have a lot of experience around the country and sometimes in other countries. So coming from that knowledge, I just wanted to hear from you all, in your eyes, what do you see as being the biggest challenge within the field of dance in Boston? And I think I would like to start this off with Ashton. Mixing it up. Check, check, check. One, two, one, two. Biggest struggle. Biggest challenge. Biggest challenge. I actually like that word a lot better. So I think that my biggest challenge as an artist in Boston is I guess the emotional intelligence that you have to develop to push past the gaps that will come while you're pursuing something that you're really passionate about. It's not always a consistent journey from one thing to the next. So you have to have some sort of strategy, some sort of will, some sort of creativity to really push past and have a vision for what's coming up in the future. So those moments are the toughest moments for me as an artist. It's kind of like balancing myself and finding creative ways to make everything a lot more consistent and last a lot longer. So that's my biggest challenge as an artist in Boston. Hello and thank you all for making time and space to come to this event and listen to us speak. I think that we often have these kinds of conversations kind of in silos and people's houses and waiting for the train. But it's meaningful to be able to have an audience and support from these institutions for us to discuss these issues. So that being said, there's a lot of challenges and actually in our pre-conversation that we had, Stax has actually said something that resonated with me and I said that I need to think about it that way, that a challenge is really an opportunity. A challenge is really something that you can look at and find a new way to approach something. And so that's kind of like put my head spinning a little bit. So I would say that one of the opportunities that it creates for me being in this city is creating opportunities that fill the gap that's missing. And luckily, thankfully, we have things like social media, which if y'all are on any of my social media, I've already been like hitting everybody up about this panel all day long. But I think that really being able to get the visibility that sustains us because it's such a transient city. Because being a young person in the city automatically you get disregarded because you're only going to be here for a couple of years, you're not really here to make work. And so I think that having the opportunity or the challenge, as it's presented, to be innovative with what that filling in that gap looks like is a good opportunity for us. But it's also a challenge because when you have your own vision and people don't see your vision very clearly, it's hard for somebody to really get behind you and back what it is that you're doing. And oftentimes we need the support of these institutions and since they don't see what we're doing because maybe it's so new or so far out there and they're used to doing the things that they know work, it makes it really hard to sustain your practice here in the city. Or sustain my practice? Our practices. Yes. Yeah, well again, yes, also thank you for coming out here today and hearing us speak. I will say that I think that there's actually quite a few challenges and obstacles that are in the pathway for dance in the city of Boston, but just in general. I think for me I like to look at more what are the underlying factors that are causing some of these obstacles. In the city of Boston we definitely have a lot of wonderful dance companies, but in many times you're made to feel that you're sort of in competition with one another and that you're also competing for a lot of the same funding as a group. And unfortunately that can also present an obstacle when you're working in more street styles. So I come from an Afro-Latin dance background, which is traditionally regarded as more of a community work and community project realm. Not always regarded as an artistic form when you compare it with Eurocentric styles like ballet and modern, right? So now the ballet is also something that tends to get a lot more support both on a patron side, someone sponsoring, wanting to donate and it's no coincidence that a lot of the street styles are created by people of color because that's created within our community. We're curating them. I come from an immigrant family. I learned we didn't have the funds to pay for a modern dance class, right? We learned in our schools, I learned a folkloric dance through my school because it just was offered free, thankfully at that point, which is a privilege in itself, of course. And then I got into cumbias and tejanos through quinceañeras. I was the quinceañera crusher. I would borrow invitations. I'm not even joking. Yeah, so I was chaperoned by my mom. That's right. Mommy was always with me. So I got into my cumbias and eventually got into salsa and tried to explain that when you're applying for a grant. Try to explain why in your field you do a three-minute show versus a 20-minute production, right? And why there's importance in that. And I learned growing up in the dancing here in Boston as well that it became very difficult to try to explain that to institutions. Why is my form of dance, the street style, so important to the community? And I realized in that process grant writing was also a privilege of itself. And I realized that much of my work was funded more in grants that were more having to take a collaborative approach, which is great. This is the work that I do as well. But when you work in collaboratives, you're also deleting the amount of money that you can make. So then you're also told to apply for less money in that realm and to do that. And unfortunately sometimes you're given less than what you're given. So you're constantly having to undervalue your work and taught to do that. And so it's been a process in the dance community to both find that value in my work to really present that forward and then to articulate that moving forward. How many of us in the audience, so we're having a conversation, how many of us are dancers? How many of us are choreographers? How many of us dance enthusiasts? That's all of us, right? But I mean the non-professional enthusiast patron potential. I'm just curious. I'm curious whether we're all talking together and facing these challenges together or whether we have some folks in the room who are listening from a different vantage point. So thanks for engaging. I would say the biggest challenge that a lot of us are pointing to that I definitely felt coming back here, I've been sort of moving back and forth from New York to Boston for different reasons. The most recent reason was to do my graduate work in New York and then come back here because my beloved community is here. And so that really compelled me to be here and at the same time I felt challenged to be here knowing that this is such fertile ground for creativity, such fertile ground, the opportunity. I mean it's huge, the opportunity and the gaps that we can fill and at the same time the lack of valuation on dance historically and still today makes it so that, as Jenny said, it's harder for us to sustain our practices and so the first thing I did when I came back, I heard that Julie Boros was going to be installed as the first chief of arts and culture here and so I wrote a letter and the letter was called, I really like the title, so now I've got to remember it, it was called the currency of exposure has expired. I thought about the amount of times that I've done free work here and how much work and how much work and the fact that a lot of this work is being made in the dark, meaning that as somebody already said, a lot of it's unseen and that is also a fertile place of creation which I love. That's a huge opportunity for us in the communities to be really doing this work and we're just about the work. But then it goes unseen and there's a lack of trust being young, unknown, non-institutional affiliated, person of color, all the things and then the lack of valuation systemically add up to not getting the grants or not having the infrastructure to write the grants as quickly. I formed my company so that I would not be grant dependent being a nonprofit professional for over 20 years and still I want to test out what are the other options? How can we create an appetite in this market for dance across the board in our arts community but also outside of our arts community? How do we make dance enthusiasts? How do we make more so that we can have the robust $1.4 billion that comes into Boston and into Massachusetts which the recent American for the arts study came out that the arts creates and generates more in the economy than sports in Massachusetts yet those dollars aren't flowing. They're not flowing here and so how do we get right? Right and so how do we get those dollars flowing both for infrastructure and for support and so that we're not just grant dependent and we're not replicating the things that the same systems that keep us in these competitive ways with one another where we feel like we're in a shortage and so then there's competition, there's silos, we need to collaborate and that's another challenge is lack of collaboration because there's such and still a dearth of need. Thank you. Thank you all. So that has me thinking you know in many of the conversations well first of all I one of the things that I hear from each one of you is just how passionately you each use dance as a catalyst for community change and in going through your bios I also was just so impressed with the emphasis on using dance specifically for really cultural transformation so especially in thinking about what you mentioned Melissa as far as like giving more visibility to dance one of the things that comes up for me in conversations especially with non-dance people or people who would describe themselves as non-dance people you know one of the comments I hear so frequently is that there's dance in Boston you know aside from Boston Ballet where where is that visibility so I think I would just love to hear about because I know the work that you're doing to give a push to that visibility so I would love to hear just a story of success in those terms of how you feel your work either as an educator studio owner etc is impacting the visibility and creating and or creating that cultural transformation so a success for me I think that I'm trying to like filter out to one like major but I've just been like there was a point in time at least when I came into the Boston dance world from the like the underground street style of Crump everything was just like I was like super new I didn't know about anything but I caught like the ending of a wave for like Boston hip hop as far as other styles like popping breaking like a different street style communities that were already a little bit more developed because as a crumper I was just like we were all teenagers like we were young kids literally crumping in the street like everywhere bus stations supermarkets school detention just literally crumbling so I caught the end of a wave that was developed um and at the end of that wave kind of there was like a gap so like a lot of the people who had developed and had had been keeping this kind of energy going either they left um or they stopped and it was just kind of like I caught that in wave and like uh like like she was saying earlier um it seemed like it was like a a challenge but I seen it as an opportunity so I started getting to work and thinking about how as somebody who's in the middle of a generational gap how can I bridge that gap um and what I did is like I I knew that in order in order to make that happen I couldn't do it by standing still so I just started moving and I started traveling and I started making connections and building community partners um and just I started creating opportunities for people uh in my in my community to learn uh and but also build and collaborate uh not only with just like us as young people but also with elders in the community so I really started to kind of like try to fill that gap and uh it was like five years ago when somebody asked me like what do you feel like um the Boston Street style dance scene needs and I was like I gotta sit on that question because we need a lot right now because it's like like it's like close to non-existent and uh I created an event a festival based off that question and what I did is I took these like major components that I felt like could really bring um visibility back could really bring community back to feeling the vibe uh could really bring growth and development back and um I named this this festival stacking styles and it's uh based off of a curriculum that I created to teach kids how to freestyle and I pulled apart all these different applications that apply to every dance and um I seen a couple of events one in DC called booger styles one up top in uh Montreal called jack of all trades and they kind of helped me to format the event um and I was like all right let me put this event together so I knew a major component of that event was going to be um educating and making people aware of how strong Boston Street dance history is like we have some amazing incredible people who change dance like all over the world like on a on a ground level um and these people uh generally go unnoticed to the general public so I knew that like we were gonna have to find a way to either document bring them in so I created a panel and it's called an og panel we call our our elders og's the originals uh so I have this og panel at the event and I bring on a different og every year um and that's from every style so this year we have two crump ogs two crump bought two boston crump originators on the panel um and that's always like a special type of ceremony we honor them with an award um we showcase their history so that the people uh which is another component the people that I bring in from different cultures around the world like um because there's all these regional dance styles that that are like they kind of like push the the overall dance culture but they're just they kind of like sit here um and I'm like they're like the coolest uh styles ever so I was like let me get these people that are pushing these styles to come to Boston and share and build with boston so that we can um kind of keep an open mind to what's out there uh so I bring in these people um to also speak on the panel and to teach and to educate for instance we had the first turfing class which is a bay area uh dance culture style um we had the first class turfing class in boston at stacking styles we had the first Memphis jukin class uh and if you don't know these styles you definitely go look it up because they're amazing styles and they just breathe culture they breathe that essence um so that's the second component bringing in people and making it easier for guests to come in to boston to share and build um and I created a program called stack bnb air bnb don't sue me but it's an exchange program for housing uh which is going to make it even more easier for out of state dancers to travel in and come and break bread and build with the dancers here in boston and the people in boston can house people um on a vault like pretty much they're offering free housing in exchange for like a skill share so like there's people coming and there's people that came in from the event from uh Senegal there's people that came from the ivory coast there's people that came from colorado there's people that came from montreal there's people that came from all these different places and they got to like stay for free and uh meet and break bread with dancers in boston and build a connection and like that was like the the ultimate goal is like when I throw these events yes it's a battle a competition to showcase with workshops but the ultimate goal is to like build connections so that we can feel like we have this community it exists we can go anywhere like at this point right now like uh from all the the work that I've done in that community like the community is so big but so small that like I can go like anywhere in the world and just do the power of like street dancing hip hop I can be like housed and taken care of and like break bread so uh the success that I'm bringing to the table is that that festival and uh it was like extremely successful last year like I um we got way more participants than I anticipated uh and it's really kind of blowing up and it's getting visibility um I actually got the boston foundation grant uh to help out with the with the event uh and I got it again this year to help out as well um I've also connected with some community partners who've been supporting some sponsors um like recently I've I've just been chopping it up with like red bull and they're like and they're like we want to we want to get on that like we want to um so I I feel like that's a major success to be able to bring that forth um and really watch the community like kind of show up for itself um I make the event kind of the space where everybody can kind of chip in and put their hands on deck because we really do need the push um here in boston um I think that as artists we feel uh I don't know what it is but I was having this I went on live last night and I was kind of cussing my my community out not really but um you know when it comes to these these bigger brands that come into the culture they their their goal is to try to connect with what we already have established and what we've already built but as dancers who who are coming from an area where there's a lack of opportunity we feel like we have to chase those brands when they're really looking to like get on our wave so like um the fact that red bull uh rep from red bull came to my house in my studio and was like y'all we we want to push we want to help you like we want to understand what it is that you do because it's impactful so I feel like um it's it's just a major success to see it grow from just an idea and and rather than being in the scene and being like oh there's no events going on in Boston there's no this is rather than complaining I was like y'all let me just take a step forward and just like put my money on the table and my time and my resources and my focus so that's my my thing um to respond to something that you said so I have been in Boston since 2005 and I actually always housed dancers at my place mostly when I was in the tap community people come from out of town they need a place to stay they stay with me I I tried to feed them but you could take a shower you could sleep um and since we neighbors you know Alex didn't that also you know that you know I would love to be able to help house somebody um because I think that we do need that and it's us that takes care of us you know um so that's important kudos um as far as success I'm gonna put my I have I have a lot of successes thanks to God um but I'm gonna lean more towards education because for me um it's really been my training that has sustained me and my training that has allowed me to dance now into my 36th year um which isn't always easy to do in Boston because I think that you graduate from school and you know you're very limber and flexible and cute and all the things and then all of a sudden you get a nine to five and you're sitting down and like you're not able to keep up with what it is that you're doing um physically and we know that as dancers we need to be moving um so one of the things that had really saved me is the Horton technique which is a codified modern dance form and when I first came to Boston um there wasn't a Horton class or actually there was one and it was like a one-off it happened occasionally um and so I was like well I don't understand why this isn't happening feedback that I get is oh nobody wants to take a Horton class nobody wants to do codified stuff everybody's doing contemporary improvisation and like you need to tell telling me you need to be doing this if you want to really get success here and I'm like well there goes that gap again you know how do I feel that gap was something that I know actually works for me and has worked for my body and if it works for me it will also work for others um one of the gaps as I decided this is what I was going to do is money right because to learn a codified form it's really difficult to learn it outside of an institutional setting if institutions are costing 50 60 70 80 plus thousand dollars to go to who has access to that not some of us most of us you know I mean luckily I went to school when it was like 20 grand and I still owe them money I'm working on it though um but you know how do we create how do we create an opportunity and something that's becoming such an elitist form and so I created modern connections which is a Horton based modern dance class I put my money where my mouth is I went to the Ailey school after I've already been trained with Nayla Rendell Bellinger um and I have all training throughout I keep continue on then I was like well wait a minute let me go to the Ailey school and go get me some Annemarie Forsythe and like have her put me together um so I invested in actually learning the pedagogy to accurately teach it and then I brought back all the skills that I have just in me being a person that grew up in the neighborhood and has all this other information in my body um and making it making it um making modern dance something that's exciting and not just like boring um something that is attainable for people I think that sometimes codified forms feel unattainable it feels like there's a lack of success um so I often try to like push that gap as well and then the third thing is that I really try to keep it affordable I mean I think that paying I know that we are not as as expensive as New York New York it costs $22 to take class well $15 is also expensive for people that can't afford groceries or can't afford a bus pass or your rent is $2500 and now you can't dance too but we want to say dances for everybody no dances for the elite and so I am here and my success has been um actually my my anniversary is coming up um because my modern connection class has is now going to go into its sixth year I've been able to sustain it I've been able to start a level two I've been able to start a summer session that has been jam packed every single week 17 22 people that are coming out to learn a codified form when I was told that nobody wants to take a Horton class in the city um and I'm all and I'm able to do it in a way that makes it affordable for people I don't turn people away I have a class card that makes a class like 11 bucks yes that's still maybe is too much I've never told anyone well you can't take class I often either supplement people or try to barter with people and say hey maybe we can make a trade and you can do something you know to make this thing happen because I think that I believe in the dance form so much um it saved me and it's also given me the opportunity to traverse a very difficult um scene here I think not only in Boston but I think that's a difficult scene to maintain your body and this is a form that can actually do that so that's one of my successes is to go out on a limb and do something when I was told not to do it and keep it affordable for people well I mean I'm hearing definitely a theme about investing in our work and in what we're believing in um even though sometimes people won't believe it for you right um I will say that for me um I've been blessed to have a company that's now going on 15 years um yeah we're celebrating our quinceañera I'm on a quinceañera theme right so um and it's been a lot of work really building that up and uh but I will say that during the time that I was that I've been with the company I've been working on a lot of community work but um a little over three years ago I felt that I wasn't really able to invest my time into the things that really like were moving me and so I made a pivot and what I did is I basically sat down and I really decided what were the things that I really wanted to focus on and how could I change up my my time to make that happen so that I could invest in that and so that meant giving a lot on that end and really investing in something that I believed in um so during that time I changed up my dynamic at my at my company and I completely um pulled away into um from the things that weren't serving me and pushed my time into things that were um and it meant that um for the good the um close to the first year um what much people don't know is that I really just paid myself $900 a month if you know what the cost of living in Boston is you know that that's not very good and I lived off my savings in order to invest my time into my community work during this time I started up an initiative called Yo Soy Lola which is Latinas Urullosa de las Artes or Latinas Para de Latin Arts and the goal of that initiative is to really reclaim our narrative so that we change the way that we're perceived in artistic mediums um and it's also a racial equity incubator for building more Latina identifying artists within the commercial spaces in Boston and um we worked on that for the better part of a good six months and we'd been working with the good 20 plus artists to develop this big production get it into it over on a very big space here in Boston and we were developing this immensely amazing production and a month before as much as we've been promoting it not one single ticket had been sold and I had a little bit of a panic attack first and then I let myself have that moment and then I leaned on my community and I started talking to people and asking what were we doing wrong what did we need to do and we took on a very different direction in our grassroots marketing we um had our we had our friends buy tickets we called up the primas we called up their we had everybody come in everybody that we could think up at the wazoo and tell their friends we also changed the way that we were redirecting our marketing and by the time that we were done we ended up selling out that event had people out the door that couldn't get in and it completely astonished the staff at this location it was something that was truly truly unexpected the beauty of that is that during this time this is also a non-profit initiative to get more scholarships for Latinx artists so by creating these events we're also paving the way for more in our community and we were able to raise funds for three scholarships at the event now this year we're going to be building into a big week of events so it's a Lola week so that during the time of October um you'll find um during this particular Lola week events all around the city just amplifying celebrating and building up Latina identifying artists within the city of Boston what to me has been the most amazing success is that we may have been able to create that platform and amplify more voices but this year um the culmination of that which was what really reminded me why we're doing this is when I received a text from one of our first scholarship recipients and she sent us her certificate that she had just graduated and that to us was a reminder that we might help a lot of people do things but sometimes even just helping one person is all we really really like are meant to be doing at the end of the day and so you do that one thing at a time and this particular individual is looking to create more businesses so they create more access points so we're bringing that more and building that within the community so to me that was a huge huge success and something that keeps me moving forward um so a lot of you raised your hands a couple of times when I said dancer choreographer enthusiast so we all have these different aspects of ourselves so I'm gonna say first of all that my I really feel like it's been a success to be able to live into the different aspects of myself that I'm a performer that I am a choreographer that I'm a teacher educator facilitator a writer that I can do all of those things that I've created a mechanism to really live and breathe into those aspects and to share that and and I feel like to also share with young people coming up that you don't have to just do one thing I feel like that's the that's the myth that's sold to us that you know you know what so what's the one thing that you really do like no all these things do all these things um and so for me that mechanism in cultural fabric um has really been the vehicle you know for me to really breathe life into all those aspects and so I'll just talk a little bit about the Healing Arts Institute which was a program I created in 2018 after um really running around how many of us as teachers educators have been at multiple sites for I don't know months on end and thought oh I don't know how sustainable this is you know in terms of energy and so I I did I like the word pivot that was what I did too in 2018 I really stopped and reflected and and decided to pivot and from you know running around to these sites where I was teaching dances in part of many different contexts in healthcare context in community other community settings and community centers and realizing that you know the pace of that meant that there is a great need and desire and want for dance in our communities and I wanted to help others be able to join me in you know answering that need so I created the Healing Arts Institute as a mechanism to replicate myself without replicating myself as carbon copy but to replicate and and sort of try to share methodology so that people can create their own programs if they desire or create their own businesses um so the Healing Arts Institute really became about when I you know went through the first cohort which was so beautiful filled with dancers of their souls from all different sectors from medicine from education other non-profit professionals social service professionals who really were dancers in their souls I mean when you see people dancing just so authentically and they're like no no no I'm not dancer no yes you are and and dancing in in those ways to examine themselves to examine their communities to examine the wounds and the resiliencies that exist after this you know this racialized history that we all share and to to really use the resiliencies and the technologies of Africa and African diasporic dance drumming and other technologies including yoga to really see how how we can heal ourselves and in healing ourselves also heal our communities um and so that so far we've had two cohorts and out of that um at least two to three people have created their own programs and businesses um and are going on to teach people in their own unique ways so it's really a program where people workshop their research their workshop and their research in movement in action um in real time with groups of people and in this very vulnerable way that I I just love I just love the interiority of that and they're just really examining our being not just through yoga but also through dance you know just really using dances that is that gateway into ourselves and then and then taking it back out of ourselves and being able to share that and amplify that so that has been a huge success is to be able to offer that space hold that space with others and then lift up other people who are spreading that now to others for for our collective healing really um so that's been beautiful thank you all um so it's so good to hear about the change that you really are uh living to create the transformation that you want to see in the world um I know that that transformation can't happen by ourselves right so from your perspectives and coming from all of your experiences I'd love to hear what is one thing that you uh would like to see from the grassroots and institutional communities to help you create the change that you're really working for and I would love to start with you Melissa yeah I was gonna say I'm holding the mic though I'll go for it um definitely I I want us to get creative I want us to take back the decision making so that we're not just looking to one institution or some big institutions or foundations for our funding um but really getting creative and and collaborating and banding together like can we can we get this kind of unity around funding around other needs um for for us all to move forward in this field um so that's the first thing for me is um just really looking at that and then also putting dance into the conversation around public art making I feel like a lot of times there are grants and other opportunities that are out there especially now around social justice um and public work and dance is left out of that conversation left out of that funding yet I know every single one of us perform in the community literally on the streets that public yeah that public dance is a huge part of how we just meet people right where they are right where we are um and so putting putting that back into that conversation and and leading that conversation I think we have a lot to share in that realm grassroots and institutional level right um well on a grassroots level um I would love to see much more um networking and resource sharing happening amongst the community um I definitely wish that there was more cross-collaboration and I found that as I was looking for mentors to help me direct where I needed to go they were telling me they needed mentors too and it made me realize you know there's something that I can help someone with and there's something that they can help that someone else can help me with and so if we can create much more networking that will help us a lot so um grassroots level I'd love that on an institutional level um there's this buzzword around diversity initiatives right um and I think it's very easy to say that you're funding work by artists of color um but I think it's very irresponsible for you not to realize that there's different access points that people need along the way so this week alone I've had conversations with some 20 plus artists right of those one is homeless and trying to raise a young child on her own um doesn't have access to email right so we have to find new ways of communicating another one was talking to me out of Dominican Republic and I needed to send them their information that they needed before a certain time or they wouldn't they would lose the electricity to be able to respond to me um there's another artist that's also raising a child on their own and they don't have the time to go out and write a grant for the work that they need so understanding that if you're going to be really intentional about supporting work by artists of color you also have to be intentional about understanding and trying to understand what they actually need instead of thinking that you're going to do that for them so um on an institutional level I'd love to just see institutions getting committees of artists together and just asking how can we help yes to all of that um uh yeah so I think that at a grassroots level something that um we that I found success in that I think that we need could all do right now um is to engage more publicly like publicity for instance I just had my show um and it was a great run we sold out four out of six shows I think that that was like amazing but where was the publicity me me writing all the social medias things me writing a press release me trying to like beg people can you Jared bow and where you at you don't come to the dance community I see I hear you all the time talking about other great things that are happening um in art in Boston but I don't see you here with us as dancers amplifying what it is that we're doing um and that's really hard but I think that again there's that gap right so there's the gap that we can fill and all of us can fill that by using social media social media is changing the game whether you want to believe it or you don't want to believe it or like that's the last thing that you check on your to-do list it is happening social media turns into dollars and gets people in the door and I think that that's something simple that doesn't require well actually it may require people to have access to internet and all of those things but if we do have access to it um it shouldn't only be on the person themselves to be like you should come to see this thing or you should come support this thing when we're all in this community together and I find that um at a grassroots level that we don't really do enough of that networking um to amplify each other's work and even for me I mean I could also do even more but sometimes I'm like well damn I gotta do my own because if I don't do it no one's gonna do it for me how am I gonna get people to know that I even exist in the city if I'm not pushing my own stuff um and so at a grassroots level I would say that that's like a simple thing that we can do um share a flyer I used to go flyering for real for real like all over posting posting taping going to davis square all the things so that's one thing okay see okay but yes and I would like to do that and there's oftentimes I'm like this would be a game changer for getting more access to people that are not in the dance community but who has time to do that you know when you don't have a team when you have to write the grants and respond to the emails and choreograph the thing and cut the music and be here for this one and be here for that one it's not sustainable anyway so yes institutions so we did use that the word diversity and I think that some of the challenge is at the institutional level is that there's not enough diversity people of color at the top making the decisions so when you get an application or you get something that comes across your your desk it's easy to be like oh there goes those people doing that thing again that I don't know what they're doing and so like you know we'll wait we'll wait until like it fits you know we have this gap and we we should have like a person of color in here so like why don't we just put this person here because I think that there's not enough people at the higher level that are making the decisions that understand this language and this culture that we're all creating from and sometimes that makes it really difficult for people to access because you don't know what our struggle is or what or what our joys are all the time because we do we are different people we have different things that we value and I would love to see more POC people at the top of these institutions making decisions that will give us more of an opportunity to have a chance to sustain ourselves and to be recognized they didn't said it all okay um yeah I think they I think they covered pretty much the ground I would say one last thing which is these are going to be answers that are reflected in what they all said I think that like on a grassroots and an institutional level we have to like we have to be willing to get uncomfortable like I see that like there's a lot of uh motion in Boston but I think that the the pathways of that motion are all very stagnant um like we really do like if we want to get in touch if we want to collaborate if we want to network if we want to build uh if we want to exchange more across cultures like we have to be willing to just like get uncomfortable and show up and and do those things that you might not be interested in really doing and and like show up to those places that don't really like when you look at it at first glance they might not catch your eye or they might not spark anything but just like show up you know what I mean and um you know put yourself out there uh to be able to build and make those connections I think it takes a little more effort than uh just like a comment or like or saying you're trying to I think it takes like a lot more reaching like not just showing up once but going back you know and if you're not connecting to something it doesn't mean that that's the end all be all but like really like trying to to get into the groove and in a lot um along that same lines I think that on both levels like we have to do a lot of um a healing like on a personal level internally um across collaborations that I've been in and and seen uh moving a lot of people are bringing uh traumas to the workplace or traumas to the art which can be a beautiful thing but when it comes to like working with people uh it also can create uh sort of a backlash like I see a lot more people not working together not working together because there's some type of trauma or situation or whatever the case may be so I feel like um we got to put the the focus on that that self-care uh and really try to open up and and when we come into the space and we we get into these spaces we we're here with clear hearts clear minds uh clear voices so that you really can just like push your feeling so we were talking right before the panel started about the transient nature of some of us the coming the going the coming the going somebody's leaving and I was just thinking you know stay so I'm talking myself I'm not talking to anybody else because you know you got to go where your joy is but there has to be some pressure from at the grassroots level from artists in the city um so we can talk about institutions all day long but at the end of the day we are the artists and so we have to really band together so to me it's about that collaboration it's about that collective energy always we need more of it um I think this is a wonderful platform and could we could we come back again and next time let's have dancing too I think we were all a little daunted by oh my gosh we're just gonna talk can we just do an interpretive piece to respond to this um so yeah we've we've got to keep coming together we were brainstorming about that on the phone we're all we're all going to um Stigides uh studio stack stack Stigides stacks we're going to your studio next that's what's happening um so so so we've got to rotate we've got to keep coming together um but yeah I just want to sort of put it put it back on us too to to keep on putting the pressure um for change if we want to see change if we want to see expansion here because I I've definitely done the I'm in New York I'm back I'm in New York I'm back and I might go again I don't know but I'd like to stay this is where my beloved community is so how do we make it so that artists can stay yes well and I would also just like to take a moment since uh the uh topic of connecting via social media did come up we do have a flyer with all of our panelists social media and uh contact information so as just a very simple way of staying connected to them I highly suggest that you snag one if you have not already um so let's see uh we've been talking a lot about what is and I'm wondering about like what is coming next you all do a lot of work also empowering uh the artists coming up the next generation uh so to those artists what is the one thing that you will say to them and since we're a little bit pressed on time I would also like to encourage us to be specific about our responses okay we act because I actually I react yes I wrote no I wrote no um say the question one more time what question was that uh the fourth question to the next generation um so I think that what I would say to the to the next generation and something that I see first of all I see all y'all all y'all on social media I see you all I follow all the hashtags you put a new hashtag on your on your on your post I follow that one too um so I think that the young people in the community are doing a great job of connecting to themselves and I think that um being a person that was there in 2005 and walking around here like what do we do next um I think that what I would offer is that we that you all and us take the time to go to each other's things um and I don't mean that in a passive way I don't mean that as like a sugar coating whatever I spent a whole year going to a bunch of stuff that I didn't understand that I didn't like that was out of my genre whatever because I knew the value of a dollar I knew a value the value of my community and I said you know what I'm gonna buy a ticket to this thing and see what it's about and then once you start to really build this practice of support um people will come back around oh we've seen you there I even when I first started doing that people were like what are you doing here and I was like oh wait is it it's not a space for me too you know so I think that as um young people I think that you all bravo to you you all are changing the game I see you um and I would offer for you all to come to things that we're doing as seasoned people here um and you all will become seasoned eventually and then also I challenge all of us that are in the room to go to these young people's events that they're producing on their own that they're raising funds for that they have in rehearsals nine ten eleven that's why I can't be a part of your group because it's past my bedtime but you guys are rehearsing you know at late at night and doing all the things and then collaborating with videographers and putting out your own promos and like all that stuff and I really respect that and I would say that um what I offer for you again is just to connect more and show up to things that you might go to a ballet show might not be your favorite thing especially for some of the street dances I don't know but you might find inspiration there too you know so I would just offer offer that I'm gonna fight over the mic here um so I'm actually gonna piggyback off of this because I think it's important to mention that with social media as well um so we're really I feel like so many of us are concerned um with you know how many likes do we get how many comments do we get who shares our posts and then we forget to do the internal work to actually work within the community because it doesn't matter you know when you're going through something tough the people on your instagram aren't the ones that are gonna hold your hand right so um really investing in your community is so important in building relationships um what I'd say and I'd offer this is really just kind of for anybody at any point because I'd um I'd been in the industry like a good 20 years before I decided I was going to pivot and I did this exercise um basically I took a I made a list of the things that I was very passionate about what issues moved me and I wrote down why and I explained that to myself when I kept asking myself why is this important and why is this important and why is this important and um I wrote my story and that helped me understand why these issues were so important to me and this is what I wanted to focus on then I wrote a mission statement and I wrote a vision similarly to what you would do in a business because if we don't know where we want to go then how do we get there right then I made a list of the people that were doing some of this work that I wanted to support and align myself with and I started building relationships not in a place where I was thinking I'm going to go network and I'm going to meet people to see who I can get something out of but who can I help and really like support and really work in these areas that I want to do so um just a suggestion that that's probably what I would offer just a simple exercise what I would say to um the younger generation about forward motion is just to to start and just keep going like I grew up around a lot of young creative people I grew up around people who were a lot more creative than I than I was but because the results weren't as quick they either became less interested in pursuing or they started to go in another direction which is there's no problem with that but like I feel like the the only thing that that really solidifies me in the position that I'm in now it's just the consistency of just like whatever it is that I that I like that I that I had a heart for like I just didn't stop um and also to not be afraid to ask I think that we recreate the wheel a lot across the board like there's a lot of like I feel like there's so many people who have walked this path before me there's so many people who have walked this path before us and I get the most uh I feel like I get the most development from learning from people who have been there or learning from people who have that type of wisdom and experience to offer so definitely just asking even if the answers don't come right away I'm a little annoying and persistent so like you know if I don't get the answer from that person it's going to be the next person and then the next person or the next thing or I'm gonna um you know look for it in a book or maybe you know a source on the internet but like I'm gonna like like whatever I whatever I need to to go wherever I need to navigate like you just got to be a hundred percent about it it's the willpower I feel like that we got to develop you know even as a community some type of community willpower that's like even when the when the tough gets gets tough like we just got to keep that will spinning um and work through those work through the trenches so I think that's the most important part because you know we're all creative in nature and we all have these ideas that are flowing through us I just think that you know a little a little persistence uh can really go a long way you know so shala so I I just had the blessing of um being with the young people at Bates Dance Festival and ages 14 to 18 generationally this generation coming up it just affirmed for me that every generation is like 2.0 3.0 we're like 5.0 with my niece and nephew I think they're incredible but that that generation coming up they have a language and an embodied knowledge of the kind of fluidity across gender across um race ethnicity background language dynamism in language and and there's something they're amazing there's something amazing coming for future generations and I the only thing that I try to continue to add and I see this as the through line in all of my work about that inter interiority that that place of attuning to yourself inside to really understand just what Anna was saying in terms of your personal mission and vision to always reattune to that because there is so much noise and there is so much disconnection created by technology technology is another blessing but also can have its major major disadvantages in the ways that it fragments us from ourselves and from other people and so I think that that the generation to come is going to have to really grapple with that and we're grappling with that in very real ways but to continue to use dance and use these other ways of embodied knowing and to respect it to respect that dance is a way of knowing and it's really in my in my in other people's conception the only way of knowing is when you experience information we're in the information age and what so I get bits and bits of information does that mean I know something I don't really know something until it's through my system and then I really know something so respect that and and I think with that attunement and respect this generation that's coming is going to I mean we're sitting here with yes we're we're doing what we can now and and for I mean I should make it sound like that we're doing lots of amazing things but I just continue to affirm that that we are doing these amazing things for all the generations to come and and paving the way as people did before us for us I mean the people I think about who we connect back to it's amazing so and we're here and we're here absolutely absolutely here as the mentors and the you know just the ear definitely wonderful so we are just about to wrap up this conversation we have about two minutes but I think that this last question is very important and that is just to leave us with something actionable that we as the audience can do to help propel this new culture forward and I would challenge us to hopefully nail it down to a one-sentence answer if possible we can do it fund dance patronize dance go often collaborate as artists and create a resource whoever wants to take this one on any developers out there in the online world create a resource so that we can bring what's being created in the unseen in the dark to to the visible light in Boston widely we concern ourselves a lot around who we are by who we're with but I think that we should also look at who we are not with so who's not in our spaces create more accessibility for dance shout out to Ellie and the abilities initiative and silent rhythms who's not in the room but I really appreciate them so find out what who's not in the room and bring that to them I will say that something actionable actionable I think things that I've said already you can tell somebody provide amplify this conversation that happened I think that for since 2005 I've been sitting and talking and having the same type of discussion over and over and over with different people and we all get jazzed and then we leave here and then that's it it like fizzles and fades and then we wait for the next wave and we have this conversation again so I think that my actionable item would be for us to continue this conversation in whatever way feels good to you whether it's going for coffee going for a walk sharing something on social media calling your mom whatever it is that is going to help to amplify what is existing right now in the space I challenge us to all take action all of us and I'll just wrap it up by saying come through you know I'm saying my doors is open all the time just come through like yeah come come on I'm out for two weeks as soon as you're back from Amsterdam exactly just just come through like you know just show up find something you know if you can look in your phone right now go on facebook type in dance at the top type in events near me you know find something grassroots find something that's that's building find something that's growing that's different just show up and then don't only show up but bring a friend you know bring some family you know what I mean be like listen I know y'all comfortable with y'all at right now which I need to just come and we about to go on a little exploration a little adventure you know and that's that's actionable I feel like that's that's worthy amazing thank you all so much and if you would join me in thanking these panelists yes give it up one more time for Marissa and all of our fantastic panelists today our tech friends at howl around everyone who made this possible our beautiful host of the bca we still have lots of food um bar still open so um I encourage you to you know say hi to someone you didn't know before um say hi to our panelists if they're open to that um and remember to grab a sheet if you want to keep up with all the amazing work that they're doing in our city