INTRO: Trailblazer
Precious: It was a Barbie karaoke machine that started it all.
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Precious: When I was around six years old, I had my little cassette tapes and the little headset, and I was just in my room singing to the radio and recording myself.
Claire: Precious Perez knew she was going to be a musician from a very young age.
Precious: I loved music class. I participated in the chorus and started writing songs in middle school. 'cause I loved creative writing and I loved literature. That's probably what led me to song lyrics.
Claire: She earned a scholarship to Berklee College of Music right out of high school where she learned that she would be the first blind student at Berklee to pursue a music education degree.
Precious: So I knew that going to college in general as a blind student, Was going to have its challenges. I would email teachers myself and say, “Hi, I'm your student this semester. These are the things I use. These are the things I need. Please let me know if you have anything that you need me to know or that I need to get converted or, you know, made accessible.” And one of these professors wouldn't respond, I walked into their classroom and he said, in front of the entire class, “Can you tell by my voice that I'm surprised to see you here?” And so I sat there for 40 minutes. In this theory class, so uncomfortable.
And come to find out, he went over my head, talked to his chair to get me switched out of his class, and I ended up with a professor who had never had a blind student before, but was amazing. So I dodged a real bullet there, but it's just unfortunate that that had to be what happened.
Claire: Precious proceeded through a dual music education and music performance degree for three years. Her senior year, she needed to complete a certain number of student teaching hours inside of a classroom. So the May before her senior year started, Precious met with her accessibility team.
Precious: One of the things that they had said was, well, you're going to need somebody to be your eyes, and my reply was, why?
I'm confident in what I can do myself. So why is that necessary? And the answer I got was, the practitioners can't support you in that way, so that's just what needs to happen.
Claire: Precious says the department put out a job listing for a paraprofessional who would attend Precious's student teaching hours with her. throughout the summer, the department interviewed a number of applicants, but they never hired anyone for the role.
Precious: The first day of the semester came, and I wasn't in the classroom. I, myself, wasn't allowed to teach because they told me legally I was not allowed to start teaching unless there was somebody set to be in that room with me, and they tried to tell me that it was a district requirement for me to have a para.
I emailed the district. The district said no in writing, When Berklee was confronted with this information, response was, well, it's a Berklee requirement. thereby delaying my graduation, which I could not afford to do.
I don't think I've ever been more outraged and angry. In my entire life,
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Precious: I didn't get to start actually teaching until October, and that was because the practitioner that I worked with in the primary school, bless her, she said, there's no reason why this shouldn't be happening. We have paraprofessionals in every classroom.
We can just say they're yours. And that's how they were able to get me to start student teaching.
Claire: Precious ended up having an amazing time as a student teacher, and she found opportunities to make up the in-class hours so she could graduate on time.
Precious: The way it looked legally was, oh, well you graduated, so it doesn't matter. But my whole thing was it does matter. It matters for anybody else that comes after me. It matters because this is not how anybody should ever be treated and nobody should ever have to go through what I went through.
Claire: Precious funneled this experience and all of her experiences as a blind musician into advocacy work. She's now the president of RAMPD, which stands for Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities.
Precious: We have a global network of talent that the industry can source, find, and hire. And we also provide our membership with various opportunities to elevate disability culture in the industry by participating on panels and really advocating and uplifting and celebrating disability. And we are one of the official partners for the Recording Academy. I definitely wouldn't be where I am without RAMPD.
Claire: In addition to advocacy, she’s also a professional musician, and is releasing a Latin Music EP later this year.
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Precious: My upcoming project is unapologetically who I am as a blind woman of color, celebrating every part of myself. This project really captures. All of the facets of growth, letting go of toxicity, and just love, love and light is what I always aim to spread with everything I do and every part of my work. And so I'm just so thrilled for this music to be out in the world.
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Claire: Last year, Precious was invited to speak at a panel for Berklee's career day where she shared the truth about her college experience, both good and bad.
Precious: So I have since let go of all of that pain and all of that anger, 'cause I realized that it was not serving me to hold onto it anymore. ?And now I get to say that I am a full-time Latin music artist. And the best way that I could affect change was by talking about it and telling my story and also by example.
And so I didn't give up and I couldn't give up because this is what I wanted for me and I wanted anyone else who wanted to pursue it to understand that they could do that too, even if it is hard 'cause life is hard in general, but there is power in overcoming things.
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Claire: You're listening to ARTS WORK LIFE, a podcast from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. I'm Claire Caulfield, and today's episode, which is the first of Season Four, is about trailblazers. Being the first to do something comes with accolades and recognition, but it can also be really lonely.
Today we bring you the stories of four trailblazers. Four performing arts professionals who broke barriers, but not just for their own advancement, but to create opportunities for others. Coming up, revelations from one of America's first Black ballerinas, behind the scenes at South Africa's only Opera House and then a story about the power of rediscovering your roots while making a new path forward.
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Act One: Barre None
Claire: Act One Barre None.
Lydia Abarca Mitchell first stepped foot in a ballet studio when she was about 10 years old. It was the late 1950s, and as a black girl from Harlem, she had never been exposed to ballet before, but a sharp-eyed nun at her school saw that she had a natural talent for the art.
Lydia won a full dance scholarship to Julliard, then known as the Manhattan School of Music, and she went on to become a founding member of Dance Theater of Harlem and shattered barriers for black dancers on the stage and screen.
Now at 74 years old, she shares her journey of building a dance legacy. Here's Lydia.
Lydia: I didn't love ballet to tell you the honest truth. After two years, I quit. I didn't see where ballet was taking me.
I didn't get it.
One of my sisters, she said, “Lydia, there's a man coming, a black man and he's gonna be teaching ballet.” And I thought, well. “Okay. He might make it more relatable, make it more fun, make it more dancey.”
And it was Arthur Mitchell.
He's the first black principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, and he was born and raised in Harlem as well. He also took me to my very first ballet live performance at the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I recognized so many of the steps. We did that in class. “Oh yeah, we did that too.” I had no idea what I had been studying for. And so Arthur Mitchell, very, very tough task master, but what a mentor he was to me.
Claire: In 1969, Arthur Mitchell created the first African American classic ballet company Dance Theater of Harlem, and Lydia was one of the founding members.
Lydia: He was driven. He explained that this wasn't just about us as individuals. This was a mission. we were unfortunately going to have to prove that black people could do ballet, which we could, but we had to do it in such a way that it was energetic, technically correct. You had to have a really strong backbone.
And there were some dancers who could not take it.
He wanted us to dress a certain way. We had to speak a certain way. Yes, we're from Harlem, but we are ballet dancers.
And we were good because he wouldn't accept anything less than our best. And so that's what kind of teacher he was. You know, you either put up or you leave. And so those who of us who stuck it out learned so much
Claire: This experience bonded the artists, and Lydia became especially close with a group of five other ballerinas known as the Swans of Harlem. One of the members, Coia, actually moved from Colorado to New York after seeing Lydia on the cover of a magazine.
Lydia: she said, I've never seen a black ballerina. On the cover of Dance Magazine. So she was able to get an audition with us.
Claire: When Coia walked into the dressing room before her audition, she saw the other black dancers preparing their pink ballet shoes and tights by applying makeup to match their skin tone.
Lydia: And that's when she said, wait a minute, this is my home.
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Lydia: We've been friends for over 57 years.
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Lydia: We each had our own stories. We each are so honored that we got to do what we did with Dance Theater of Harlem and to meet each other and love each other.
There, there were many of us. We grew into many, and we formed a sisterhood.
What a sisterhood, because again, Arthur Mitchell was a hard task master.
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Lydia: I grew up in the projects, the oldest of seven, and it was always my dream to be able to. Oh, I get emotional about it still.
I was a star, but it was always a dream of mine to be able to at least give my parents a down payment to get out of the projects, and it never happened, and so.
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Lydia: There was something missing. And it, you know, I hate to say it was money, but it would've helped a lot. I know some of the other dancers came from middle class families, or, you know, they had been exposed to ballet.
They knew what they were working towards and they knew. What the goal was, but mine was to be this fantastic ballerina just assumed that the money would come with it.
Claire: In the late 1970s, Lydia and 10 other dancers from Dance Theater of Harlem were offered contracts to dance in a movie adaptation of The Wiz. It was not only a great opportunity, but it came with fair payment. When Lydia and the other dancers told Arthur Mitchell about the opportunity, Lydia said he fired all eleven of them on the spot.
Lydia: He said we were the dumb eleven.
And, we signed a contract and we're working with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Lena Horne. Come on, Mr. Mitchell.
Claire: After the Wiz, Lydia traveled the world and performed in various musicals and productions, but over time things changed. Many of her contemporaries left the arts either for a different career or to start a family.
The AIDS epidemic claimed the lives of many of her dance partners. Then when Lydia injured her knee, she knew it was time to say goodbye to a life on the stage.
Lydia: There should be a plan B, and that's because even for any athlete, there's that possibility that you could get injured. when I was growing up, you didn't have dance and college. If you wanted to do college, you had to leave dance and concentrate on that.
I think right now the opportunity is so great to be able to do both, and the dance classes at colleges are so much better and prepare you for a theater, And still get your degree. I didn't have a plan B, unfortunately. I was grew up in the fifties and sixties and I, I was gonna be this star and then, okay, I got injured.
But again, it happened for a reason. And here I am talking to you about things that I did. 50 years ago. So you never know what life's gonna bring you, but I, I really do wish I had been better prepared to move on.
Claire: Lydia found another career working in medical transcription. Got married and raised two children, but ballet was still calling.
After Lydia and her family moved to Georgia, she ended up meeting another group of Dance Theater of Harlem alumni.
Lydia: They came down here and started their own company, ballet Ethnic.
But you combine it, bal-ethnic, and they do two productions a year, the Urban Nutcracker and Leopard Tail, and they would have Miss Lydia come in and rehearse kids. So I did that for over 20 years as well as the medical transcription. So I had two hats on. Oh no, the third hat is mom, wife, I'm forgetting all of those.
But, uh, it was a very fulfilling. Career that I have, and I still, they still call me every now and then to come in and watch a rehearsal. and everything.
When I first came on board, I could hear Arthur Mitchell coming out. With my corrections, but it was all with love. You know, I could be tough, I could be tough, but I didn't have to tear anybody down to get the results.
Yeah. So, um, I'm very proud that people could tell when Miss Lydia came in and worked on the production.
Very clean, very, energetic. And I, give thanks to Mr. Mitchell.
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Claire: During the pandemic, Lydia reconnected with her five closest friends from Dance Theater of Harlem-- those swans. Over Zoom meetings, they caught up reminisced and decided to start telling the world about their groundbreaking work.
Lydia: I just so much wanted to let everyone know how important it is to know your history. Even we talk about the shoulders that we stand on, Raven Wilkinson or Janet Collins or Dolores Brown it doesn't take anything away from anybody else to give them their flowers.
It's our job to let people know what we did, and explain how important it is to diversify ballet because people wanna see people that looked like them on stage.
It's just such an, a window into the world of ballet, that was, pushed away from dancers of color for why, We could do ballet, we could do basketball, we could do baseball, we could do everything.
You know, it's just about opportunity.
Claire: Lydia Abarca Mitchell a dancer currently living in Marietta, Georgia.
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Act Two: A Day in the Life
Claire: This season, we're introducing a new segment called A Day In the Life. Every episode will take you on a journey with a different performing arts professional recording in real time, an on-the-ground perspective of their arts, their work, and their life.
And so for Act two, here's Magdalene Minar.
Magdalene (interview): I am the artistic director of Cape Town Opera. We are the only full-time opera company on the African continent, which is really, exciting, but it's also frightening at times.
Magdalene (self-record): I'm walking into the theater now. Just got a coffee from across the road 'cause we're gonna need it.
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Magdalene (interview): So Aida has been an opera that I've, that I've been wanting to tackle for a long time. And, uh, it's just been incredibly exciting to see how the project, you know, comes together. And in this particular production of Aida, we've set it in the future in a thousand years from now. So it's got that very strong sci-fi element to it, but it's also playful in the sense that we don't know what it's going to be like in a thousand years from now. So it's, it's allowed us a lot of a lot of playing room, which is really nice.
Magdalene (self-record): I'm running to get us all snacks 'cause we all feel like eating is going to make us feel better while they’re still figuring out….
Magdalene (interview): My, my days really do vary. You know, it can be a very adminy day where I spend a lot of time behind my computer. But I also have days where it's very much about the artists. Um, attending a lot of rehearsals. Oftentimes it's, spending lots of time with donors, and some of our high, more high-end patrons. In about two weeks’ time, when we are done with Aida, we will be starting on our planning for the next season. So then it's budgets all day. Uh, so it really is a mixed bag. My days never look the same.
Magdalene (self-record): This has been a hurry up-and-wait morning. Look how beautiful it is in Cape Town.
Magdalene (interview): I'm also a mom, so, the school phoned me, and I had to go and fetch my child and take her back home. So that happens!
Magdalene (self-record): I have not had two hours to catch up on my life for weeks and weeks and weeks. So it's amazing to see the outside of theater.
Magdalene (interview): This has been the biggest show we've done in a long time, and it's organizing, uh, more than a hundred people to, you know, be on the same page, so it’s quite hard to get that right.
Magdalene (self-record): Oh, well, they're a little bit behind and the floor is still drying and some things, I'm just catching up on admin, checking the ticket sales. We are doing really well.
Magdalene (interview): So it's been three and a half years of being artistic director, the thing that that struck me most is how, You are really at the forefront and any flack that the company gets, you get first, which was quite a hard thing for me to, you know, come to terms with. But you quickly learn to have a little bit of a thick skin and just, you know, wiggle your way through the bumps.
Magdalene (self-record): (Singing) We are in the costume room. (Speaking) Um, bits and bobs because we haven't finalized everything. Uh, and now we are sitting up for our first stage and piano rehearsal. Very exciting.
Magdalene (interview): So on Friday night, we opened a new production of Aida, and the reviews were just coming in, um, yesterday and today. So it's really exciting.
>>sound of applause
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Magdalene (interview): Opening night was, uh, fantastic. It has been an absolute like, uh. Sell out a show, which is, uh, new for us Since COVID, we lost a lot of audience. So, um, it's been a, it's been hard work to get people back to the theaters, So I'm very proud of that.
Claire: Magdalene Minar is the artistic director of Cape Town Opera.
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Act Three: Let It Rain
Claire: Act three, Let It Rain.
After earning a graduate degree in arts management, Yura Sapi founded themselves working in bustling New York City,
Their work in fundraising and management for some major arts institutions meant Yura spent their days popping in and out of high rises all around Manhattan.
Yura was living many people's dream, but felt that something was missing.
>> fade up subway sound
During one of their many long subway commutes from Brooklyn to Times Square, it started to rain.
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Yura: The lifestyle that I was living felt very counter to what my spirit really was asking for.
Just feeling very, very packed in those trains in the morning, feeling like you're just part of this machine of, capitalism in New York and just, this like cog of just the world and, I also have these memories of, of being in the subway and when it's raining and it's, you know, just like flooding the subway, and I'm looking around and I'm like, I don't want this to be, how it ends for me, to be in the subway with these rainstorms.
I think that was like a metaphor for really the pressure, the pressure to break out. Wanting to make a bigger impact And knowing that at these institutions, it just is, is hard to really see that happen fast.
You know, the larger the budget, the more people involved, the harder it is to really change and be nimble and do something totally different and just try something new. And looking back, I understand that at the time it was frustrating, it led me to want to create something new.
Claire: Yura met with their mentor from graduate school who advised them to give the 9-to-5 another chance. Yura was in their early twenties at the time, and starting a new organization was a big risk. But that wasn't the only change Yura wanted to make. They wanted to leave America. Yura's parents and grandparents are immigrants from Colombia and Ecuador, and Yura holds citizenship in all three countries.
Yura: So I knew that there was something calling me to go be Ecuadorian, be Colombian, really understand what, what does it mean to be a citizen?
When I first arrived you know, My Spanish was not where it's at now. And that was definitely a journey to, to figure out, you know, language and communication.
One of the big things was getting to start a physical brick and mortar art space. So that was in Bogota at the end of 2019, going into 2020.
We had daily programs, all kinds of activities and gatherings, workshops, performances.
We even had some like vegan cooking classes.
Just sharing a lot of representation in Bogota, creating this hub for creativity.
What happened was the pandemic, of course, and, uh, decided to shut down the space, the physical space for safety and went virtual.
So that was cool too because we got to now be with people in Peru and Venezuela and Chile and Mexico. And even, you know, allies and friends in the US and Canada.
So I learned a lot as a 25-year-old. Brick-and-mortar business owner that really set up the stage for where I'm at now in terms of leadership
And, actually one of the things that the pandemic also brought from going virtual was. Bringing me to a more remote rural area of Colombia called Nuqu. It's a Black and Indigenous territory community known for its biodiversity. It's kind of like the Amazon, in terms of tropical rainforest, rivers and it's also on the Pacific coast.
>> natural sounds of forest, waves, river
Thermal baths, dolphins and whales that come and surfing. So it's, it's a really beautiful paradise.
Claire: Instead of checking the bus schedule, Yura learned to read the tides. If the river was running too high, they couldn't take a boat into the village for meetings. A major rainstorm would knock out the electricity, But this forced reconnection with nature also forced Yura to spend intense creative time with the people who call Colombia home. And Yura's company called Libra Arte was born out of this commitment to both the planet and the people living on it.
Yura: One of the music groups that's really big here. We partnered with early on to help them grow. so we developed a relationship that grew as well with LiberArte we incorporated them, developing their work, us helping on festivals here.
And then eventually we got to bring them to the US last year for a tour along the East coast, which was really powerful.
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Yura: What we're working on now is building this movement globally that positions art and artists as this under-resourced, underfunded, underestimated, but powerful vehicle for social change that will actually be the catalyst that gets us to solving all these problems that we're facing,
The power of the arts, whether in the civil rights movement, even considering indigenous people that steward the majority of the world's biodiversity, use cultural artistic practices to do that. So we basically are just trying to highlight more of what's already there and help move the needle in that way.
So this experience with this music group, bringing their wisdom of really, earth connection, community, and sistrality. Even the instruments are a whole story of where they come from in the forest and being made and then bringing that to an audience like New York, that was really powerful.
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Yura: At the end of. their tour, they were invited to perform at the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity, COP16, and that was kind of what we were going for, this whole idea of wanting to fill these spaces with more arts, with more representation, more storytelling, more emotional connection, and the awakening of creativity for all.
It's very local, but also global.
Claire: Yura said that for a long time they thought that getting far away from New York City was what made this dream possible. But now they actually see that it was this unique mix of perspectives being raised in the city and then pivoting to farms and forests that gave them the insight needed to launch these global tours.
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Claire: And when it rains, it's a reminder to consider all perspectives.
Yura: The rain was speaking to me even back then as to say, “We are powerful. We should be listening.”
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Yura: It does make a lot of sense to be now in one of the world's rainiest places.
The way when we get to listen to nature, what is it that they're asking of us as humans, as stewards of the earth to, to do, to change, to adjust. And you know, these floods of these subway systems are kind of saying, there needs to be a change. We need to adjust. This isn't working, this isn't in balance.
And what can we do with the arts, with the stories, that's where we can come in.
You can dream big, you can desire, and believe in something that maybe doesn't exist in your life right now, but you know that it's out there and it's possible and you don't know what it is exactly, the details, and that's totally okay.
Claire: Yura Sapi is the CEO of LiberArte. They split their time between Chocó, Colombia and New York City.
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Outro & Credits
Claire: Thank you for listening. ARTS. WORK. LIFE. is a production from APAP, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals.
The opinions expressed in this podcast are that of the storytellers and not necessarily those of APAP.
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Claire: APAP is the national service organization for the performing arts, presenting, booking, and touring industry.
You can join APAP at APAP365.org. The podcast team includes Grace Asuncion and Sam Meyers, all led by Jenny Thomas, our executive producer, and I'm Claire Caulfield, your host and producer.
Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions and Precious Perez.
Lydia Abarca Mitchell from Act One was recently featured in a book called The Swans of Harlem by Karen Valby.
This podcast wouldn't be possible without the generous support of the Wallace Foundation. So thank you.
Other thank yous to the APAP staff and board of directors, and, of course, our storytellers today and the hundreds of thousands of arts workers across the world.
Your stories matter, and arts workers are essential.
If you enjoyed this episode, which I really hope you did, please leave us a review as it helps other people find the show.
Carolyn: Arts, Work, Life. That’s real *laugh*
