TOURING UP A STORM!

We have been touring up a storm this past month and a half - right after finishing an incredible tour to St. Paul, MN where we performed and did a week long residency at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. We worked with middle school students, teen mothers at the AGAPE School, I lectured on Salsa and Gender for a community college class (Intercultural Communication), Arco Iris (Afro-Puerto Rican Community Center where they teach, dance and play Bomba), several master classes at Ordway and at the Performing Arts HS next door! It was a whirlwind of a week! Not to mention, we danced with the Grammy Award winning band TIEMPO LIBRE. Once we got back from this amazing experience, we stayed in LA for a week and headed back out to NYC. There we

performed for the Celia Cruz Bronx HS of Music! This is our company's first partner school in NYC! We hope to find a few more next year - and thanks to a three year grant (2010-2011 is the first year) we will be in the Bronx for the next two years! So excited to have an excuse to come back to New York. The students of Celia Cruz WORKED it and really inspired and moved us with their talent, skill, energy and SABOR! Now I am in Dallas, TX (the rest of the co. is still in LA) representing CONTRA-TIEMPO at the 25th Anniversary conference for the the NPN (National Performance Network). Already it has been an inspiring few days - to share the space with such and incredible group of artists, activists and cultural workers! I feel excited about taking on more leadership. I am committed to stepping outside of just making sure CONTRA-TIEMPO is thriving - but fighting and standing for the ARTS to THRIVE in this country. I know it can look bleak out there -but we have to believe that the arts will prevail and continue to fight for our society to get a clue... and realize that the world won't make sense without artists! And we AREN'T going anywhere!