I used to think leadership had to be loud—decisive, polished, always sure. But I’ve learned that real leadership is often quiet. It looks like staying after class to comfort a peer. Like holding eye contact with a student who’s never been told they matter. Like showing up when no one else does, even when your hands are shaking. Growing up in a single-parent household, I learned how to lead myself early. I had to. With limited financial resources and emotional support stretched thin, I learned how to self-direct, self-soothe, and survive. I didn’t always have models of what leadership “should” look like—but I had people who taught me what it feels like. I saw leadership in my mom’s ability to keep going. I saw it in my mentors—Francisco Gella, Sandra Rubi—who carved out room for me to grow when there wasn’t much space to begin with. One of my most formative leadership experiences came this year through teaching dance at 32nd Street USC Magnet School and back home in Albuquerque. These weren’t just jobs—they were personal. I was leading students who come from the same underserved communities I did. Kids who are told to be quiet. Who are rarely asked, “What do you feel?” I didn’t just teach movement—I taught them to listen to their bodies, to trust instinct, to use dance as a voice when words failed. But leadership isn’t clean. I’ve been told no more times than I can count. Rejection from programs I thought I was made for. Unseen effort. Funding falling through. But every no became a redirection. Each one pushed me toward rooms I never would’ve considered—toward spaces like Jacob’s Pillow, Orsolina028, and Nederlands Dans Theater. Each no shaped the leader I’ve become: more compassionate, more creative, and more unshakably committed to those coming up behind me. I lead by example, by empathy, and by showing up. I lead in rooms where no one looks like me—brown, queer, full of feeling—and I lead by refusing to shrink. I lead because I know what it’s like to feel small, and I want to ensure no one else forgets their worth. In my future, I’ll continue to use dance not just to perform, but to transform. I plan to create more accessible arts programs for BIPOC youth, using movement as a tool for healing, storytelling, and liberation. I want to be a director, choreographer, and educator who sees leadership as relational—something you grow through, not into. This scholarship wouldn’t just support my education. It would affirm that leadership isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room—it’s about being the one who listens first, moves with purpose, and dares to reimagine what’s possible.

I come from a single-parent household where love looked like sacrifice. My mom raised three of us on her own, and while I’m grateful for her strength, the truth is—I grew up fast. I learned how to self-soothe, self-advocate, and hold things in until I had a place to put them. That place became dance. It started as an outlet and became a life raft. It taught me how to express what I didn’t have language for—the fear of walking through the world in a brown queer body, the grief of losing friends who never got to share their voice, the urgency to create something honest and whole in a world that often isn’t. Now I study at USC Kaufman, where I’m working toward a future where movement can be a tool for healing and resistance. I teach hip-hop to K–5 students at 32nd Street USC Magnet School and return home to Albuquerque to teach ballet, contemporary, and choreography to young dancers who remind me of myself. Many come from communities where the arts feel like an unreachable luxury. I’m helping them make it real. I want to make space—for students to take up room in their bodies and their stories. For movement to live outside of performance and inside classrooms, neighborhoods, and inner worlds. My choreography is about activating something in the audience—awakening memory, inviting emotion, pushing people to be more embodied in their everyday lives. This scholarship would help me meet the costs most people don’t talk about—gear, tools, survival logistics—so I can keep showing up for the people and places that need this work most. I don’t just want to move—I want to ripple.

Dance gave me a voice before I had the words. As a queer Latinx artist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, I grew up in spaces that didn’t always see or hear me. But movement saw me, held me, and gave me the tools to speak—without having to open my mouth. It became my first language. A way to process identity, emotion, and existence in a world that often asked me to shrink. I’ve stayed in this work because of the mentors who poured into me. Francisco Gella, a Filipino choreographer, and Sandra Rubi, my studio director, showed me that art is more than skill—it’s legacy. Their leadership taught me to pass that legacy forward. Today, I volunteer under Kaufman Connections under the direction of Tiffany Bong. Under this program I teach hip-hop at 32nd Street USC Magnet School, serving elementary students in a minority-majority classroom. I also return home to Albuquerque to teach ballet, contemporary, and choreography at Sandra’s School of Dance and open classes at VIIIZONS Academy. In these spaces, I help young dancers—many from underserved communities—unlock expression they didn’t know they had. My own movement practice deepened when I discovered Gaga, a technique that helped me stop performing and start listening. Gaga taught me to move from sensation, not expectation. It allowed me to show up raw, instinctual, and unfiltered—fully myself. The solo I’m submitting was created using movement scores by my friend and fellow Latinx artist Garris Muñoz. It explores the split cognitive processes carried by many marginalized people: code-switching, hyper-awareness, emotional compression. The work lives in contrast—small to big, slow to fast, release to activation—and reveals truth over polish. I don’t make art to impress—I make it to awaken. I hope my movement stirs something in the audience: a long-buried feeling, a moment of reflection, a shift in how they move through their own life. My goal is to inspire autonomy, embodiment, and deep sentience. But for that to happen, the artistic voices of marginalized communities must be heard. We deserve space, support, and platforms. I don’t just dance for myself—I dance to expand what’s possible.

Growing up, arts education gave me the space to feel fully present in my body. Before I had the words, I had movement. Dance became the first place I could express truth—where I could process, explore, and make sense of my identity as a queer Latinx artist growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Navigating this path hasn’t always been easy, but it’s helped me carve out a version of myself that feels whole. Along the way, I’ve had mentors who shaped me the way Diane Amendt shaped her students—meeting me with belief, patience, and purpose. Francisco Gella, a Filipino choreographer based in New Mexico, poured into my growth as a young artist. He returned to my hometown studio across several years—setting group pieces, teaching master classes, and choreographing my senior solo, The Final Phase. That solo became a reflection of my transformation. It held my history and carried me forward into my next chapter: USC Kaufman. Francisco’s mentorship continued through Zeitgeist Dance Theatre’s trainee program and national dance conventions, helping me understand that movement can be both personal and communal—an offering of presence, power, and representation. Sandra Rubi, my studio director, also modeled what it looks like to create access in overlooked communities. She fought for students from all backgrounds and stood beside me every step of the way. With her support and Francisco’s guidance, I’ve reached opportunities that once felt out of reach, including training at the Nederlands Dans Theater Summer Intensive and the Jacob’s Pillow Contemporary Program. Now, I’m committed to passing that mentorship forward. I teach back home at Sandra’s School of Dance as a contemporary and ballet teacher, planting seeds for growth and exploration within movement to the budding generation of BIPOC artists of Albuquerque, New Mexico. On top of this I offer drop-in classes at VIIIZONS Academy open to the public regardless of level or experience. During my first year at Kaufman I’ve been able to become Kaufman Connections teaching artist in Los Angeles at 32nd Street USC Magnet school, where I teach hip-hop to K-5 students in a minority-majority classroom. Watching students who look like me light up through movement—finding joy, freedom, and creative agency—fuels everything I do. These children remind me why arts education matters. They are the future artists, healers, storytellers—and the reason I continue this work with heart. Dance is how I remember. How I honor the people who helped me rise. How I hold space for those still finding their voice. This scholarship wouldn’t just support my education—it would reflect the cycle of care, guidance, and belief that Diane Amendt embodied. It would help me keep showing up: for my students, my community, and the stories our bodies are still learning to tell.

When I was four, my mom placed me into ballet after watching my older and younger sisters in class. From that moment on, movement became how I understood the world—before I knew how to explain who I was or how I felt. As a queer Latinx boy in ballet, I was often met with resistance: side-eyes from parents, teasing from peers, and a general sense that I didn’t belong. But dance always held me without question. As I grew, so did my understanding of what dance could be. It wasn’t just choreography or performance—it was witnessing, responding, remembering. That’s what led me to improvisation, and more deeply, to Gaga, a movement language developed by Ohad Naharin of the Batsheva Dance Company. At USC Kaufman, under the guidance of Professor Brett Easterling, a former Batsheva dancer himself, I began to study Gaga more intimately. Before, improv felt like creating dance on the spot. But Gaga taught me something deeper—that improvisation is sensation-led awareness, a way of moving that stems not from performance, but presence. It’s about bearing witness to the body in real time, listening to its history, and allowing that to guide how we move through space. That practice—of being inside the body, letting memory and sensation surface, and letting instinct guide form—has become the core of my artistic purpose. I create work rooted in emotional honesty, somatic awareness, and the desire to mirror back the depth of the human experience. Whether I’m teaching young students in the Kaufman Connections Program, performing a solo shaped by personal grief, or experimenting in a studio, my why remains the same: I move to remember, to process, to resist—and to give others permission to do the same. In a time when AI is generating scripts and digital avatars are being cast in commercials, I’m not interested in replicating perfection. I’m interested in being human. In work that is flawed, breathing, trembling, uncertain. I want to make performance that feels alive—work that says, “I felt this, and maybe you did too.” What motivates me is this aliveness. The pulse of something real. In a world where art is being streamlined by AI, where scripts can be written instantly, and movement can be replicated digitally, I still believe in the irreplaceable power of human presence. Of breath. Of weight. Of sweat and stillness and surrender. Technology will change the tools, but not the need to be moved. As a student of the arts, I’m not afraid of change—I’m moved by it. The heartbeat of what I do will always come back to the body—its pain, its joy, its contradictions, its truth. The arts are often undervalued because we forget what they offer: connection, empathy, transformation. I dance because I want to keep that spirit alive. Because movement taught me how to be in the world. And because I believe, deeply, that there is still someone out there waiting to feel seen. And if I can be that mirror—if even one person watches and says me too—then every step will have been worth it.

One of the most important experiences I’ve had at USC has been through Kaufman Connections, a community engagement program led by Professor Tiffany Bong. As part of this program, USC Kaufman students become teaching artists for 32nd Street USC Magnet School, working directly with elementary students in a weekly Hip-Hop workshop. We introduce these young dancers to a form that was born out of resistance and joy—a movement language developed by Black and Hispanic communities. We honor that history, and the kids feel it. The studio becomes a space for more than just learning choreography—it becomes a place of expression, identity, and connection. These students, from all backgrounds, learn not just how to move, but how to support one another, how to tell stories with their bodies, and how to take pride in their voice. The year ends with a culminating performance, and witnessing their transformation—from shy first-timers to proud, expressive movers—is a moment that reminds me why I dance in the first place. It reaffirms that everyone, regardless of income, race, or background, deserves access to creative tools that help them feel seen. Growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I didn’t always have that access. I know what it’s like to feel invisible. My family didn’t come from wealth or cultural capital. What we had was grit, love, and the guidance of a few rare mentors who believed in me. One of those mentors was Sandra Rubi, my studio owner. She created a space for all dancers—especially those who were often overlooked. As a Hispanic woman, she knew firsthand how limited access can be for our community, and she made it her mission to change that. She supported me not just as a dancer, but as a person—and with her belief in me, I began to dream bigger than the borders of my city. With Sandra’s support and the mentorship of Francisco Gella—a Filipino choreographer who choreographed my senior solo and introduced me to professional standards—I eventually earned a place at USC Kaufman. And because of that, I’ve now had the privilege to train at places I once only dreamed of such as the opportunity to attend USC Kaufman. Kaufman Connections brought that truth full circle. It reminded me that visibility is powerful—that when young dancers of color see someone like me in front of them, they’re not just seeing a teacher. They’re seeing proof that they can take up space too. My presence in that classroom is a reminder to the children that everything they're capable of is within them. My dancing, with honesty, is a mirror for those students—just as they are for me. We all have stories stored in our skin, in our gestures, in the way we hold breath and tension and release. Movement gives us a way to tell those stories without needing permission. That’s what I’ve learned: the world isn’t equal in the access it gives, but art can be a bridge. The studio can become a space of transformation, and representation can spark belief. My experience teaching through Kaufman Connections reshaped how I view the relationship between art and community. It showed me that being a performer isn’t just about being onstage—it’s about who you bring with you, and how you choose to lift others while you climb. I hope to one day create similar programs for low-income and marginalized students in my own hometown. Because someone once gave me a chance. Because Sandra Rubi opened a door. Because Francisco Gella saw potential. And now, it’s my turn to do the same.

My favorite part of dancing is the experience of movement as an art form. At USC Glorya Kaufman school of dance, my understanding of movement deepened. Under Brett Easterling, I was introduced to Ohad Naharin’s Gaga technique, which completely reshaped my relationship to dance. Gaga taught me to move from sensation and inner listening rather than outward perfection. I began to trust my instinct, my rawness. At the same time, working with Fiona Lummis Eddy, a former dancer with Nederlands Dans Theater, gave me access to the subtlety and emotional clarity of Jirí Kylián’s choreography. She set his work on us, performing Kylian's Sarabande comprised of multiple male solos and through that, I learned how to hold weight, tension, and stillness with intention. These professors didn’t just refine my movement—they helped me discover the language I was meant to speak. Outside the university, mentorship has played a vital role in shaping my journey. Francisco Gella, a Filipino choreographer based in New Mexico, taught at my studio across multiple years—setting my junior year group piece, guest teaching, and ultimately choreographing The Final Phase, my senior solo. That solo became a milestone—it held my history and momentum, and helped me get into USC. Francisco’s guidance through Zeitgeist Dance Theatre continues to inform the way I move—with integrity, generosity, and curiosity. Sandra Rubi, my studio owner, believed in me when I didn’t yet know how to believe in myself. By supporting and fighting for me, she helped me reach spaces that once felt out of reach. With her advocacy and Francisco’s mentorship, I’ve had recently received opportunity to train at the Nederlands Dans Theater Summer Intensive in The Hague, Netherlands, and the Jacob’s Pillow Contemporary Program in Massachusetts. I’ve fought to stand in these esteemed rooms with artists I once looked up to from afar. My dedication has also led me to Orsolina028 in Turin, Italy, where I studied the repertoire of Crystal Pite and Marco Goecke, and to the Ballet BC Summer Intensive in Vancouver, British Columbia. These experiences didn’t just sharpen my technique—they deepened my purpose. I’m drawn to movement that is instinctual, animalistic, emotional—language that lives in the bones. Artists like Crystal Pite, Goecke, and Kylián showed me that dance can be intimate and enormous at once. That’s what I want my work to hold: the tension of vulnerability and power, the echo of a personal history moving through space. After graduation, I plan to perform with contemporary companies that engage with social and emotional storytelling. I want to choreograph and collaborate on work that speaks to ecological awareness, memory, and transformation—creating space for others to feel seen through movement the way I was. My dream companies include Nederlands Dance Theatre, and Ballet BC, and Batsheva Dance Company all of which I've attended an intensive, plan to attend one, or have been exposed to the movement languages within these companies. All of this happened because I was believed in and somebody took a chance on me. This scholarship wouldn’t just support my education—it would allow me to continue to deepen my knowledge of dance and movement to share with others, and help me invest in the ongoing journey of an artist still uncovering what’s possible. I move to process, to express, to remember. I move in hopes that someone, somewhere, feels a little less alone. And I’ll keep moving—for all of us who are still finding our way back into our bodies and into belonging.

I believe the body is a site of remembrance. It holds everything we’ve lived through—every experience, every joy, every trauma, every lesson. The body is never blank. Every scar, birthmark, blemish, or stretch is evidence that we’ve moved through the world, that we’ve survived something, learned something, or felt something deeply. We tend to overlook these details, but to me, they’re reminders of what it means to be human. As a dancer, I’m constantly reflecting on how my body holds memory. The way I move is shaped by my lived experience—my queerness, my Latin identity, moments of intimacy that felt confusing, and moments of power that felt freeing. Dance has helped me process things I didn’t have words for. It's been the place where I’ve been able to reframe past experiences, especially those where I didn’t feel in control of my body or my boundaries. I’ve learned that movement can be a form of reclamation—of saying, “This is mine again.” Dance has acted as a way to allow myself to strip the societal contracts placed onto my body. To see myself as a natural being and straying away from a notion of "other" by simply being. Exploring the space in my skin has allowed me to love myself and share my experiences through the art of movement. When I perform or create, I’m not doing it just to be watched. I move with the hope that someone in the room might feel something—might feel seen, or understood, or not so alone. Even if they don’t know exactly what they’re connecting to, maybe something in the imagery or physicality resonates. That’s when dance feels most important to me—when it becomes a mirror or a window for someone else. My work is rooted in human experience. I don’t want to just entertain, I want to express what it feels like to exist in a body, especially a body that has often had to fight to be heard, respected, and held. I want to create visual, emotional experiences through movement that go beyond surface-level beauty. I want to make work that reaches into people, that opens something up. For my work I have submitted a video from my Sophomore Composition/Choreography class where I'm dancing my own choreography with Eloise Valero in a piece titled "Scars of Sancity" The bio reading, "what generational experiences have been etched in flesh?" This piece explores the emotions, feelings, and stored experiences we carry in our bodies. How has my mother and her mother's experiences live through my body? Alongside is are action shots from a shoot I did for this piece with Emiko Ohta. I also think dance can radically resist the societal narratives placed on marginalized bodies. As someone who hasn’t always felt safe or celebrated in traditional dance spaces, I understand how important it is to create space—for myself and for others. When I take up space on stage, it’s an act of resistance, but also of healing. And every time someone tells me they felt something during a piece, I’m reminded that this work matters—not just for me, but for everyone trying to see themselves reflected in movement.

I’m pursuing a career in dance because movement is where I’ve always found the most truth. As a queer Latin artist, dance became the space where I felt powerful, honest, and capable of connecting beyond language. I’m currently studying at my dream conservatory, and although the rigor is intense, it’s taught me how to be both resilient and responsive—to meet my body where it’s at while still pushing forward. Last summer, I trained at Orsolina28 in Turin, Italy, where I had the opportunity to perform and learn the esteemed works of Crystal Pite’s repertoire as well as Marco Goecke. That same summer, I also attended the Ballet BC intensive, training with and learning Medhi Walerski's "Sway" as well as learning "Last Flower" By Out Innerspace. Those experiences were huge for me—not only in refining my technique but in helping me understand the kind of mover and collaborator I want to be: rigorous, generous, and deeply attuned to sensation. I’ve since been accepted to the esteemed NDT Summer Intensive (Nederlands Dance Theater) in the Hague, Netherlands and the school at Jacob’s Pillow Contemporary Program, but financial strain is putting my education as well as those opportunities at risk. I’ve worked hard to earn those acceptances and still hope to find a way to attend. I’m committed to making dance that feels real—work that is embodied, emotional, and rooted in connection. Whether performing or choreographing, I want to move people the way dance has always moved me.