The first time I experienced the arts was in middle school when I participated in regional painting competitions. Even though I left painting behind, it permit me to discover a new art, theater. As a shy person, I didn't know what told me to join the theater club at my school. I am still an introvert, but theater has helped me developed my communication and creative skills. Now, I want to live my life on stage, behind the camera, as a designer, all of it. The need to create is essential. My favorite teacher from high school, we will call him Adam. This teacher taught me many theater-related classes like acting, theater history, corporal expression, etc. Adam has a strange personality, but when he talks about theater he's an encyclopedia, one of those people who know how to teach and assist you. He told me: "You are a student, mess up, make mistakes. Don't worry if you did it wrong, but at least do it." As a creator, this advice motivates me to move and stop mentally blocking my mindset. Art helps share a community's message, to express how culture and society live in the here and now. One example is making a compilation about people's experiences dealing with poverty (which is common in my community). Taking these testimonies, you can create a dance, a play, take meaningful photographs, direct a film, etc. In the art community, I failed by forgiving the violence theater directors have towards their crew members and actors. I thought that since they are the directors, they have the ability to treat us however they please, because we do it for the art. Now I know I must have self respect, and draw the line between what is professional and what is utter disrespect.

I cannot say that the pandemic helped me economically or in my education at the time, but what I can say is that it helped me mentally and emotionally. Before the pandemic, I was (and still am) a shy person. I didn´t have many friends mostly because distanced myself from people. I would sometimes go to social gatherings but not really do much. I thought being alone and without so many people was what I wanted, until COVID hit. Being in isolation started out fine, it was like an extra-long vacation. After about 9 months I started to miss people, I had a need to be with others and talk. I also discovered a more serious kind of loneliness, I felt like I was in solitude. It seems like a negative result instead of a positive, but let me assure you that understanding that I needed to take care of my mental health is a good thing the quarantine gave me, before I didn´t care about myself in that way. After quarantine, I expanded my social group, I was finally able to grow as a person who doesn´t have to be alone in this world.

I have a hard time deciding on my favorite things, but at the moment my favorite artist is Lin Manuel Miranda. Though he has many talents, the one that particularly captures my interest is the lyrics in his musicals "Hamilton" and "In the Heights". He is a very intelligent person, not only do these lyrics have a musical beauty to them but are also filled with historical messages and a lot of subtexts (speaking of Hamilton). As for the second musical, I love how the lyrics express the troubles of the Latin community in the US, I especially identified with the song "Breathe" which talks about a college girl who believes she fails because she couldn´t save enough for the tuition. They are beautiful pieces translated from Miranda's mind to the physical world with the power of the arts.

Video Essay: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JvoKx06nxdwUwTKt54dBg4lMBKD03VHD/view?usp=sharing Broadway Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbX-horHdjgRbIb8JLEQIkQ

Art: A Living Phenomenon Being an artist means being a creator; transferring what originates from your mind to the sensible world is true beauty in its form. Creation isn't an easy process; many obstacles make the journey a little longer than expected. Art must push you to take action like a constant impulse living inside you that wants to explore and share its energy with the world. We can define art with a quick Google search: "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, (...)". If you ask me what art is, I would say it is a living phenomenon that expresses what we perceive from our reality or what to share from our capabilities. I emphasize the word living which is the word that drives me to create. I know it isn't just me who has this necessity to do art, whatever you define it to be. I could be sitting down, reading a book, or looking at my phone and an idea can pop into my head: "What if I make a video about this word I just read? How about I talk to some friend to make a cool choreography about so and so? Do you know what would be cool? If I suddenly just get up and paint.". How does art connect with me? It is what I want to dedicate my life to, it is what I have to do just to be sane. It is impossible to tell you how this art will look like in the future because it changes, grows, and is inconsistent. I discovered my love for this discipline years too late, my first dance class what at the age of 17. When I was young, we were always encouraged to pursue what society calls 'a real job', especially when I lived in Mexico. Art usually isn't an ideal career option, so there are many talented artists out there who don't even know it. I am currently in an independent project in which we share our community's talent, and I must say it is amazing to witness these people working and being driven like me to the arts. In conclusion, I want to share the artists of our generation but it is complicated to do it alone. If you ever had this impulse to create, you must be familiar with it not simply going away. I want to finish school and help grow our current group to motivate and aid young artists, such as myself, to bring our ideas to life. In the attached link you can see a few of the projects we were able to do while in Mexico.

I cannot say dance and the performing arts have been present in my life since the beginning, like many other talented people. It was when I moved to Mexico when the arts became a reality, in one theater class in middle school. I attended a high school inclined to the arts and fell in love with all the different ways to express on self. I took a deep interest in theater, which was a challange since I am a shy person. I remember how exilerating it felt to be on a stage, how easy it was to be infront of a crowd. I started to focus on my acting and also started ballet lessons, it was difficult starting at such a late age but I knew it wa something I wanted to do for me. Choosing the performing arts as a career choice was not hard, but there were and still are obstacules. One of the challenges was family, many peope would comment on how complicated it was to make a living on theater and dance and suggested I do it as a hobby. Another obstacle was that I did not have and economic resources to go to particular classes, I would find anyone who would invite me over, many professors would have extra classes for those who wanted to learn and I gladly accepted, I would also try and participate as much as I can in any proyect I could find. Though I had these impediments and even close calls I when through it and started to study theater. The performing arts isn´t just a hobby for me, it is what I want to dedicate my life to because I want to do what I love for a living. I don't want to spend the rest of my time thinking on what could have been and where I could have gone. I remember one of my teachers saying: "Don't think, just do", it stuck with me because fear is something I struggled deeply with and it has held me back. When you are passionate about something, you look for ways to overcome it. I want to use the arts so people can see that you can creat beautiful thinks with your voice, body and imagination. That is how I want to touch the lives of anyone who accepts it, so we can motivate more creators and see what us humans are capable of. In conclsion, you can see how these artistic disciplines can influence anyone, even someone like me who had no interest in such things until a couple of years too late. The more we can share the faster people will explore these aspects of life usually cancelled out but logic and order, it is time to let loose and discover what is illogical, what is subjective and what conforms the world we build, show how we percieve life through our hands, vioces and our minds.