Future Scenarious is a bilingual kick-butt performing artist-activist and scholar with her own performing arts collective that produces work that matters and supports her community.

If my life were a map, you would find me somewhere at the intersection of art, activism, and your local library. I love to laugh and spend time with my loved ones. I love to create and explore. I thrive on bringing light to that which is unknown or ignored. As a multi-disciplinary artist, I believe that the role of any artistic piece, is to express truth and thereby invoke the seeds of change. As an MFA in Acting Candidate at Columbia University one of my future goals as an artist and scholar is to use my education to advocate for the arts and more importantly, people. As an artist, I have already faced some known challenges and have begun to anticipate future ones. I ask myself constantly, why pursue a career that is deemed "unstable"; a career in which right now as we speak, thousands of people are striking just to be able to support themselves and their families? I ask myself this, and then I hop on a zoom call with one of my students, and I talk about acting with them and I hear a sunrise when I encourage them to use their voice unabashedly. I ask myself this, and then I stand in a room with 15 other young adults and we cry, and we laugh, and we play, and we heal and make art together. We hold each other accountable while lifting each other up, there is no ground. I ask myself this, and then after showing a family member a performance piece they have tears in their eyes and reach out for a hug. This is why having a career in the arts is important to me. For ages, humans have told each other stories and made art together. This art was not made to be vain or to make a bunch of money, it was made to sustain culture, keep hope alive, and to commune with those you love. Art is a necessary piece of our lives and it's true essence can not be purchased or commodified. Eventually, I want to own a physical space that hosts events and classes for people of all ages. This space will provide a creative outlet as well as operate as a communal gathering spot. We need art and community and we need people willing to spend time creating them both. I want to continue to pour into the stories of those around me for the rest of my life, it's not just a career but a way of life.

My earliest performance memory takes me back to reciting lines from the movie A Little Princess in the middle of the mall to a half-enthused crowd. I don’t remember the moments leading up to me being on that stage, but I do remember being extremely excited at the prospect that I might end up on someone’s TV screen one day. As I went through elementary and middle school, I didn’t have many opportunities for performance, my studies and my books became primary occupations. I was still prone to being dramatic and acting out skits and dances with my cousins, but I had very little guidance on what it meant to be an actor. During my undergraduate degree, I majored in Sociology and minored in theatre. As I got further into my sociology studies, I became more aware of the importance of storytelling. The topics of my classes were making their way into the poetry that I performed on campus and into the theatre pieces that I was drawn to. Art and academics began to collide in the most surreal way. I started to realize the depths of what it means to be a storyteller, especially as a Black woman. Through study you learn that it is about so much more than just putting on a performance, it is about preserving history and creating community. Performance is a tool that allows me to become an active change agent. This scholarship would allow me to be equipped with the proper tools to solidify my foundations as an actor. As a first-generation college student and young black woman, my acceptance into Columbia University’s MFA in Acting program is something that little Scenarious had only dreamed of. Toni Morrison, tells her students “When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” That is why a career in the arts is important to me. One of my future goals as an artist and scholar is to use my education to advocate for the arts as well as create a pedagogy that directly marries the performing arts with sociology. I see a world where we are more intentional about the art that we create, and we use it to explore ourselves and the world around us. My MFA is not just for me, by equipping myself with the needed tools to approach performance in a way that is informed not just by passion but by skill, I am creating space so that I may be able to nurture that in someone else, especially someone who may lack the necessary resources. As artists, we function as so much more than just performers or entertainers, we are historians and activists, educators, and archivists; our role in society is undeniable when looking back in time. I want to be a part of that, whether my art is seen by one person or hundreds of people.

Imagine being a teenager, a teen mom to be exact; stepping onto a stage and sharing with a room full of people that someone who you loved and trusted, your own brother, was abusing and drugging your children, which ultimately led to the death of one of them. This, while important and heartbreaking is not the crux of this story. Imagine breaking down while retelling this story in a poem, but suddenly you’ve got 4-5 human bodies holding you up, surrounding you, filling the room with an energy and love so loud that the 15-year-old girl in the audience, who decided to attend and perform at a slam poetry competition for the first time ever, would be writing about it almost 9 years later. These are your teammates, the people you spent the last few weeks writing and rehearsing this poem with. I was that 15-year-old girl. This is what community means to me. In every room I walk into I aim to embody even just a fraction of the character of those individuals. I have tried my best to help curate spaces that hold this type of energy. I have played a part in planning many cultural and artistic events that foster a similar supportive environment. More recently, one of my proudest contributions to my community is launching Literature of Resistance, a book club that also functions as a support group. If my life were a map, you would find me somewhere at the intersection of art, activism, and your local library. I love to laugh and spend time with my loved ones. I love to create and explore. I thrive on bringing light to that which is unknown or ignored. As a multi-disciplinary artist, I believe that the role of any artistic piece, is to express a truth and thereby invoke the seeds of change. As an MFA in Acting Candidate at Columbia University one of my future goals as an artist and scholar is to use my education to advocate for the arts as well as create a pedagogy that directly marries the performing arts with sociology. I see a world where we are more intentional about the art that we create, and we use it to explore ourselves and the world around us. Eventually, I want to own a physical space that hosts events and classes for people of all ages. My art cannot exist without my scholarship, and vice versa. I truly believe knowledge is power, however, knowledge without application and emotional understanding can be harmful. My vision for the future involves one where we know the facts but can also act with care and understanding surrounding them.