Ep. 19 - Mayra Collazo lives in Puerto Rico but travels through many countries like Italy, Spain, and the United States learning the history and culture of dance. She is passionate about expanding the dance culture into Puerto Rico.
Top Takeaways:
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- The value of a formal education that could intellectually develop the dancers
- Having the resilience to keep on making the necessary changes even without the support of the political system
- The importance of having housing before any other development to happen
- Why dance and culture education is the right of every child
Hear how she's fighting to earn the political will for greater arts investment and how her long career in dance has shaped this passion.
"It's every kid's right to have an art education in music, dance, and painting."
Cities are made up of many facets of culture. Mayra has a passion for arts, culture, and society which focuses on the history of dance and believes it is vital for any culture. As a professor at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, she shares her experiences dancing for multiple companies and performing worldwide. She wants to expand opportunities for people to experience the arts. Her goal is a museum of dance history in Puerto Rico to teach and spread the cultural breadth of dance. Mayra Collazo believes access to the arts may foster healing in a community that has suffered through so much.
Listen to hear how she has traveled from the Americas, dancing professionally to historical cities of Europe to learn and understand the history of dance better and be able to help others become great dancers. You will also hear why she is fiercely advocating for intellectual education to be applied in dance in Puerto Rico.
Key Moments:
She describes how her love for dance since childhood has evolved to become her passion that she wants to teach to other people [1:49]
She talks about her professional dance career and studying dance at a higher level [4:05]
How she was intrigued by dance history and went to Italy to fulfill that intrigue [5:11]
Why she decided to move back to Puerto Rico after living in Italy for ten years [9:45]
Why Puerto Rican's system has to realize the importance of dance education in social development [10:56]
The work that she has done to progress dance education in Puerto Rico in the last 10 years without the help of the government [14:51]
Why the main weakness part of dance art in Puerto Rico is the lack of a teaching methodology [17:01]
How the housing department can help develop dance and art in Puerto Rico [19:40]
The right of children to study art education and the challenges Mayra has gone through teaching dance in the last 10 years in Puerto Rican Universities [22:41]
What is her advice to young people who want to study dance and become professionals [25:04]
https://www.globalsiteperformance.org/performers-for-54-capitals-54-dancers/