Thank You + Farewell (for now!)

Amiges,

The time has finally come! In a couple short weeks, Bobby and I are moving from Los Angeles to Santa Cruz, and what a bittersweet moment it is. The last 17 years have been filled with vibrant community and embodied radical joy, the kind I could have only dreamed of growing up as a nomadic immigrant kid desperate for a sense of belonging.

How beautiful and simple to learn that this belonging, once cultivated with each other, doesn't go anywhere. It reverberates deep inside our bones even from a distance... an invisible bridge that keeps us connected and that we can return to, time and again. 

I have every intention of keeping this bridge—between LA, Santa Cruz, and Brazil—as strong as ever, and I can't wait to see all the new exciting ways we do that together!

***

Last month I held a Farewell Season of dance workshops to celebrate this transition, and what a perfect, sweaty, sweet send-off it was! Thank you to the 100+ people who registered for class!! Seriously. Every time I walked into the space and saw it packed to the brim with beloved and new faces, I choked up. 

Thank you to Pieter Space for hosting us with such care and enthusiasm, as always! Thank you to my co-teacher and mãe da dança, Vera Passos, and to our amazing musicians—Kahlil Cummings, Kevin Roosevelt, and special guests Luiz Badaró and Vivam Caroline.  Thank you to DJ Muñeka for the bomb bday playlist, to Sydney Richardson for assisting, and to Hannah Joo, my Production Manager/guardian angel. Thank you to all the folks who shared their support from afar even when they couldn't come.

And finally—thank you to my love, Bobby Gordon, for the (always) stunning photography. I am thrilled to share the below images from my Farewell Season with you for the very first time—keep scrolling & enjoy, querides! (don't forget to tag Bobby on IG if you share them!)

***

As the great Julie Walker says, purpose is our most powerful medicine, and I feel coated in it as I get ready to join the UCSC Department of Performance, Play & Design this fall.

Every step of this process has felt like a dream—from visiting Santa Cruz for the first time and falling in love with the ocean and redwood trees, to feeling my work & research resonate and be received with such care and enthusiasm by everyone at UCSC.

I firmly see myself as a community-rooted artist and an academic-interventionist (a term coined by the great M. Jacqui Alexander) committed to dismantling the histories of exclusion embedded inside academia. I am thrilled to have found an academic home that not only shares these values, but is excited for me to deepen them with my own Brazilian & immigrant-centered lens.

I can't wait to start this new chapter, as a UCSC Assistant Professor of Dance with so many new abundant resources to share with my community of dancers, educators, and change-makers.

***

If you're in LA, keep reading for a master list of my fave LA dance classes so you can keep feeding your dance spirit while I'm gone. I'll be sharing some LA offerings later this year as well, so stay tuned!

And if you're in the Bay Area... I can't wait to dance with you soon!

Com carinho sempre,  

Marina <3

---

DANCING DIASPORA THROWBACK CLASS: PHOTO GALLERY

ALL PHOTOS BY BOBBY GORDON

---

SOMATIC SABOR WORKSHOP: PHOTO GALLERY

ALL PHOTOS BY BOBBY GORDON

---

SAMBA ENCOUNTERS WORKSHOP: PHOTO GALLERY

ALL PHOTOS BY BOBBY GORDON

---

Marina's Fave LA Dance Classes

VERA PASSOS / VIVER BRASIL
Afro-Brazilian dance classes
(all levels)

RACHEL HERNANDEZ / EXTRA ANCESTRAL
Afro-Brazilian & Afro-diasporic dance & drum classes
(all levels)

KATI HERNANDEZ
Afro-Cuban dance classes
(mixed levels)

VERSA-STYLE DANCE COMPANY
House, Hip Hop, and Street dance classes & battles
(mixed levels for community & youth)

PRIMERA GENERACIÓN DANCE COLLECTIVE
Experimental and Latin diasporic dance classes
(all levels)

NINA FLAGG
Dance Hall & House dance classes
(all levels)

ANA LAIDLEY
Samba No Pé dance classes
(mixed levels)

TATIANA ZAMIR
Afro-Joy dance classes & Heal Her workshops
(all levels)

CHRIS EMILE / NO)ONE. ART HOUSE
Contemporary dance classes
(professional/pre-professional level)

GROUND GROOVES
Contemporary floorwork classes
(mixed levels)

PIETER SPACE
ongoing dance classes of all kinds
(mixed levels)

STOMPING GROUND LA
ongoing dance classes of all kinds
(mixed levels)

"Womb” photo gallery

Marina Magalhães
Artistic Director, Lead Choreographer, Performer

Bianca Leticia Medina
Rehearsal Director, Co-Choreographer, Performer

Tatiana Zamir
Co-Choreographer, Performer

Anthony J. Suber: Sculptures, Masks, Vestments
Francis Almendárez: Video Art
Avila Eytan Do Espirito Santo: Sound Designer
Elida Berry-Donat: Costume Designer
Maximilian Urruzmendi: Lighting Designer, Technical Director

presented April 2022 by DiverseWorks at MATCH Theater in Houston, TX

all photos by Bobby Gordon Photography

Good News... We Got Creative Capital!

Hello querides,

In the midst of what has been a challenging time for all of us, I am happy to share a bit of good news... I was awarded a Creative Capital 2022 grant!

I am deeply excited to bring to life "Body as a Crossroads", a new performance work and budding methodology for radical embodiment I have been spearheading since 2018. (and by the way… we are currently looking for a part-time Production Assistant to support our process from now until May 2022. If you're interested in joining the team or know someone who might be, check out this link!)

For those of you who might not know, Creative Capital is a $50,000 grant awarded annually to a select group of artists for the creation of groundbreaking new work. I have dreamed of applying for some years now, having watched many artists I deeply admire receive this honor-- mentors like Amara Tabor-Smith, my collaborator Carolina Caycedo, and greats like Ronald K. Brown, Rennie Harris, Ralph Lemon, and Bebe Miller to name a few.

Like most things these past two years, the road to arrive at this good news was bittersweet. While I was working on the grant application at the start of 2021, I became pregnant for the second time and once again lost the pregnancy. I was miscarrying for most of the time I was writing my proposal, strangely comforted by the ability to bring a creative vision to life, if not the small being inside me.

When I found out I would be a recipient of this incredible opportunity, joy and grief swept over me in alternating waves. And somewhere in there was an undeniable sense of gratitude-- for this remarkable honor, and for my spirit-baby whose presence echoed in every word I wrote.

In this moment of ongoing pandemic and infinite hardships, I am present to the resilience I feel deep in my bones and the kind I see in so many loved ones around me. Our bodies miscarry, get sick, injured, depressed, distressed, and yet... we remain.

We heal.
We create.

•••
⠀
I feel lucky to be surrounded and supported by community, without which none of my work would be possible. Special thanks goes to Bianca Medina for being a co-conspirator in this vision from its inception, to Emily Goulding for helping me craft language and making the grant possible, to Tatiana Zamir for adding so much depth to the work just this past year, and to DiverseWorks for partnering with us in the first activation of this project.
⠀
This is just the beginning… stay tuned for more!
⠀
Reposted from @Creative_Capital:
⠀
Creative Capital just announced the recipients of the 2022 Creative Capital Awards! The grants will fund the creation of 50 new and innovative projects by 59 individual artists working in the performing arts, visual arts, film, technology, literature, and socially engaged and multidisciplinary practices. Each project will receive varying amounts up to $50,000 in direct funding, supplemented by career development and networking services to foster thriving artistic careers totaling up to $2.5 million in artist support. Learn more at creative-capital.org
⠀
Congratulations to the 2022 Creative Capital Awardees! Creative Capital just announced 50 projects—the work of 59 individual artists spanning the visual arts, performing arts, film, literature, socially engaged and multidisciplinary practices—to receive the prestigious award. Each project will receive varying amounts up to $50,000 in direct funding, supplemented by career development and networking services to foster thriving artistic careers. Learn more: creative-capital.org.