Building Community through Arts Education with Anna Pasternak and Blair Brown of Movement Exchange

Our guests today are passionate about dance, dance education, and serving communities. Join us today as we share a podcast with you featuring an interview with Anna Pasternak, the Founder of Movement Exchange, and Blair Brown, the organization's current Executive Director. During our conversation, we hear about their journeys with dance, what captivates them about the arts, and how their life paths led them to Movement Exchange. Movement Exchange is an international non-profit organization that provides accessible and sustainable dance education to youth of all ages. They share all about how it started, how it evolved, and their plans for expansion. We hear more about their university chapters and international volunteer dance exchanges and how they build leadership development, cultural awareness, and a passion for community building through arts education. To hear more about their year-round sustainable programs in underresourced communities, be sure not to miss out on today’s episode with Anna and Blair from Movement Exchange! 

Key Points From This Episode:

·       Anna shares her personal history and transformative journey with dance.

·       She elaborates on her aspirations after high school and how getting into Harvard impacted her dance journey.

·       Fly and be free; the pull to see and experience everything the world had to offer. 

·       Anna talks about the exciting journey of founding the Movement Exchange.

·       Her biggest worry stepping down as Executive Director at Movement Exchange.

·       We hear from Blair about who she is, where she’s from, and what brought her to dance!

·       She elaborates on the biggest shift that altered her life as an artist: dance education. 

·       Meeting Anna and Movement Exchange; the second jump in her career.

·       We discuss the realization of the barrier to dance, even in the USA. 

·       They talk about any pushback experienced with Movement Exchange (and how they counter it).

·       How you can get involved in the Movement Exchange programs. 

“There will be nothing in my life that will be as important or have made me as happy as running Movement Exchange.” — Anna Pasternak 

Anna Pasternak founded the dance non-profit Movement Exchange in 2010 when she was 25 years old and living in Panama. She is a Fulbright Scholar, Harvard graduate, and currently supports Movement Exchange as a member of the board of directors.

“Dance is social. It’s all about community and how do we connect with that and make our communities stronger.” — Blair Brown 

Blair Brown received her BA in Dance from Loyola Marymount University, her MFA in Dance from UC Irvine, and spent 10 years teaching dance in under-resourced schools and programs in California and New York before becoming the Executive Director for Movement Exchange.

Learn more about Movement Exchange!

More on this episode: Movers & Shapers: A Dance Podcast

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