In the earliest moments of the COVID-19 pandemic moving across the US, dance and performance artists started getting emails and calls. Shows were being cancelled — shows that were already underway, were about to happen, and many that were scheduled for months out on the calendar. Little clauses in artists' contracts that few people pay attention to were being invoked - force majeur. The pandemic was being described in legal terms as "an act of God" and so the institutions who booked these artists were cancelling everything and declaring they had no further responsibility.

Along with Laura Colby, Sarah Greenbaum, Emily Johnson, jumatatu poe, Brian Rogers, Michael Sakamoto, Karen Sherman, Amy Smith, and Tara Aisha Willis, Yanira Castro helped to author what became "Creating New Futures: Phase One" — a 200+ page document calling for radical change in the field. And they pulled it off in just a matter of weeks.

In this episode I spoke with Yanira, an award-winning choreographer and interdisciplinary artist, not only about this collective call for greater equity in the fields of dance and performance, but also about her pathway into the arts, from an early childhood in Puerto Rico to building and sustaining a career in New York City.