Spearheaded by multi-media performance artist Rosita Wandellah, Interactive Arts tours brings audiences and performers together to celebrate the cultures of the world and create the groundwork for a new age of entertainment and ways of being. Performances share with people who have been segregated from mainstream society due to racism, class-ism, sexism, and ignorance. We will build bridges between generations, ethnic groups, and social classes. Together, we can heal and thrive with the help of interactive, celebratory, creative arts.

Service Learning Performance Art "Un Chicana Flave"

I will combine my roles as a performance artist, activist, and independent student to create integrative educational performance art. "Un (oon) Chicana Flave" is a multi-media performance arts project that will integrate diverse cultural traditions expressed through storytelling, poetry, music and dance. The performance will reflect my personal learning and self-discovery process while encouraging participants to realize their own potential in creating profound social change.

My inspiration for developing this project is to bridge generation gaps and resolve cultural isolation, (created through stagnant social structures) through sharing fundamental cultural celebrations from throughout the world. Performance art can be a vital demonstration and celebration of a part of a healthy community in direct contrast to a world defined by pop-culture. Participant/ viewers will be inspired to reflect within for their own healing, by connecting with their own cultural heritage, family history and resolving ancestral wounds.

I believe performance art can foster tolerance while enhancing vibrant community.

"Un Chicana Flave" will

•  empower and educate people to discover and honor their heritage,

•  promote sustainable and healthy lifestyles,

•  demonstrate skills in non-violent communication

•  model healthy limitations and boundaries

•  encourage each person's healing process

•  inspire people to recognize their passion

cultivate celebration through the arts

Each performance will vary depending on who the participants are.

Cultural Awareness through Dance and Song : Flamenco

Hispanic Culture: Flamenco dance and song and Spanish poetry will reach Hispanic audiences and share their cultural roots. The Flamenco dance, which I debuted at Dancing Dragons festival, shares the living tradition of this vibrant art form. My recently completed six months studies in Veneazuela informed me of the role of music and dance in life there. Flamenco is a powerful reflection of the trials and tribulations prevalent in Roma culture.

The piece will start with demonstrating some rhythmic patterns of the lively Flamenco feet tapping accompanied with castanets then encouraging people to clap along as I sing a song pertaining to hardship overcome through celebration, then moving to an explanations of the cultural migration of Romas from Rajasthan, India, explaining their cultural values and why that makes it so hard for people to relate with them accompanied with a video clip, a interactive castanet lesson with games, ending with a 3 minute dance to phenomenal recorded Flamenco music.

A multi-media slide presentation and music history encourages cultural appreciation and tolerance.

Personal Growth through introspective creative expressions:

Spoken Word:

I dedicate each piece to the person who inspired me, linking their experience with my creative healing process. My spoken word piece "Soul Chord" is told in hip-hop style, the voice of contemporary youth subculture. I provide an example of how the youth in my audience can facilitate their own healing process through poetic expression.

Word collage -- a group performance

Inspiring Personal Stories – an activity that encourages humility and graciousness through sharing about life experience

Audience Participation

Each performance is designed to break down the performer/audience barrier through group activities. In addition to the musical interactions and word collage, each performance may include creative visualization rituals, forgiveness meditations, breathing exercises, and group-building games

Four distinct performances will reach children, teens, adults and elders. Each performance will vary according to the audience.

Education/Research

I . I seek support to work with professionals and respected elders in the traditions I hope to share through concentrated training with experts

I will explore history and culture for each aspect of the performance -- for example, Spanish culture, music, and dance, for the Flamenco performance, as well as a Roma Russian song from my own grandmother's heritage.

II. I ask for support for program development to write and perform work-in-progress pieces.

Training and education history

I was fortunate to have my dance and musical interests encouraged from an early age. My mom says that I danced before I walked and that I was always singing in the backseat during family drives.

I have been studying dance, music, and performance art my whole life. I studied classical ballet from age 3-12, involved my self in belly dance exploration 13-18, explored West African, Hula, Flamenco, Salsa, and Indonesian dancing studies as well age 17-to present. I took piano lessons from age 5-7, studied flute in band class throughout middle school, took guitar classes from age 13-14, studied classical South African Djimbe age 17 and did a work trade for a series of voice lessons when I was 18. Throughout the years I have and continue to share my talent in traditional rehearsed presentations as well as in impromptu performances. I love interacting with people while sharing creative expressions.

I graduated from high-school through an innovative alternative high school program on Vashon Island, called student link creating my curriculum so it aligned with my interests , documenting my learning's into portfolio form. My big portfolios were, Women's Studies, Performance Art and Youth Empowerment through activism, community development, leadership training, service learning and the arts.

Again my path was directed by the fortuitous finding of the Vashon Islewilde community, a group of friends and extended family who put on a yearly free community theater ritual/performance that includes weeks of circus arts training.

My training in psychology, human dynamics and healing arts include non-violent communication seminars, a Healthy Boundaries for Life workshop, healing though sound retreats, Sweat your Prayers Gabriell Roth's teachings workshops, years of Sufi Dancing and participating in my own healing process though guided self healing and body talk work.

Empowered through the arts I consider myself a potent youth activist, beginning with co-creating the Vashon Youth Council and most recently directing it. I have worked as a youth activist by creating a youth oriented radio show on Vashon, participating in Peace Rallies, organizing art protests and attaining signatures in protest of different causes. The success of the Vashon Youth Council was recognized in our powerful visit with the Governor of Washington State.

My education in culture and dance has taken me to several continents: I have been able to study Flamenco in Spain, Hula & Middle Eastern Dance in Hawaii, and classical Indonesian dance in Bali. I have performed singing in a Hawaiian club called Coconut Grooves and belly danced for a performance in Hawaii, danced with a Gamelon troupe in Bali and sang and danced with a fire dancing troupe in a beautiful square rimmed with people in the Cinque Terre in Northern Italy. I have been fortunate to study drumming with the Senegalese community in Seattle as well as dunbek with skilled middle eastern performers.

I have recently completed six months in Venezuela, where I studied Spanish language and gained more performance skills through doing service learning work in the local performance community as well as encouraging youth empowerment through the arts.

I have been performing internationally as well as on Vashon, in Seattle, and at community gatherings in Washington and Oregon, as a dancer, singer, drummer and spoken word artist for 10 years. My resume describes these in more detail.

"Un Chica Flave" will integrate new projects with long-term research and experience. Building upon my studies and performance art projects, it will create the structure for a repeatable outreach program that expands the type of work I have already done.

This will be a prototype program that will be expanded to encourage and serve other performance artists. In the long-term, I seek to create a Performance Artists network, encouraging performers to create social change through offering their talent to places where people are in need of the healing celebration of music and dance.