September 16, 2024 • 12 mins
For Hispanic Heritage Month, an introduction to LxNY: Latinx Arts Consortium of New York. Formed in 2020, LxNY is a collaborative peer network of over 40 Latinx-serving cultural organizations, dedicated to knowledge exchange, resource-sharing, and collective action towards systemic change. Our guests Andrea Gordillo of The Clemente Center and Charles Rice-Gonzalez, of BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, are members who represent founding organizations of LxNY. For more, visit theclementecenter.org, baadbronx.org, and lxnyarts.org.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning and thanks for listening. To get connected on
this first day of Hispanic Heritage Month with guests representing
LX and Y LATINX Arts Consortium of New York. It's
a network formed by over forty LATINX serving cultural organizations
in the city dedicated to knowledge exchange, resource sharing, and
collective action towards systemic change. And our guests are Andrea
(00:37):
Gordillo and Charles Res Gonzalez. Thank you for being on
the show.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
So you also represent founding organizations of LX and Y.
Let's briefly talk about each of those too, So Andrea
the Clemente Center and Charles bad Bronx Academy of Arts
and Dance. So, Andrea, the Clemente Center, what do you do?
Where are you all those things?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
So? The Clementett is a cultural center and arts haven
on a bastion for affordability for working artists in the
heart of the Lower East Side in Manhattan. We're home
to four theaters, three galleries, sixty studio spaces for our
visual artists and much more. And we have a thirty
(01:18):
year history as a model of collaboration and resource sharing,
drawing tens of thousands of audience members annually.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
And Charles the Bad Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yeah, so that began twenty five years ago in Hunts Point.
We're currently in Westchester Square. But we're an organization that
presents empowering ones for women, people of color and the
LGBTT plus community. And we do that through a series
of festivals that have names like Bad as Women and
out like that, and we also have a children's program
(01:53):
for dance specific that's the anchor art form for we're
super community based and regional, but also because of the
work we do with the LGBTQ and POC communities, we
have a national program called the Queer Arts Exchange. So
we're very local but also national at the same time.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So let me give the websites too for everybody. So
the Clemente Center, the Clementecenter dot org, bad is baad
bad Bronx dot org and the organization that they are
founding members of is lx n Y Arts dot org.
Alexen Why was founded in twenty twenty. Either one of
you can take this. What was the need in twenty
(02:31):
twenty and what was the draw to come and join
together with these other groups?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
You know, it was the pandemic, and the pandemic was
what brought us together.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
And it was libit At Dapam the Clemente that contacted
Analdo Lopez from ptagonas PRTT and then they contacted me.
The three of us put our heads together and basically
it was about how do we get some resources money? Specifically,
there were other organizations that were white lead that had
gotten banded together and gotten some foundation money with no
(03:02):
more than a letter. So it really started for us
to bring together a group of people, and we brought
eight organizations to begin it and to craft the letter.
We didn't get the same response, but what we did
get we did get some support to begin our work
from the Ford Foundation.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
But what did happen is it realized that all of
us have worked together and known each other and work
in our fevershly for our organizations, but together our brains
worked up that much bigger and smarter, and that we
found that there was this true value in us working together,
So we said, let's do advocacy, let's you know, let's
broadcast our importance, our own legacy, and let's tell our
(03:41):
own stories. So that was part of the initial but
then the thing that perpetuated us to continue.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah. So at the time in twenty twenty, it's almost
hard to think back, Right, everybody's thinking about arts organizations
that weren't getting people in the seats, that didn't have
the money coming in, right, So everybody's fighting for funding.
One of the things that you focus on now is specifically,
according to the mission statement, right, systemic change. So what
is that now, how is that baked in and where
(04:08):
is the focus aimed?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think, just picking up on what
Charles said, we were thinking about how our organizations were
uniquely positioned within our communities. Not only were we affected,
you know, as organizations that were first to close and
less to reopen, but we were also on the front
lines of the folks that were most impacted by the pandemic,
(04:33):
that had the least language access, the least cultural access.
And we saw the ways that those kind of twin
pandemics right of the actual pandemic and racism in our
city and in our country were affecting us, and we
wanted to have kind of a preemptive model to address
those things in a structural way, right, So we wanted
(04:55):
to continue to expand cultural fund and equity and funding,
both in private philanthropy and public funding, which is probably
in New York City, the largest cultural funder in the
United States. So that was our focus, and we've worked
(05:17):
at doing that over the past years, and we thought
a good way to articulate this practice was through founding
and launching the Sodius Festival, which I'm sure we will
talk a little bit more about.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
It's been a little bit, but I've spoken with Mena
Laura on the show a couple of times, who is
on your steering committee and the founder of the People's
Theater Project. And when I think of Mino, I think
of the incredible energy and the huge heart and so
much motivation, which makes me think there's probably a lot
of this in the room when everybody's gathering. If you
want to give a shout out or even be more specific,
(05:53):
can you think of a specific example for maybe each
of you where someone else's experience within the membership has
been or generosity or whatever has been particularly useful to
a project you've you've taken on.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I think you know, I'm going to say one of
the most powerful things about lex and why was you know?
I think we got together it was eight and then
we kept growing. And so there's a lot of advocacy
that happens in the city, but there isn't any that's
Alex and Y specific. So not that we were working
in a silo, working in partnership with lots of other efforts,
but it really created a space for us to feel empowered,
(06:30):
for us to change. When we talk about systemic change,
we're talking about changing the optic of our organizations. We're
just as much as a legacy organization as others, and
just as valuable to the fabric of the city as
other organizations. So what comes to mind is that is
that united force when we come together. And we're also
very multicultural and a Latino nests, so it's not necessarily monolithic.
(06:53):
So to seeing that power, to seeing that intelligence, to
seeing that prowess. And I think one of the things
is we learned from each other and we share information,
like when if there's a grant where something's coming up,
it's like this WhatsApp chat that ignites, and so for me,
it is that it's that creating the systems for us
to communicate, to share information and share knowledge with each
(07:13):
other with each other, but then also to really broadcast
the importance and the almost urgent importance of our organization
and our collective.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Andrea, you want to add to that.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean, I'll just give a shout out to
like something super specific. You know, we all kind of
share responsibilities, something like a network like this doesn't have
a pre like many precedents in the Latino community. So
just for as an example, Bad stepped up to be
our kind of our fifthal sponsor for a lot of
this project and kind of managing our just like kind
(07:51):
of the day to day affairs of Lexmy. So yeah,
everybody is. Everybody's just there's not really like this model
where there's a lot of competition like it's it really
truly is a lot of people just stepping up to
to kind of share the wealth because it benefits all
of us in the long run to have like our
(08:12):
strength together and the numbers.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Our guests are Andrea Gordillo and Charles Rice representing l
X and Y. You can find out more at LXNY
arts dot org. You're listening to get connected on one
oh six point seven light FM Imina del Rio. And
as we spoke you also you come to these roles
through your own organizations. They are founding members of lex
n y. One of them is the Clemente Center. So
(08:37):
one of the things I think you have coming up
is an initiative titled Historias that you just launched in partnership.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
So we, you know, the Clemente kind of was looking
at our model of collaboration and resource sharing over many
many years in many ways that has gone unnoticed and
we we we're looking at the alignment between that and
alex and Why as a network, and we were we
(09:07):
had this idea that we have kind of generated over
the past couple of years to kind of split the
story on how history and particularly latinx Latina histories and
cultural contributions are studied and disseminated. And so we're launching
the big launch on the twenty eighth outside of the
Clemente on Suffolk Street from two to nine pm, and
(09:31):
it's going to be kind of a big street celebration
and it's going to launch a multi faceted three year
initiative to do precisely a series of commissionings of informal
scholarship and artistic commissions to precisely articulate what we're calling estodias.
And that's going to be across three phases. So definitely
(09:54):
to listeners and viewers to just follow us on online
at the Clementa Center dot organ movie having a lot
of updates periodically for the next couple of years and
how people can get involved.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And Charles, what is next at BAD what is coming
up especially this month?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Well, actually we have our Black t Next Performance series
which begins September twenty first and it will go through
the end of November. And it's basically a festival that
we've been doing for a decade and a half here
and it really features work by black and LATINX and
artists of color, and it's multidisciplinary and it's fun and
(10:33):
it's vibrant. And we have, for example, we have a
dance compilation that means where several choreographers come together and
we're asking them to dance to music by African American
and Latino artists. So the African American artist is Lutha
and Andros and the Latino artist Juan Gabriel. And the
reason is it aligns with our mission. Both of these
were men who kind of flew under the gay radar,
(10:55):
so there's going to be a dance consolet just set
to their music. But that's an example of one. But
as you said, you have both of us here on
the show. But you know, if folks go to the
Alex and Y website, they will be blown away by
all the work that all the organizations are doing and
Hispanic characters month an exciting time is the time that
we get overworked. But for us, Hispanic heriag is our lives,
(11:17):
so there's always so much happening. And that's another thing
that even myself as being involved for so long in
the arts in New York City and knowing their left
in the arts section, or I think at least I
thought I did. But seeing all of our organizations doing
all of this vibrant work is really inspiring.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I think it's amazing when you talk about the breath
of the work and the organizations, there's so much. It's
visual artists, performance art and all the different kinds in between.
And all that information is on the website lxany Arts
dot org and that will connect you with the Clemente
Center with Bad and Beyond. Our guests are Andre Gordio
and Charles res Gonzalez. Thank you for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Thank you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you've missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one o six seven lightfm dot com.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning and thanks for listening. To get connected on
this first day of Hispanic Heritage Month with guests representing
LX and Y LATINX Arts Consortium of New York. It's
a network formed by over forty LATINX serving cultural organizations
in the city dedicated to knowledge exchange, resource sharing, and
collective action towards systemic change. And our guests are Andrea
(00:37):
Gordillo and Charles Res Gonzalez. Thank you for being on
the show.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
So you also represent founding organizations of LX and Y.
Let's briefly talk about each of those too, So Andrea
the Clemente Center and Charles bad Bronx Academy of Arts
and Dance. So, Andrea, the Clemente Center, what do you do?
Where are you all those things?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
So? The Clementett is a cultural center and arts haven
on a bastion for affordability for working artists in the
heart of the Lower East Side in Manhattan. We're home
to four theaters, three galleries, sixty studio spaces for our
visual artists and much more. And we have a thirty
(01:18):
year history as a model of collaboration and resource sharing,
drawing tens of thousands of audience members annually.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
And Charles the Bad Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yeah, so that began twenty five years ago in Hunts Point.
We're currently in Westchester Square. But we're an organization that
presents empowering ones for women, people of color and the
LGBTT plus community. And we do that through a series
of festivals that have names like Bad as Women and
out like that, and we also have a children's program
(01:53):
for dance specific that's the anchor art form for we're
super community based and regional, but also because of the
work we do with the LGBTQ and POC communities, we
have a national program called the Queer Arts Exchange. So
we're very local but also national at the same time.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So let me give the websites too for everybody. So
the Clemente Center, the Clementecenter dot org, bad is baad
bad Bronx dot org and the organization that they are
founding members of is lx n Y Arts dot org.
Alexen Why was founded in twenty twenty. Either one of
you can take this. What was the need in twenty
(02:31):
twenty and what was the draw to come and join
together with these other groups?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
You know, it was the pandemic, and the pandemic was
what brought us together.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
And it was libit At Dapam the Clemente that contacted
Analdo Lopez from ptagonas PRTT and then they contacted me.
The three of us put our heads together and basically
it was about how do we get some resources money? Specifically,
there were other organizations that were white lead that had
gotten banded together and gotten some foundation money with no
(03:02):
more than a letter. So it really started for us
to bring together a group of people, and we brought
eight organizations to begin it and to craft the letter.
We didn't get the same response, but what we did
get we did get some support to begin our work
from the Ford Foundation.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
But what did happen is it realized that all of
us have worked together and known each other and work
in our fevershly for our organizations, but together our brains
worked up that much bigger and smarter, and that we
found that there was this true value in us working together,
So we said, let's do advocacy, let's you know, let's
broadcast our importance, our own legacy, and let's tell our
(03:41):
own stories. So that was part of the initial but
then the thing that perpetuated us to continue.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah. So at the time in twenty twenty, it's almost
hard to think back, Right, everybody's thinking about arts organizations
that weren't getting people in the seats, that didn't have
the money coming in, right, So everybody's fighting for funding.
One of the things that you focus on now is specifically,
according to the mission statement, right, systemic change. So what
is that now, how is that baked in and where
(04:08):
is the focus aimed?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think, just picking up on what
Charles said, we were thinking about how our organizations were
uniquely positioned within our communities. Not only were we affected,
you know, as organizations that were first to close and
less to reopen, but we were also on the front
lines of the folks that were most impacted by the pandemic,
(04:33):
that had the least language access, the least cultural access.
And we saw the ways that those kind of twin
pandemics right of the actual pandemic and racism in our
city and in our country were affecting us, and we
wanted to have kind of a preemptive model to address
those things in a structural way, right, So we wanted
(04:55):
to continue to expand cultural fund and equity and funding,
both in private philanthropy and public funding, which is probably
in New York City, the largest cultural funder in the
United States. So that was our focus, and we've worked
(05:17):
at doing that over the past years, and we thought
a good way to articulate this practice was through founding
and launching the Sodius Festival, which I'm sure we will
talk a little bit more about.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
It's been a little bit, but I've spoken with Mena
Laura on the show a couple of times, who is
on your steering committee and the founder of the People's
Theater Project. And when I think of Mino, I think
of the incredible energy and the huge heart and so
much motivation, which makes me think there's probably a lot
of this in the room when everybody's gathering. If you
want to give a shout out or even be more specific,
(05:53):
can you think of a specific example for maybe each
of you where someone else's experience within the membership has
been or generosity or whatever has been particularly useful to
a project you've you've taken on.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I think you know, I'm going to say one of
the most powerful things about lex and why was you know?
I think we got together it was eight and then
we kept growing. And so there's a lot of advocacy
that happens in the city, but there isn't any that's
Alex and Y specific. So not that we were working
in a silo, working in partnership with lots of other efforts,
but it really created a space for us to feel empowered,
(06:30):
for us to change. When we talk about systemic change,
we're talking about changing the optic of our organizations. We're
just as much as a legacy organization as others, and
just as valuable to the fabric of the city as
other organizations. So what comes to mind is that is
that united force when we come together. And we're also
very multicultural and a Latino nests, so it's not necessarily monolithic.
(06:53):
So to seeing that power, to seeing that intelligence, to
seeing that prowess. And I think one of the things
is we learned from each other and we share information,
like when if there's a grant where something's coming up,
it's like this WhatsApp chat that ignites, and so for me,
it is that it's that creating the systems for us
to communicate, to share information and share knowledge with each
(07:13):
other with each other, but then also to really broadcast
the importance and the almost urgent importance of our organization
and our collective.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Andrea, you want to add to that.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean, I'll just give a shout out to
like something super specific. You know, we all kind of
share responsibilities, something like a network like this doesn't have
a pre like many precedents in the Latino community. So
just for as an example, Bad stepped up to be
our kind of our fifthal sponsor for a lot of
this project and kind of managing our just like kind
(07:51):
of the day to day affairs of Lexmy. So yeah,
everybody is. Everybody's just there's not really like this model
where there's a lot of competition like it's it really
truly is a lot of people just stepping up to
to kind of share the wealth because it benefits all
of us in the long run to have like our
(08:12):
strength together and the numbers.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Our guests are Andrea Gordillo and Charles Rice representing l
X and Y. You can find out more at LXNY
arts dot org. You're listening to get connected on one
oh six point seven light FM Imina del Rio. And
as we spoke you also you come to these roles
through your own organizations. They are founding members of lex
n y. One of them is the Clemente Center. So
(08:37):
one of the things I think you have coming up
is an initiative titled Historias that you just launched in partnership.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
So we, you know, the Clemente kind of was looking
at our model of collaboration and resource sharing over many
many years in many ways that has gone unnoticed and
we we we're looking at the alignment between that and
alex and Why as a network, and we were we
(09:07):
had this idea that we have kind of generated over
the past couple of years to kind of split the
story on how history and particularly latinx Latina histories and
cultural contributions are studied and disseminated. And so we're launching
the big launch on the twenty eighth outside of the
Clemente on Suffolk Street from two to nine pm, and
(09:31):
it's going to be kind of a big street celebration
and it's going to launch a multi faceted three year
initiative to do precisely a series of commissionings of informal
scholarship and artistic commissions to precisely articulate what we're calling estodias.
And that's going to be across three phases. So definitely
(09:54):
to listeners and viewers to just follow us on online
at the Clementa Center dot organ movie having a lot
of updates periodically for the next couple of years and
how people can get involved.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And Charles, what is next at BAD what is coming
up especially this month?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Well, actually we have our Black t Next Performance series
which begins September twenty first and it will go through
the end of November. And it's basically a festival that
we've been doing for a decade and a half here
and it really features work by black and LATINX and
artists of color, and it's multidisciplinary and it's fun and
(10:33):
it's vibrant. And we have, for example, we have a
dance compilation that means where several choreographers come together and
we're asking them to dance to music by African American
and Latino artists. So the African American artist is Lutha
and Andros and the Latino artist Juan Gabriel. And the
reason is it aligns with our mission. Both of these
were men who kind of flew under the gay radar,
(10:55):
so there's going to be a dance consolet just set
to their music. But that's an example of one. But
as you said, you have both of us here on
the show. But you know, if folks go to the
Alex and Y website, they will be blown away by
all the work that all the organizations are doing and
Hispanic characters month an exciting time is the time that
we get overworked. But for us, Hispanic heriag is our lives,
(11:17):
so there's always so much happening. And that's another thing
that even myself as being involved for so long in
the arts in New York City and knowing their left
in the arts section, or I think at least I
thought I did. But seeing all of our organizations doing
all of this vibrant work is really inspiring.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I think it's amazing when you talk about the breath
of the work and the organizations, there's so much. It's
visual artists, performance art and all the different kinds in between.
And all that information is on the website lxany Arts
dot org and that will connect you with the Clemente
Center with Bad and Beyond. Our guests are Andre Gordio
and Charles res Gonzalez. Thank you for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Thank you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you've missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one o six seven lightfm dot com.
Thanks for listening.
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