Tadea Martin-Gonzalez is a rising senior at Yale University majoring in American Studies with a focus in Dance, Education and Latinx studies. She hails from Northampton, MA but is also proudly Costa Rican-American. She is serving as the Audience Development Intern for the 2023 Festival.
Monday:
Today was my day off, so a couple of friends and I decided to take a trip off the property to go to Northampton, a small city about 45 minutes away. I was born and raised in Northampton, so I had a real blast showing my friends around all the best spots, and the places that locals frequent. Even though I don’t have a car on campus, I’ve been able to take so many fun trips with friends on my day off, to lakes, hikes, and nearby towns. It has been so great showing my coworkers the place I am able to call home!
Tuesday
My work week starts on Tuesday, and this particular week, my Tuesday was filled to the brim! I started my day with a pilates community class at 8am. Despite it being so early, it felt so good to start my day by moving, challenging myself, and being able to do so with people from a huge variety of different movement backgrounds. Because of this, I arrived at my first meeting of the day, a joint check-in between the Marketing and Patron Services team, already in a good mood. As the Audience Development intern, I am based in the Marketing department, but I do a lot of work with the patron services department, especially around accessibility. Thus, this meeting was a great grounding point for the work I was planning on doing for the rest of the week.
I then had my weekly check-in with my supervisor, Hunter, and the Audience Development coordinator, Angela, where we set goals for the week for our specific branch of the Marketing department. This particular week we talked a lot about coordinating accessibility efforts for audiences of AXIS, a company that features disabled, non-disabled, and neurodivergent performers. This was a show I couldn’t wait to see, and I was so excited to be a part of making sure patrons knew the accessibility measures that were in place before they came
After grabbing a quick lunch from the Stone dining hall, I dashed through the rain to Somers Studio, where we were having our first open IDEA (Identity Diversity Equity and Access) committee meeting of the year. I am one of two intern representatives on this committee, and this particular meeting I served as the co-facilitator. We were discussing our goals relating to IDEA for the summer. As a facilitator I was able to call on the skills that I had developed from past work I had done in political organizing in the western MA community; this is my first dance related job and while I am very involved in arts creation communities at my school and beyond, most of my previous jobs have been in education or equity work.
I closed out my workday with a meeting with Thasia, the Director of Community Engagement, about marketing materials around the Jacob’s Pillow Homesite. The Homesite is an ongoing partnership between local Indigenous artists and The Pillow meant to demonstrate contemporary Indigenous art, Indigenous histories, and connection to the land.
This is really crucial work to me as a mixed Latine person with roots in a country that was affected by US colonialism (Please look up William Walker to learn more!). Like many Latine people, I also have Indigenous heritage but minimal cultural connection, so acting in solidarity with contemporary Indigenous populations on the land I reside on I view as part of our shared goals in fighting ongoing US colonialism. At this particular meeting, we focused on the importance of distribution of materials surrounding the MMIW crisis (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women), since the homesite featured red handprints meant to signify this; MMIW is an ongoing facet of colonialism that is so rarely talked about outside of Indigenous spaces, so it was crucial to me that there be information about it distributed to patrons. Read more about MMIW here.
Wednesday
Wednesday I had a much more laid back day, spending most of my day working on the program for the Henry J. Leir stage, aka one of my main responsibilities. Today, that meant I reached out to a lot of companies who were performing a few weeks in the future to get their program information. I also attended the Director’s Welcome, and watched a performance of the Dutch National Ballet.
Thursday:
Thursday, I also started my day dancing! I took Ian Spencer Bell’s community ballet class. I love ballet, so of course, this was a hit for me! Over the course of Thursday, I continued my work on the program, as well as solidifying accessibility plans for patrons on the website as well. I also had a few meetings in which I helped finalize details about the performance, specifically around the ASL interpreter- I have helped provide interpreters for performances in other 600+ person venues as a part of my school ASL program, so I was able to share this and other knowledge with the Patron Services and Accessibility Committee.
Thursday was also the day that I had a lunch meeting with Ronald K. Brown and Arcell Cabaug from Ronald K. Brown/Evidence. I am a part of the Hostetter Internship Program, a program for Black, Latinx, Indigenous and other POC students. As a part of this program, I gain access to two of these lunches, an additional stipend, and a mentor that I meet with in the following year. The lunch was just me, three of my peers in The Hostetter Program, Mr. Brown and Mr. Cabaug. It is hard to express in words how impactful our conversation was. It opened my eyes to the possibility of a company integrated in a broader community, specifically one that was rooted in tradition and respect for elders and ancestors, all things are the basis for the work that I try to do now and hope to do in the future.
After an informational panel led for interns interested in moving to and working in New York, I finished my work day with an interview with a company member from Versa-Style Dance Company, an LA based Hip Hop/street dance company. We talked about community, storytelling, Hip Hop culture and so much more! I then set to work editing it into a blog post for our PillowPicks section of the website, and finished up my day by watching a show at the Henry J. Leir stage!