Ruby
Breaking Pachanga Por Ti Comimos Las Memorias de Mi Cocina
POETRY CRITICAL RESPONSE PROCESS
Ruby

RUBY

Grounding prayer

“May we ground ourselves in gratitude. May we ground ourselves in love. May we ground ourselves in our ancestors’ experiences and the divine presence of what’s to come.”

Inspired by the creation process of Breaking Pachanga with Delia Ibañez, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and the power of manifestation and imagination.

Announcing The APAP Honors 2024 Awardees:

The Spark of Change award honors an emergent individual under the age of 40 or group less than 15 years in existence, who demonstrates trail-blazing innovation and vision in the presenting, creative producing, booking and touring field. The award recognizes a professional or group taking an inventive, ground-breaking and revolutionary approach in their work, addressing a field-wide challenge with promising impact, or championing an underrepresented yet critical perspective to sustain the presenting, booking and touring industry. 

LEARN MORE
“Meet the Artist-Activist Liz Lerman Says She’d “Follow Anywhere””
— Dance Magazine

ABOUT

BIOGRAPHY

Ruby Morales is a progressive thought provoker who is committed to equity, facilitating life-affirming spaces, and cultivating community relationships rooted in reciprocity, trust, and love through life and her artmaking.  She’s a dance artivist investigating culturally informed teaching methods, circular leadership models, and her relationship with movement as a bgirl and Mexican style cumbia. After receiving a BFA from Arizona State University she began touring with CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater and Tucson, AZ based choreographer Yvonne Montoya. She recently toured with internationally renowned creative Liz Lerman performing Wicked Bodies. In partnership with the city of Tempe (AZ), she also toured her own evening length show, Breaking Pachanga. She’s CONTRA-TIEMPO’s Resource Director and co-founder of The Pachanga Collective. In recognition of her leadership Ruby is the inaugural recipient of The Association of Performing Arts Professional’s Spark for Change award (national) and the 2023 Performing Artist Mayor’s Arts award (AZ). She continues to learn and lead as a previous B.A.C. Fellowship Mentor, a 2021 National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) Advocacy Leadership Fellow, a 2021 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellow, 2023 NALAC Leadership Institute Fellow, and 2023 Critical Response Process Certification Program participant. Ruby has been awarded a Research and Development and Professional Development Grant from the AZ Commission on the Arts, The Artist Forward Fund from Artlink, multiple Phoenix Project Support Grant, The Phoenix Artist to Work Grant, and others.  

Artist Statement

My work is a physical manifestation of the future and an examination of the present, seeped in embodied ancestral knowledge. It is a familial experience. It is memory coming to life through embodied storytelling using the ancestral movement technologies of Breaking and Cumbia, cultural forms rooted in the African and Latine Diasporas. It is multi-generational and a conduit for matriarchal knowing.

 

Awards Received

2024: Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Inaugural Spark of Change Award

2023: Phoenix Center for The Arts Performing Artist Mayor’s Arts Award

GRANTS RECEIVED

2023: Phoenix Arts & Culture Artist to Work; Arizona Commission on the Arts Artist Opportunity Grant; Phoenix Arts & Culture Project Support Grant; Arizona Commission on the Arts Creative Capacity Grant

2022: Artlink’s The Artist Forward Fund (TAFF); Arizona Commission on the Arts Creative Capacity Grant; Arizona Commission on the Arts Artist Opportunity Grant

2021: Tempe Performance Arts in The Park Grant; Phoenix Project Support Program; Phoenix Stabilization Grant

2020: Tempe Vibrant City Grant

2019: Arizona Commission on the Arts Professional Development Grant


FELLOWSHIPS

 

2023 NALAC Leadership institute

“We are excited to welcome 30 fellows to the NALAC Leadership Institute. In addition to sharing knowledge and offering professional development, the Institute provides a unique space for Latinx artists, administrators, and cultural workers to meet and connect— an opportunity for us all to learn more about the valuable work happening in the field,” said Mari Hernandez, NALAC Deputy Director.

https://www.nalac.org/nalac-announces-the-2023-nalac-leadership-institute-fellows/

 
 

2021 INTERCULTURAL LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE

“ILI is a collaborative program of Alternate ROOTS, First Peoples Fund, National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures (NALAC) , PA’I Foundation and Sipp Culture. The effort grew from the founding leaders of these cultural organizations. They found that many personal and professional leadership programs emphasized dominant cultural norms, modes of learning and social approaches that didn’t match their commitment to cultural equity and change-making in their own communities.” - ILI

www.weareili.org/the-ili-vision/

 
 

2021 Nalac Advocacy leadership institute

“Through the NALAC Advocacy Leadership Institute, participants are equipped with necessary tools to communicate effectively with elected officials, lead proactive efforts in their own communities, and understand the frameworks involved in shaping cultural policy.”- NALAC

www.nalac.org/members/ruby-morales/