Performing arts give social justice new spin

By Kristina Chiapella

Juilliard School graduates Cindy and Mauricio Salgado will be hosting a series of class visits and workshops at Santa Clara from April 5 to April 10, promoting social justice through the organization Artists Striving to End Poverty (ASTEP).

While they were students at Juilliard, Cindy, a dancer, and Mauricio, an actor, started a program called Art In Action. They partnered with ASTEP last summer, which was founded by a Juilliard faculty member and is dedicated to mobilizing artists to create positive experiences for the world's marginalized youth.

"We formed a large group of students to conceive a project where we could use our skills to give back," Mauricio Salgado said. "Hence, the Art In Action summer camp. We started providing these summer empowerment programs for youth in South Florida in the summer of 2003 and haven't looked back since. By 2005 we were doing programming in South Africa and in 2006 we merged with ASTEP."

The Salgados graduated with high honors from Juilliard, one of the world's premier performing arts schools.

Mauricio has worked in the public school system in the Bronx, taught at Rikers Island Prison Complex and performed in multiple shows. Cindy has toured with Cirque du Soleil and will be traveling with the famous Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov this summer.

"These two are world-class artists who have a passion," professor Carolyn Silberman said, whose friendship with the Salgados made the partnership possible. "They are pure inspiration and are very involved, incredible artists."

Silberman, who is teaching a new seminar class this spring called Social Justice and the Arts, said that after she realized the Salgados were enthusiastic about social justice and saw a video about the ASTEP program, she decided it would be a terrific opportunity to work together.

Their visions led to the workshops that will take place at Santa Clara beginning April 5, which will include Cindy and Mauricio visiting Silberman's seminar class and teaching dance and acting classes that all Santa Clara students are welcome to participate in or observe.

The Salgados will work closely with Silberman's seminar class, which will function as a simulation of the type of work that Cindy and Mauricio do at workshops around the world. Silberman explained that during their visit, her students will act as models of the children that Cindy and Mauricio work with, and through this role-playing will learn how to act as teachers themselves.

"A large goal of our organization is to motivate artists to take up their skills and use them in an outreach setting," Mauricio said. "We hope to inspire artists to use their platform for the greater good. We hope to help inspire and set into motion a plan of action for those artists in Santa Clara who see this as a goal in their future."

Silberman's students will draw on this experience as they begin their own social justice work through the Arrupe Center with Estrella Family Services.

The project will allow them to gain firsthand teaching experience by working with young children through Estrella's creative arts program.

The Social Justice and the Arts seminar grew out of a culmination of relationships that Silberman had formed over many years. "The goal is to expose students to what social justice means and define what philanthropy is all about," said Silberman, who plans to bring in many guest artists throughout the quarter.

Ultimately, the goals of Silberman, the Salgados and the ASTEP organization are one and the same: to change the world and bring hope through transformation.

"We had the exact same vision for how we could use the communicative power of the arts to break down barriers among children and inspire them to take an active role in the struggles within their communities," Mauricio said.

ASTEP focuses on creating opportunities for artists to use their talents in ways that can create meaningful changes for children across the globe. Currently they have programs in Florida, South Africa and India, working with children on topics like self-empowerment and AIDS awareness.

Silberman hopes that her seminar class will be able to reach out to children in the same way by going out into the community, and that more students will become involved next year. "You need not be an artist to participate in this class," she said. "It's very hands-on and very interactive."

Throughout all of the workshops, classes and meetings that Cindy and Mauricio Salgado attend, they will not only be teaching their art, but sharing their vision of the importance of art within the realm of social justice.

In Silberman's words, the goal is to "set wildfires," spreading these ideals of social justice around the world.

Contact Kristina Chiapella at (408) 551-1918 or kchiapella@scu.edu.