homeLA was founded in 2013 by dance artist, Rebecca Bruno.

For over ten years, we have supported the development, production, and presentation of site-specific works by more than 171 performing  artists and 491 artistic collaborators across LA county for over 4,100  guests.

 
 

Neutra VDL House in Silverlake, 2017

Mission

homeLA is a platform for experimental performance that positions underrepresented narratives into the embodied exchange of ideas around space and place to reframe Los Angeles’ history and its civic and urban character through varied contextual imaginings of “home.”

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

homeLA is committed to promoting diversity, equity, inclusivity, and access in all aspects of our organization, from the values and practices that inform our mission, to our internal structure, to the programming we curate and the communities we serve. Our overarching approach towards equity in our policies and practices comes from the collective envisioning for transformative change in society.

Women’s Center for Creative Work, 2015

In our pursuit of meaning-making, in the production of space, and in redefining the relationships between subject and place, we commit to the following:

 

  • Establishing an anti-bias context for our productions, artist selection, audience outreach, and partnerships

  • Amplifying the voices of those marginalized by dominant white culture

  • Operating through a lens of intersectionality

  • Creating programming with–not for–the people we serve.

In our quest to forge diversity and equitable access in and around dance and performance in Los Angeles, we endeavor to:

 

  • Strive to produce impactful art and cultural programming that makes everyone feel valued, whatever their ability, gender, sexual orientation, age, race, cultural heritages, socio-economic status, and/or belief. 

  • Actively facilitate self-representation and shared decision-making with the groups we seek to know and serve through partnerships. 

  • Practice deep listening.

  • Pursue partnerships with community counterspaces to diversify access and encourage agency in the production of space. 

  • Integrate practices that place equal emphasis on lived experience and credential.

  • Develop programming that considers the diverse social-spatial politics of our city in relation to expanded notions of “home.” 

  • Revisit our policies quarterly to self-examine our role as art and cultural programmers through a lens of racial justice.

Racial Equity Statement

J.B. Merrill House, 2015

We recognize that systematic racism is built into the institutional mechanisms and structures for art in Los Angeles, and that historical trauma, due to white supremacy, has displaced how we value individuals.

This inspires us to be more diverse, inclusive, equitable, accessible, and compassionate in the values and practices that inform our mission.  Thus, we are committed to dismantling white supremacy and interrupting the narratives of white dominant culture in our pursuit of meaning-making, in the production of space, and in redefining the relationships between subject and place.

Land Acknowledgement

homeLA recognizes and acknowledges the Yaavitam, the first people of this ancestral and unceded territory from the Tongva/Kizh village of Yaangna, now known as Downtown Los Angeles. The greater Tongva region, which contains much of the current City of LA, contained hundreds of independent Tongva villages, called Tovaangnar, or “the first people of this land.” We pay our deepest respects to their elders, past, present and future. We deeply consider the land and water we live upon, and the many legacies of once vibrant communities stripped of their freedoms and cultural traditions. Today they call themselves Gabrieleño Tongva, the Fernandeño Tataviam and the Ventureño Chumash (choo-mash). We recognize that the Yaavitam are still here and acknowledge that our work takes place on these sacred lands. We are committed to lifting up their dance, stories, culture, and lifeways and honoring their land, ocean and sacred spaces.

Learn more about the native land you are on by visiting Native Land Digital.

 Team

  • Chloë Flores is a Latinx Yaqui Native curator, writer, arts producer, and community organizer whose work centers on body-based and performative practices and the dynamic relationship of public/private space in the production of culture. She is the Executive and Artistic Director of homeLA, a LA-based nomadic dance-centered performance organization; Programs Director at Heidi Duckler Dance; and a Co-Founder and active member of the Los Angeles Dance Worker Coalition. In 2011, she founded and directed GuestHaus Residency (GHR), a housing residency that supports Los Angeles nonprofits and artist-run spaces through free housing for visiting artists, writers and curators. Currently on hiatus due to the pandemic, GHR has partnered with 40 LA-based organizations and institutions to provide over 70 residencies as well as host fundraisers, art events, film screenings and networking social functions.

    Flores has worked in the arts in Los Angeles since 1999, beginning with International Museum Logistics. From 2005-2007, Flores co-founded/co-directed enView gallery in Long Beach–an eclectic art space, community hub, and platform for emerging artists. She received her Masters of Art and Curatorial Practice in the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California in 2011. Her curatorial project, Chloë Flores, on Facebook (2011-2013) was an art space and curatorial project that utilizes the user-based, social interface of Facebook as a public space for exhibition and representation—of oneself, of others, and of art. She curated Within (2013), an exhibition and program of events that explore the perceiving self, embodiment, and the corporeal production of knowledge at Cypress College, CA; Work After Work at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture Mackey Garage Top in Los Angeles in 2011; and Public Postage: Responses to Art Against Empire at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) in 2010. In 2010, she was a curatorial assistant for The Orange County Museum's California Biennial.

    Flores has contributed texts and essays for exhibitions, catalogues and books including the University of California, Riverside’s California Museum of Photography exhibition Matt Lipps: HORIZON/S in 2012; Work After Work at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture Mackey Garage Top in Los Angeles in 2011; Fallen Fruit, Let Them Eat LACMA in 2010; The Orange County Museum's 2010 California Biennial; the J. Paul Getty Museum’s California Video exhibition in 2008; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE); as well as The Office, The Armory Center for the Arts, Dance Resource Center, Monte Vista Projects, Cypress College, The Sweeney Art Gallery at UC Riverside, Anthony Greaney Gallery, Sierra Nevada College, and The Box gallery in Los Angeles.

  • Andrew Mandinach (he/him/his) is the Media Production and Social Media manager of homeLA. He is responsible for homeLA’s archive, event and rehearsal documentation, photo and video editing, social media posts, and visual aesthetics. He is a filmmaker and installation artist whose work explores memory and perception, representation, identity, performance, and gender. His documentation has created an archive of nearly every rehearsal and performance over 8 years, in 20 homes, of 125+ artists. Andrew received his BA in Visual Arts, Media with a minor in Ethnic Studies from The University of California at San Diego. He is currently the Social Content Manager for UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where he manages the social strategy for the school across all social media platforms with a focus on follower growth and community engagement.

  • Vanessa Hernández Cruz (she, her, ella) is an emerging interdependent Chicana disabled dance artist & Disability Justice activist. She is from the unceded lands of the Tongva & Kizh lands colonially known as Los Angeles, California. She graduated from California State University Long Beach with her BA in Dance Science.

    In 2022, she was selected into the first national cohort for LatinXtentions year long dance mentorship program led by David Herrera. She was also selected into The Box LA Pieter Parking Space Residency based in Los Angeles, CA where she produced her dance piece “Exit?”. In 2021 she was a part of the Arts Unchained International virtual residency where she developed a dance film titled “11th Hour”.

    Vanessa has been implementing the Disability Justice framework (Sins Invalid) through her activism & dance work. She is currently working with DANC (Dance Artists’ National Collective) as their Communications & Social Media Co-Coordinator. She also serves as a consultant in their BIPOC & Disabled Circle.

    In the past, she has guided Cal State Long Beach Department of Dance to adopt Disability Justice elements into their dance productions and curriculum with the support of CSULB Affinity AIDE (Advocates for Inclusion & Dancer Equity).

    She has developed two workshops: Dismantling Ableism in Dance & Accessibility at the Forefront of Dance Making Series. In addition she offers accessibility consulting to individuals & a variety of arts organizations.

    Vanessa’s lifetime aspirations are to perform, choreograph, & create dance films. Through her artistry & activism she will continue to help dismantle systemic oppressions in the dance field to help create an equitable path for future multi-marginalized disabled artists.

  • Jay Carlon is a queer Filipinx American contemporary dance artist and community organizer based between LA and NYC. He is committed to connecting his art practice to sustainability and his personal and collective journey of decolonization. He is Co-Manager and Educator of homeLA’s Place-Making Program. He is responsible for developing our education curriculum and teaching students. Carlon was named Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch, and his work has been featured throughout the United States, Mexico, Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Jay is a performer and directing associate with Australian spectacle theater company Sway, where he has performed at the 2014 Olympics, the 2016 World EXPO, and the 2018 Super Bowl. Carlon has also performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Bill T. Jones, jumatatu m. poe, The Industry Opera, Oguri, Solange Knowles, Rodrigo y Gabriela; and choreographed works for Kanye West and Mndsgn.

  • samantha mohr is the Director and Educator of homeLA’s Place-Making Program and is responsible for developing homeLA’s education curriculum and teaching students. An LA-based maker and performing artist, their work reflects a collage of dance, theater, visual, vocal, and live performance arts. The choreography has been presented in Los Angeles at REDCAT, Highways Performance Space, LAMAG, LACE Gallery, homeLA, Pieter Performance Space, Electric Lodge, and the Feminist Center for Creative Work; in New York at The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and Eden’s Expressway; in Paris, France at Cinema La Clef; and in Baltimore at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and Baltimore’s Theater Project. Samantha is a co-recipient of the Rubys Artist Grant (2019) with collaborator Candace Scarborough.

Advisory Board

  • Bernard Brown, Artistic Director of Bernard Brown/bbmoves, is an artist-citizen who situates his work at the intersection of blackness, belonging, and memory. In addition to presenting his scholarship on blackness, queerness, activism, inclusive pedagogy, and post-modern dance nationally, Bernard’s choreography is presented widely, including Seoul, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Phoenix and New York. Bernard has performed the work of distinguished artists and companies including David Rousseve/REALITY, TU Dance, Shapiro & Smith Dance, Doug Elkins Dance Company, Donald McKayle, Rennie Harris, Kamasi Washington, Louis Johnson, Chris Emile, Vincent Patterson, Rudy Perez, jumatatu m. poe, Aveda and was invited to perform with Mikhail Baryshnikov in Robert Wilson’s “Letter to a Man” with choreography by Lucinda Childs. Bernard had a twenty-year tenure at Lula Washington Dance Theatre, where he was principal dancer, rehearsal director and assistant to the Artistic Director, Lula Washington. Other career highlights include restaging McKayle’s canonical “Games” for the Kennedy Center's Masters of African American Choreography, performing on the Daytime Emmy’s, in Penumbra Theater’s “Black Nativity,” Donald Byrd’s “Harlem Nutcracker,” and being the titular principal dancer in Nike’s “12 Miles North: The Nick Gabaldon Story,” the first documented Afro-Mexican American surfer. Recipient of the Westfield Emerging Artist and Lester Horton Awards, Brown has been featured in Dance Magazine, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times for his dance activism. Earning his MFA from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and BFA from Purchase College, he is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Loyola Marymount University and a Certified Katherine Dunham Instructor Candidate. The LA Times has called him “…the incomparable Bernard Brown…”

  • Rebecca Bruno is a psychotherapist and artist practicing across dance and visual art. In 2013, Bruno founded homeLA, a performance project dedicated to dance process in private space partnering with body-based artists and Los Angeles residents. Bruno collaborates with Mak Kern on Objects for Others, a project that embraces chance and meditation by pairing a dance sensibility with kinetic sound sculptures. Bruno’s works have been presented by such venues as The Hammer Museum, The Norton Simon Museum, The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, the Lloyd Wright Sowden House, the Neutra VDL House, REDCAT Theater, FLAX Foundation at Tin Flats, The Pit Gallery, Honor Fraser Gallery, Ponderosa Germany, Dance Studies Association Malta, Judson Church NYC, and the LAB Jerusalem.

  • Jenny Landers is the owner and curator of Sowden House cultural events. She has a background in television, professional and collegiate sports post-production, and graphic design. Over the years, Jenny has worked for boutique post production houses based in NYC: Image Editorial, Post Perfect, The Blue Rock Editing Company, Company 3, and ANC Sports.

    She is a lifelong lover of dance and always makes it a point to seek out the dance community in every city she lands. Jenny served as a board member and the secretary for Malashock Dance in San Diego from 2016-2019, and she has been on the board of homeLA since 2019. Jenny has hosted fundraisers and events for Invertigo Dance, Everybody Dance LA, homeLA, FLAX Foundation, and the MAK Center for Arts and Architecture. Upcoming events include a summer production for Iris Dance Company and a fundraiser for the Barnsdall Art Foundation.

    Other charitable events she has hosted include Kindred Spirits Care Farm, Wildlife SOS, Little Red Dog, and Food Forward.

    Art exhibits she has helped to facilitate at the Sowden House include the Gagosian’s exhibit of ADRIANA VAREJÃO - Transbarroco, LAND Los Angeles Nomadic Division; Jose Dávila Sense of Place.

    A lover of animals, art, and social justice, Jenny has volunteered at many non-profits in NJ, NY, WA and CA. These include: campaign coordinator for Amnesty International at Rider University, NYCares, charity bike rides for National MS Society, American Diabetes Association, and the National AIDS ride, Cycle for the Cause. Massage volunteer hours for University of Washington medical students, and the San Diego Humane Society.

    Alongside her dedication to the field of dance, Jenny is also a French & Spanish Wine Scholar and is looking forward to combining her love of travel with her wine education. She also holds her license to practice massage in WA state and currently splits her time between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, where she hangs with her husband and Persian cats.

  • Kimberli Meyer is a cultural producer, curator, and designer working in art and architecture. She was director of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, at the Schindler House, Los Angeles for fourteen years; and at the University Art Museum at California State University Long Beach for two years. She has worked with leading artists, architects, curators, and scholars to produce many exhibitions and performance installations, educational programs, and museum publications. Meyer is co-leader, along with artist lauren woods, of American Monument, a nomadic artwork that prompts reflection on the cultural conditions under which African-Americans lose their lives to police brutality, most recently on view at the Beall Center for Art and Technology at University of California, Irvine.

  • Mara McCarthy is the Principal and Curator of The Box gallery in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles. Since starting The Box in 2007, Mara has worked to create a unique art space–exhibiting work from artists with a diverse range of mediums, both historical and contemporary, many of whom have been unsupported and forgotten.

    The Box LA, originally located on the historic Chung King Rd. of Chinatown, Los Angeles, started out with a focus on artists who had been overlooked both historically and geographically. Presenting exhibitions that would shift the understanding of artists such as Barbara T. Smith, Simone Forti, Stan VanDerBeek and Wally Hedrick. Since moving into the Arts District in 2012 and developing the program even more, McCarthy has been expanding her vision of the gallery and has realized the importance of showing politically and psychologically dynamic work. Looking forward, McCarthy is interested in working in a way that expands the notion of what a commercial gallery can be and to consider how powerful the process of viewing art can be. Expanding the access and concept of a gallery program to include Dance, Painting, Music, Art History, Sculpture, Social Justice projects, Performance and Gallery Editions.

  • taisha paggett makes things and is interested in what bodies do. They/she believes language is tricky, thoughts are powerful, and that people are most beautiful when looking up. more formally, paggett is an interdisciplinary dance artist whose individual and collaborative works re-articulate and collide specific western choreographic practices with the politics of daily life so to interrupt fixed notions of Black and queer embodiment, desire, and survival. paggett had the great honor of receiving the Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ Merce Cunningham Award in 2019 and their/her work has been supported by the kindness and efforts of numerous other organizations, curators, writers, mentors, friends and venues over the years including the Hammer Museum as part of Made in LA; Commonwealth & Council (LA); Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LA); Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia); DiverseWorks (Houston); the Whitney Museum as part of the Whitney Biennial; Studio Museum in Harlem; Danspace at St Mark’s Church (New York); Defibrillator (Chicago); Gallery TPW (Toronto); and the Audain Gallery (Vancouver) amongst others. paggett teaches in the Dance Department at UC Riverside and lives nearby in what paggett is coming to understand as a cross-section of the original and rightful homeland of the Cahuilla, Tongva, Luiseño, and Serrano communities. More information can be found here and here.

  • Born and raised in Guatemala, Melanie Ríos Glaser succeeded the Founder, Beth Burns, as Artistic Director and Co-CEO of The Wooden Floor from 2005 to 2016. The Wooden Floor is a renowned non-profit organization that uses a unique approach to contemporary participatory dance making to work extensively with low-income youth.

    Melanie received her BFA from the Juilliard School in 1994, was named a Kennedy Center Fellow in 1998, and a Fulbright Scholar in Paris in 2003. At The Wooden Floor she commissioned work from Steve Paxton, Susan Rethorst, Sally Silvers, and many more, as Artistic Director and Co-CEO until 2016.

    Melanie has choreographed more than 30 pieces for groups that include UC Irvine’s Dance Department, Group Motion Dance Theatre Company, Ballet Moderno y Folklórico de Guatemala, Ballet de Cali, her own Mosquito Dance Company and The Wooden Floor. REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) presented her piece titled “La Tribu” in 2012 and she has participated in the site-specific series HOME LA.

    Her work has been performed in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, France, Colombia, Brazil, California, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. In 2013 her chapter on her journey with The Wooden Floor was published in Creating Dance: A traveler’s guide edited by Carol M. Press and Edward C. Burton. Since 1994 Melanie has had a marked interest in her continued curiosity of movement making (or not), in dance improvisation, contact improvisation, and dance composition.

    Melanie was certified in 2003 as a somatic educator at Moving on Center in Northern California. In addition she has been a Trustee for DanceUSA, a curator for Studio Series at REDCAT, and most recently excited to be able to participate in the continued growth of homeLA. She enjoyed improvising for SCORED; pen pals, with Juli Brandano. Melanie volunteers as a consultant and mentor for other nonprofits on issues of non-profit board governance, leadership, professional fundraising, strategic planning and vision.

  • Nicole Robinson (BS/MA) is a dancer, teacher, choreographer and dance education advocate from Riverside, CA. She is the dance specialist for the Fontana Unified School district leading professional development projects and workshops for teachers grades K-6 and is the lead teacher for the FUSD Dance Collaborative which provides dance education for students in grades PK-8 grades. In 2015, she was named California League of Teachers' Teacher of the Year for Region 10 and was named the 2017 Carlston Family Foundation Teacher of the Year.

    She has served as a team lead for the California Arts Standards Revision Committee in Dance and is a teacher leader for the California Arts Project. Currently, Nicole is the past president for the California Dance Education Association which is the statewide professional organization for California dance educators. She serves as a committee member for the National Dance Education Organization’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access advisory.

  • Samuel Uri Vasquez has served as a dedicated fundraiser and arts advocate at leading Los Angeles institutions for over a decade. Following his experience as co-founder of the collective-run performance space eighteen-thirty, Samuel joined The Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MOCA) advancement department and quickly grew to oversee a wide array of operations. This was followed by a tenure in Advancement at the Hammer Museum during the launch of Made in L.A. and Free Admission. He oversaw the opening of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), formerly the Santa Monica Museum of Art and introduced new approaches to fundraising centered around community building and social inclusion and mission-driven fundraising. Currently, Samuel serves as Deputy Director, Advancement at MOCA. Originally from California, Samuel lives in Downtown Los Angeles and received his B.A. in Political Science from UCLA.

homeLA is fiscally sponsored by Fulcrum Arts