We were lucky to catch up with Damarilee Alvarado recently and have shared our conversation below.

Damarilee, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I am extremely happy as a creative. Being a creative is a large part of my identity and how the world perceives me. I feel like I was born to live in the purpose of a creative and I can only operate in that mindset and purpose.

Although I am able to professionally work as a creative and engage in projects and events that thrive off of my creativity and artistry, I do work a regular job. The challenge is being able to manage both worlds and at times intertwine a regular job and what I do as a career.

Damarilee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Damarilee Alvarado but many know me by the name Madii (pronounce Mah-Dee). My artist name is Mvdii and I am a twenty six year old Afro-Latina woman born and raised in The Bronx.

When someone asks me what I do as a profession/career I usually respond with being a “jack of all trades” in the performing arts/music and hospitality industry. I am a singer/songwriter, the president of XCLSV Events my event production company, and I am an actress and playwright. In my career path I have had to wear many hats and learn and hone different skills to create and flourish in the space I am now as an independent music artist and entrepreneur.

I have been involved in the arts for as long as I can remember. I have been singing since the age of three and have the privilege of immensely supportive parents who are also into music, the arts and the hospitality industry. My mother was/is a dancer and an event organizer and my father was/is a DJ and event producer. They always made sure I was involved in what made me happy whether it was dance classes, after school art programs and music programs. I have always had a love for music and theater and from high-school throughout college I was blessed to put into practice what I am passionate about.

At the age of fourteen/fifteen I experienced a two week conservatory program at AMDA (The American Musical & Dramatic Academy). I spent a week in my city doing musical theatre and then spent a week in Los Angeles California making music, creating a showcase and recording music in a recording studio. AMDA combined both my love for theater and music and it opened up a world I didn’t know I could live in professionally.

Shortly after that I spent five years apart of a non profit organization called Renaissance Youth Center. This was a very crucial and amazing part of my life where I really took the time to understand my music craft. I was apart of their music program and was apart of a band called Music With A Message (MWAM). We created songs and produced shows that provided awareness and positive messages about topics that would be effecting our community in The Bronx and other places in the world that were being of disservice due to lack of resources and politics. Through MWAM I was also able to experience life changing performances such as performing the national anthem twice at Yankees Stadium and performing for congress at The Capital in DC. Renaissance Youth Center and MWAM taught me a great deal about taking pride in who I am, where I was from, how to advocate for myself and my community and how I can own that through music. I would love to give a shoutout to my mentor and the CEO/President of RYC Mr. Bervin Harris. He pours all of his being into RYC and always made sure that RYC was a Mecca and safe space for the undeserved youth to grow learn and flourish in The South Bronx through music programs and now a STEM program.

Moving forward, I attended and graduated from Lehman College with a degree in Multimedia in Performing Arts with a focus in Theatre. Lehman College was another milestone in my life that helped me prepare to live in the art world professionally. It was at Lehman College where I learned how to really become a jack of all trades. I learned the basics of acting, play writing, improv, stage design, and most importantly how to introduce, maintain and manage myself as an actor/artist. I was even able to perform and have a play I wrote called “ Remember Me” produced on stage for the 2020 New Faces Playwrights Festival. My play was also chosen to represent Lehman College in the CUNY’s Playwrights Festival.

In addition, I worked with an in house event production company called Lehman Stages. Lehman stages held in house events as well as outside events in three separate theater spaces which I was in charge of maintaining and managing. Through Lehman Stages and Lehman College’s amazing theater department I have produced shows from both front and back of the house. I experience the event/show production process, light design, stage management, stage hand work and how to care and maintain theater venues. This was just the beginning of the entrepreneur life that I had no idea I would live.

Now, after graduating I asked myself the age old question that all college graduates asks themselves:
What now?

Unfortunately I graduated during the pandemic and was facing a crisis of where my career was going on top of the Covid-19 crisis that was covering the world! However, just like any other moment in my life, I turned to music and the arts. I focused on singing, how I could connect to others via social media and figure out how I could lead a happy creative life and make money while doing so. Unfortunately when the world began to open back up, I had to focus on getting the one thing creatives dread most, a regular nine to five job. I ended up becoming a server and a bartender at a few establishments for steady income and the flexibility of my artist life. As annoying and restricting as regular jobs can be, I was able to use that income to sustain myself and do what makes me happy which is creating events or as I like to call them “experiences” that celebrate creativity and uplift my Bronx community.

As I said before I am the President of XCLSV Events. XCLSV Events is an NYC based event production and marketing firm that focuses on creating exciting, interactive and affordable dance and performance based events primarily to residents of The Bronx, Upper Manhattan (Washington Heights, Inwood) and Harlem. It was born out of necessity due to the lack of a nightlife scene in those markets. We strive to provide safe, welcoming and secure spaces where people from all walks of life can enjoy house music, world music and more. We have also begun to work in corporate settings as well as providing consultation services for those who wish to improve or begin their event production career!

Our most popular events that we have curated so far is:

House is a Feeling, which is a House music dance party event that is the only one of its kind in The Bronx. It focuses on the celebration of the love of House music and the unity it brings in the community.

Live From The Boogie, which is a jam session that serves as a platform for artists and musicians to network, showcase their talent and share their work in The Bronx. The goal is to bring live music back to The Bronx and create a growing community of musicians and artists that reside in the borough.

Through XCLSV Events I have been able to connect, collaborate and work with some of the most amazing passionate and creative people, collectives, small businesses and artists in The Bronx. As you can see I am heavily invested in highlighting the amazing things that happen within my borough. The Bronx has had a very hard and long history of being unhealthy, underserved and dangerous. While many choose to look at my home as such things, I make it my business to highlight all the amazing work, and services that I as well as others do for our community to show that we are worth all that we deserve as a people and more! We are kind, we are caring, we are smart, we are resilient and we are creative. And lastly, we take care of each other.

Overall, I found a balance between working a nine to five and what my friends like to call my “five to nine” which is XCLSV Events and my own independent artist work. It is a challenge but I wouldn’t trade my life style for anything else in the world. I am able to produce music like my single “Tik Tok Touch” (available on all music platforms) as well as do live music shows, attend open mics and create musical spaces of my own through events such as Live From The Boogie. I am here to show people that you don’t have to settle with what is given to you and you don’t have to sit at someone’s table when you can create your own! You can show up for yourself, what you believe in and show up for your community. And best of all, you can create your own business, be successful and quit that nine to five. I’m already half way there.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is connecting with someone else who relates to your mission, message or music. On July 28th 2023 XCLSV Events celebrated the one year anniversary of Live From The Boogie. This event in particular is really close to my heart because it was one of the first events that I curated in my company and has a live music component that many of our other events do not. . I had about three different people who were attending the event and artists themselves come up to me and tell me how excited and amazed they were at the turn out of the event. They mentioned how high of a demand there was for a jam session in The Bronx and how important it was that a platform was created to help give the community and artists like them an opportunity to network, perform and just experience something positive in the borough. That alone made me tear up. Before Live From The Boogie I always felt like I didn’t have a space to explore myself musically besides open mics which at times can be intimidating and repetitive.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

The best thing a society can do to support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem is to be open minded, treat us with respect and support us where they can. Society has a bad habit of glorifying celebrities and sweeping upcoming artists and creatives under the rug. Everyone who is in the arts has something to contribute and instead of it being a competition, society can give artist and creatives their flowers where they are due. In addition, support doesn’t always mean funding us. Yes it does take time and money to create whatever it is we share with the world but we do what we do because we love it. We also create to connect with others and show society that you are never alone in whatever it is that you are going through. Something as simple as sharing someone’s song post or content is more than enough. The money will come. The support will come. What is for you will always be for you.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @mvdiilee
• Other: Instagram for businesses: @livefromtheboogie @xclsv.events

Image Credits
Photo Credits: Richard Acevedo