We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Elleanna Spinelli a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Elleanna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

“You gotta risk it to get the biscuit!” About six months ago, I decided to leave my service industry job managing at a restaurant in Scottsdale. I enjoyed the work, and it allowed me to grow and flourish in many ways. However, I knew I was not reaching my full potential there. As the days went on, I found myself becoming unhappy with the work. I felt as if the energy and time I spent working at the restaurant would be more effective by placing that energy into my passions. At the same time, my rent at my apartment was skyrocketing $600 more than my budget. So, I took the leap of faith, put in my two weeks at the restaurant, packed up my apartment, and put it in a storage unit. From there, I took off to Mexico for a month-long adventure (The happiest time of my life I will say). I felt like I let everything important to me go – to find the next bigger and better thing. It has been a difficult but rewarding journey delving full-time into my creative work. I have learned so much about myself and where I believe I belong in this world. After allowing myself to let the old version of myself go, I have been able to step into this new chapter of my life.  I was able to accomplish Blending Pachanga the Movement Festival. Managing this event taught me a lot about what it means to give back, network, and create amongst the community. I am a developing entrepreneur, and I enjoy finding ways to connect my passions to arts entrepreneurship. I am in the process of developing my first LLC from the ground up. 3113 Enterprises. Which is a representation of my name, Elle, but in numbers! A dream I was able to finally begin because I took the risk to let everything go. Haven’t made it to where I get the nice juicy biscuit quite yet, but I am hopeful that taking this risk will work in my favor and begin my journey to help artists, creatives, and businesses in their journey.

Elleanna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hello there! I am Elle Spinelli, sometimes known as Arizona Mother Paragon, or as Elle Prodigy. I was born and raised in the desert heat of PHX, AZ. I studied dance at ASU, and learned various styles of dance like: contemporary, modern, ballet, breaking, locking, house, etc. Through the help of my mentors, I was able to find VOGUE. A style of dance that has allowed me to flourish. I began with my love for dance, but as I learned more about the underground ballroom culture I began to fall in love with the community aspects. As a natural leader, I found myself organizing, managing, and mentoring others to build their craft and creativity. As the AZ mother of the Kiki House of Paragon, geared towards the youth, I mentor and build my kids inside and outside of the scene. I have helped my kids travel, earn grants, get performance opportunities, professional development, and best of all win trophies and cash prizes. It means the world to me when I get to see the people I mentor grow into themselves with a gentle push. Let it be known that the Kiki House of Paragon is the FIRST kiki house to be established in Arizona. I am a founding member of our group and continue to lead as AZ Mother in hopes of expanding as the West Coast Mother. We rely on our relationships in the house inside and outside of our craft – they are my chosen family. Additionally, I am a member of the Iconic House of Prodigy as seen on the TV show “Legendary.” That is related to the mainstream ballroom scene which is geared towards everyone and is multi-generational. With a deep history of 22 years, I am proud to hold the Prodigy name and legacy under my belt. I walk and compete nationally in the women’s performance category. I currently hold “Arizona’s Finest Of The Year 2023” presented by the West Coast Ballroom Alliance. Which was the first time that award was presented! It is a representation of my work in the community and how my contributions have officially put Arizona on the map considering I am the only member of the house that resides here.

Developing my artistry, I became a member of the Pachanga Collective. A force to be reckoned with! This group of leaders came together to provide resources and opportunities for ourselves and the community. We recently produced a weekend-long event, “Blending Pachanga the Movement Festival.” We collaborated to put on workshops, performances, and professional development opportunities, all free of cost. We hope to continue producing events and bringing the community together. It is beautiful work to cultivate equitable artistic practices conducive to horizontal agency and autonomy.

I am proud of the work I have done in the Arizona community, and I choose to continue living my life with the hopes of helping people. I am currently developing a business “3113 Enterprises LLC.” The place where arts and entrepreneurship collide. I plan to use this business as a way to include all of my multifaceted skills: dancing, choreography, event management, mentoring, professional development, and more. I offer creative consultation sessions to help build out events, projects, ideas, brands, and businesses with a special focus on art. With this, I will be hosting events, classes, and workshops, to assist in the building of success of other Arts Entrepreneurs like myself. My current focus is to offer professional dance workshops. This is for aspiring, young, emerging artists, to attend a day-long workshop where they will be able to leave with a professional portfolio item they are proud of. I will manage and facilitate the creative process for the artists who are busy with school or work, and who may not have the time to manage all of the pieces of putting a larger-scale project together.

Speaking of events, I am an event management queen. I love using my organizational skills to make a creative idea come to life. There is nothing better than seeing your final outcome better than how you imagined it in your head. I have produced many events as a young adult that I am very proud of. It all began with my first event, “The Delight Manifesto.” I was very ambitious and produced my first evening-length event at just 20 years old at the Unexpected Art Gallery. I continued to develop more events specifically for the organizations I have been working with. For example, I produced the first “Of The Year” kiki ball: “Desert Diamond.” This was one of my contributions to putting AZ ballroom on the map. The first ball to get OTY recognition in AZ. So basically, that means whoever wins at the event will receive a point, and at the end of the year, the West Coast Kiki ballroom alliance tallies the wins and throws an event to award of the year nominations. I continued to create “Summer Lovin” another kiki ball that was in celebration of our 3rd anniversary as a house. There will be more, “Presented by Elle Spinelli” coming to you soon!

Overall, I am a spiritual being who enjoys seeing manifestations come into reality, bringing joy to others, helping them, and building a stronger community.

To find out more about me and the organizations I represent please follow:
@3113official
@kikihouseofparagon
@iconichouseofprodigy
@pachangacollective

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I have considered this question a lot considering I am an ex-people pleaser… So, where do I begin? I think a lot of it has to do with capacity. Not everyone has the mental capacity to create on a certain level. It requires a lot of patience, building, developing, and my favorite… FAILURE. I like to think every time I fail at something, I am one step closer to my success. Not everyone has the ability or safe space to create freely. I have found myself having to fight for it at times when I am not welcomed in certain spaces. With that, I had to figure it out and make that space in my life to pursue my creative adventures. Being creative is not linear. It is never going to be you apply for the job, you get hired, get promoted, and then you retire. That’s not how creative people work. We create something and see it die more frequently. At the end of a project, you will find creative people almost grieving over that the work is complete, and time to move on to the next. It’s a constant evolve, repeat, evolve, repeat. With that being said, I had to let go of my wanting to people like me and what I was doing. I had to realize what I am doing is not for everyone. If you continue pushing, you will find your community and who your work is for that is meaningful. People agree to disagree all the time. So if you find yourself scrambling some way to appease people who clearly don’t care about what you’re doing, you only end up hurting yourself. Don’t break your back or twist your mind over it. Understand your lane, and stay in it… they can stay in theirs. Unless you have a crazy idea to merge dance with science (which I did under the facilitation of Liz Lerman, I created a dance work based on NASA’s Cheryl Nickerson’s research of flying salmonella into space.. super cool!) So creatives, whatever you envision, you can make it happen. To my non-creatives, a little support goes a long way. If you don’t understand something, ASK! And secretly, I don’t think there is such a thing as non-creatives. Everybody is so creative!!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

WINNING ISN’T EVERYTHING… FOR REAL.

Here is the backstory, I began my journey as AZ mother of Paragon because my mentor asked me to be in this position and to rise to the occasion. So, I was a bit lost at first and figured out most things the hard way. Being put in a leadership position early in my ballroom career left me feeling a lot of imposter syndrome. Now that I have three years under my belt as a leader, I feel more confident in my leadership skills; however, I want the accolades to match. I found myself going to balls with the desire to win so badly that it began to block my creativity. I cared more about winning to prove to others that I deserve to be in my leadership position. I still have my wins, and the proof is in the pudding baby. But this last ball I walked in LA, I lost my first battle at the kiki ball and got chopped at the mainstream ball. For those that may not understand this lingo… it means NOT GOOD haha. After I went home, I watched my performances and saw my failures. I was able to reflect and understand that winning isn’t my purpose or the reason why I do it. It is more of the cherry on top. I reflected on how it means more to me to be consistent and keep showing up. I have overcome many confidence obstacles where it was difficult for me to go out there and compete in the first place. It is hard putting yourself out there. I realized that just because you’re a leader doesn’t mean you win every ball you walk. I learned how I handle my failures and losses can be a testimony and lesson for the kids that I mentor as well. You live, you laugh, you learn, and most importantly keep on trying. Especially me, this won’t be the last of me that they see, I will be back, and I will be better. Mindset affects your creative abilities heavily. It goes with your spiritual inner workings as well. It is a must to tend to your mind garden and cultivate the flowers that you want to see from the ground up.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ellespinelli97.wixsite.com/website
• Instagram: 3113official
• Facebook: Elle Spinelli
• Youtube: ellespinelliparagonprodigy
• Other: IG: @pachangacollective @kikihouseofparagon @iconichouseofprodigy TikTok: @3113official