We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erica Santiago. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erica below.
Erica, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
Shakti Moves Dance Company started back in 2014, although I didn’t know it when I started. It was actually me and one other dancer who had come to me as a massage/yoga client. We worked on using movement and mindful attention to take care of her pain, and through discussions realized that we were also refining our understandings around movement concepts for modern dance. She invited me into the studio for feedback on a project she was working on, and before I knew it, I was choreographing for her and we were attending small festivals and performing work together. Simultaneously, I was organizing a non-profit organization that was first geared towards school aged kids. I had the support of a group of 7 board members and together we aimed to take what I was learning was a powerful combination of yoga/mindfulness and creative expression for healing and social/emotional regulation. We became official in 2016. The idea was potent, but it had a lot of kinks to work out. The first was the realization that if the children were not supported at home, the techniques we were offering wouldn’t land. This was a trail and error learning journey for me that lasted about 3 years. I adjusted the age group of participants, the number of participants, and finally the gender. I settled on high school girls and we used dance to express what we couldn’t speak. It was a profound journey for me to realize that 1, young women are not receiving the guidance from care givers that teach them about their inherent value or the power of choice. I felt it vital to teach them ways to learn to express clearly with both verbal and non verbal cues properly in order to live a life where they can exist as equals with agency in their life. We gathered a small group of students willing to perform and showcase our work together. I took the opportunity to include the adult dancers I had been working with separately.
The idea to take our own human experience and create art was always the foundation, but I wanted to find a way to allow for deep dives into topics that I found interesting. These topics were advanced and a bit edgy for school aged students, but by 2020, I had been creating exclusively on the adults and due to the pandemic, working with the students became unavailable. The beautiful thing for me was that the pandemic allowed me an opportunity to stop and rethink everything that I was doing. A chance to process personal loss, grief, and change through my own deep dives that informed the way I work creatively as well. I understood that my heart was constantly pulled to my work with the adult dancers. By this time I had cultivated a group of 5 diverse female yoga practitioners with the capacity for inquiry and investigation. I decided to shift focus to the adults and really go for building a sustainable dance company that could build bridges between art disciplines as well as use art as a way to connect and heal.
In the last (almost) five years now, we have grown from a one woman operation to 7 female leaning individuals who are all capable and powerful in their individual pursuits. We also now have a team running the admin duties to set us up for sustainable growth. With all of us in a room creating together, it literally brings the magic of what I would call the universal mother down to the ground where we swirl and direct through our bodies and voices the medicine of movement to our community growing with us.
So the idea over time has percolated in my heart, and I have had the sheer luck to sustain the organization, which to be honest is literally a learning lab for me. I feel that ideas for pieces are “dropped” into the mailbox that we can call “mind” during those daily quiet contemplations. I take those ideas into the studio, first by myself to explore and generate content, and then to the dancers who dig into the ideas and literally help me see and hear how the dance wants to live. The next step is to invite our resident artist and production manager Amelia Turner into the studio to soundboard and refine. Amelia and I then invite guests in to join the production and present their art alongside the dances. It never fails that the artists we invite compliment the choreography so beautifully that it demonstrates how building bridges between art disciplines makes cohesive productions that impact our community and remind them of our shared humanity. We work with concepts that bring the spiritual to the forefront with out dogma or preaching. We highlight that the feminine exists in each body regardless of gender by working through archetypes. We create intentional safe space for connection and authenticity. And what cracks my heart wide open is the result. Seeing how much we grow through the process. Seeing how much support and genuine care there is for each other and humanity…receiving feedback from the audience members who somehow feel seen and understood, inspired and energized. Sometimes total strangers. Sometimes people who started the journey with me. It is truly humbling. The process makes me a better human.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Erica Santiago. I grew up in Austin and found dance in elementary school when I would go over to my friend’s house for sleep overs. She was a Jackie’s Fundancer and would teach me her routines. I was hooked and begged my mom to allow me to quit piano for dance. For a while, my mom would use dance as leverage to get me to practice the piano, but I don’t think it took her long to see that was a losing battle. I started training in classical ballet at 14 and decided to pursue dance at Texas Christian University where I graduated as a Ballet and Modern Dance major. At TCU I was exposed to many incredible artists and mentors and continued to pursue performance, teaching and later choreographic opportunities. I came into yogic studies in early 2000 and have been on my own journey of scripture, ritual and contemplation ever since. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my dance practice and my yoga practice were one in the same. I make art to evolve and my art evolves as I live my practice. I choose to work with artists of like mind and enjoy supporting others in their journey to authenticity and creative joy.
After creating Shakti Moves Dance Company, it took a while for us to really hone in on what creative opportunities we wanted to share with the community. There are so many wonderful dance teachers in town that I really wanted a way to connect with dancers and artists that was as unique as our creative process. We offer weekly adult ballet and modern dance classes for adults. We focus on gender inclusion and creating trauma informed safe spaces for our participants to learn. We are highly attuned to mental health and the impact moving the body intentionally with breath can have on mental health. We seek to offer engaging classes and workshop opportunities for participants to remember how innate creativity is as well as to teach them how to read their body and mind system to support their wellness through their creative pursuits. We also craft events that allow our community to express themselves in their chosen art discipline in a community as well as balance that with educational opportunities to stay healthy. In 2025, we will host two open mic nights and a work in progress night. We will host a yoga retreat and an artist retreat, offer acting for movers once a month, and a community field trip to Austin’s rage room followed by a workshop in self defense. In addition to these dynamic community offerings, the company will return for a September performance. I work with the dancers each year setting work that challenges me on all levels. When the pieces are complete, and I have the privilege to sit back and watch, I am often shocked at how uplifted and hopeful I feel about simply being human.
You can find all the details on what , where, and when we offer classes or events at www.shaktimovesdc.org under “offerings”
In my opinion, the thing that sets us apart from others is our commitment to the integrity of our creative process as it is married to our own consciousness. By the time we hit the theatre, we have done so many deep dives into what we feel, how we feel it and where it lands in our body. While we are deep diving, we are staying curious about how that weaves in and out of our experience with the others in the space. The result is a depth and range of expression that is so honest our audience members feel that we experience what they experience in their lives. The problem we solve for our community is the issue of isolation. I can’t tell you how many times I have greeted an audience member with a tearful smile followed by a hug and ” That was stunning. I cant believe I felt like no one could understand what I was going through yet you just showed me that I am not alone. I feel seen” What I am most proud of is that we can do that AND still have integrity in our craft so that we deliver a polished cohesive experience. I feel like the main thing I want people to understand about Shakti Moves is that we welcome all sincere feedback. We love to hear what our community is experiencing and how the work impacts their lives. We are approachable “real” people with “real” jobs and families that make time to come together and create intentional offerings that balance the sacred and the profane in ways that shift perspectives.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In late 2019, after what felt like a successful show, I began making plans to apply for a small grant to do our first performance in a proper theatre. For quite sometime, Cafe Dance has been our home for rehearsals and for performances. The space converts into a sweet black box style performance venue where the audience can be up close to the performers. I have grown fond of that space as a performance option because I really like the intimacy the set up creates. Our audience was still small and so it felt like home. I had spent some time developing in my craft and I felt that I was ready to make a bid for expansion. We started planning new community offerings and started talking with the folks at the Vortex. I was pumped and invited new dancers in to the company. I was nervous but excited. And then the world shut down when Covid hit. At first as many can relate, it felt like a month would be the end and so all the venues we had booked for our new and improved offerings allowed my to continue moving forward with payments and plans. We checked in from week to week and kept things optimistically open ended until the money was needed for survival.
My heart was breaking as I canceled everything and believed that my dreams for expansion and art making where evaporating. In June, Kate Warren, owner of Cafe Dance, offered me to come into the studio by myself to continue moving/working free of rent. I went without question. Without her generosity, I wouldn’t have been able to create.
After much time of keeping quiet and isolated, I found a sort of peace with the way of things. my time solo in the studio gave me a new enthusiasm for the craft that had been deemed “unnecessary” during a time of public crisis. For me and probably every mover, I had to find ways to keep going without a studio. It was entirely necessary for my sanity, so I found myself dancing through nature hikes to learn new ways my body would respond to different ground. This literally changed the way I made movement art! I decided to start a solo project with each of my dancers. It was in this time frame that I created for the first time for a digital audience. Those who are close to me know how much I resist technology so this was a challenge for me in many respects. This pivot from the idea of a theatre with all the lights and cushion to the reality of a video camera and our home studio became a new learning lab for me to not only listen more deeply to my own body, but to the dancers in the company, and to the “muse.” I created a solo series called “When the World Yields” and from that came the seeds for “Myths and Makers,” our first theatre show that was funded by the city of Austin and premiered in September 2024. It was also in this time frame that I got clear on what was important to me as a movement teacher and as an artist.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Sort of a continuation of the above answer, the covid pandemic was a time where I made a huge pivot. I realize that everyone had to pivot during this time frame. For me and Shakti Moves, it was a turning point. Before this pivot, I had been funding the company out of pocket, and it was a very small operation. I was working at Massage Heights pursuing my interests independently outside of that job. The dance company was more like a passion project that I enjoyed and took at my own pace. I experimented. Some were successful and some were pure learning experiments. But somehow being told that my job ( massage) and my passion project ( yoga/dance/art making) were non-essential during the wake of Covid landing, I suddenly started to think about all the other ways I “should” be living. I thought about pursuing a masters degree. I thought about leaving Texas. I thought about leaving Massage Heights. The only one of those inquiries that had any substance at the moment was leaving Massage Heights, but it was equally terrifying because working at Massage Heights was guaranteed employment, which was how I could fund Shakti Moves. But there was something reckless to me about staying there. I trust that the corporation took great care in meeting all the standards for safety within the pandemic guidelines, however, it became more clear to me than ever before that working for a corporation meant my talent was a dime a dozen and my needs as an employee were not important if I wasn’t hitting the numbers that would increase revenue.
I figured I could wait to relocate and return to school, but making the decision to leave corporate comfort meant I had some big changes to make in my life if I were to continue building my private massage practice as well as Shakti Moves Dance Company. I took the leap and went out on my own in my private practice and found my financial needs met and watched as my practice began to blossom. I rented my own office space and settled in. That gave me the mental space and the confidence to apply for grant funding for the dance company. After we were able to come back to full swing in 2021, I understood how valuable the company really was, how much work had been put into building it, and how much work still needed to happen to make the operation sustainable. I decided it was time to think about expanding again, but I went at it differently than I had thought I would pre-pandemic. I continue to work at a pace that feels grounded, but I am no longer just working for me, I am working for the people that make the company an engine: my admin team and the artists who make the work come to life. I could have so easily let the company die after that 2019 show as so many others did during the pandemic. Instead, I chose to grow in the way that honored my heart’s truth. Slowly I have put more and more focus and clarity into the art making process. What I have seen is the company has a life force of its own! Its humming and breathing and growing in such an organic way that represents the synergy of my own style and strength with the gentle giants I have the privilege of creating with. I am so grateful I decided to take the leap and follow what lights me up!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shaktimovesdc.org
- Instagram: @shaktimoves.dc
- Facebook: shaktimovesdancecompany
- Youtube: @shaktimoves2455
Image Credits
Amelia Turner
Bryan Rader
Alyssa Johnson
Liz Banner