Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sylvia Cervantes Blush. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Sylvia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?

The first dollar I earned as a creative is something I’m very proud of because it taught me to believe I could make a living doing something that I love.

It had only been a year that I had started learning ballet and jazz at my high school, but when my parents got tired of me stopping traffic as I practiced in our driveway on the corner of Loveland and Granger in Bell Gardens, CA, a friend told me about a small room at the nearby Rio Hondo Boys and Girls Club where I could practice. The Club was located a short walking distance from home and the hours were within my mom’s comfort level for me to be walking alone. So I would trek the short walk with boombox in one hand and ballet slippers in the other to a small room with a 4′ x 4′ mirror and tile flooring in desperate need of repairs, but it was better than destroying my precious ballet slippers on the driveway cement – and hearing my mom say, “Your dad doesn’t want you dancing in the driveway.”

I mainly had the room to myself, but after a few weeks, I noticed the patter of feet and murmuring whispers at the door. It was a group of girls younger than me who were curious to see why there was loud music being played in that part of the Club. It didn’t take long before they sent one of the younger ones to ask me if I would help them with choreography they had been working on for the Club’s upcoming Annual Officer’s dinner. I don’t remember what the dance was, but I helped them clean up their steps and brighten their showmanship. Next thing I know, I was volunteering as the Club’s ballet instructor. After three months, I was officially hired and signed my Social Security card for the first time to earn a whopping $4.25/hr. I was sixteen years old.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Becoming a director has been a long winding and often circular road. My childhood dream was to be a dancer. Period. There was no back up plan or even a different dream unless you count riding horses all day long a plan. I wanted to move with the grace of Fred Astaire, precision of Vera Ellen, and theatricality of Michael Jackson. However, my parents couldn’t afford to pay for studio classes so my only access to dance training was watching movie musicals on network TV, shaking a tail feather at family gatherings (talk about a captivated audience) and thanks to my eldest sister Tina connecting us to cable – MTV. The artistry in the choreography and visual storytelling was reminiscent of the musicals I grew up watching and heavily influenced the way I traipsed about in the grocery store aisles. What I didn’t have access to was knowledge on how to make that dream a reality, but it didn’t stop me from dreaming up choreography and bossing my elementary school friends around during recess. I would gather kids on the playground and make up routines to songs in my head. We weren’t preparing for a performance, it was just something to do other than wracking our wrists on the tetherball.

Through middle school I was fortunate to be in a school district that had performing and visual art classes embedded in the curriculum. It was actually an option to sign up for orchestra, drama, or art courses. I started with the violin and continued that through high school, but I also auditioned for my first play in the 7th grade. This was an after school program, but it instilled in me (as did being in the orchestra) the importance of dedication to practice, attitude toward professionalism, and importance of leadership. It wasn’t until I entered Bell Gardens High School that I began my ballet and jazz dance training under Mrs. Becki Heacock. For four years, I was in that dance room more hours than I spent in all my academic classes combined. It was my salvation – my therapy that I didn’t know I needed. A place where I could release emotions with the body and without judgement. A place to sweat it out to contemporary and classical music. A place to harness the skills to produce a show.

Becki was smart about how she ran the program. The more experienced dancers could audition pieces for the annual dance concert. This meant students choreographed routines, scheduled rehearsals, dreamt up costume pieces, and worked with the lighting designer to tech the shows. I even learned how to splice together cassette tape to edit songs that were beyond the required length. Our concerts were epic. With nearly 100 dancers and at least 20 dances per show, they were pure unadulterated expressions of teenage joy, angst, and love. They were celebrations of the human body and creative ingenuity. It was freedom. And, with the L.A. Riots happening less than ten miles away it was a space to process the injustices unfolding before our eyes. It was also a place that put me on a path as an educator and choreographer. At just sixteen, I became a ballet instructor for the Rio Hondo Boys and Girls Club. Along with class instruction, I often prepared them to perform at local events completely funded by the Club. At eighteen I was hired to be the choreographer for the City’s Miss Bell Gardens Scholarship Pageant and I began my studies at Cerritos Community College. Then, the winding road took a very unexpected sharp turn. I had taken my students to perform at the middle school to help promote sign ups for the following season and during a solo performance I pulled my right adductor muscle into the groin. The pain was so severe I couldn’t walk. The freak injury sidelined me for a full year. Proof that dancing was my therapy, when it was suddenly gone I lost interest in school and dropped out.

With the fortune of having physical therapy through worker’s comp I returned to teaching stronger and more in tune with my body’s abilities. Yet, my return was short-lived as misogynistic and patriarchal leadership at the Club wanted me to “tame” the style of movement being taught. I didn’t have the language or know how to stay and fight so I chose to show my rebellion by quitting. Needing employment, I began a short stint working at Target. After three months, the mayor of Bell Gardens came knocking on my door asking if I was interested to become the City’s Dance Team instructor. It was a no brainer to hang up my red tee and khaki pants for my mostly black and pink dance gear.

I adopted a group of dancers who were accustomed to a drill team style of dance. I brought them a very different structure of learning technique and applying it to choreography. I was still a very young teacher and often misunderstood how to activate engagement without enforcing discipline, but somehow the kids stuck with me as I tried to figure it out and the program grew exponentially. We went to dance competitions, performed at local events, and ended each season with a concert for family and friends. During this time, I opted to compete for the Miss BG Pageant before I aged out of eligibility and to my surprise I WON! I was ecstatic because not only did I win the pageant’s 50th title, I won a scholarship to go back to school – and back to school I went.

My brain exploded! I was learning more in depth ballet and jazz technique. I was introduced to modern dance styles by Dunham, Graham, and Limón. Additionally, I learned fusions of Afro-Caribbean, flamenco, lyrical, and salsa choreography for the semester concerts. I was so thirsty to train again, that my academic classes took a back seat. Math 800 be damned! I was on this infinite loop of lifelong learning with the main focus in the dance room. I was creating and teaching my own choreography, too. I learned to TAP! Like Gene Kelly and Paula Abdul. It wasn’t long before the itch to be in a musical called me across campus to the theater department. I was cast in the chorus of Anything Goes and from that moment on anything went. I was in musicals, plays, improv shows, dance concerts, and even tried stand up comedy. Ultimately I recognized it was time to follow a different loop and make a plan to transfer. I stopped teaching so I could focus on my academics. When it was finally time to transfer from Cerritos to Cal State Long Beach, I reached a fork in the road because of my financial circumstances. One path led me straight to the CSULB Dance Program but with the hefty fees associated with tuition. The other path was an appealing paid acting gig with the Kaiser Permanent Educational Theater Program. It was not an easy decision to make and little did I know that it would significantly shift my artistic trajectory and I chose to put school on hold as I performed across Southern California.

This put a big toll on my body as I was not able to train while doing the gig. When the season was over and I was not physically ready to take on the rigorous dance program as I had hoped. Since I had taken so many courses in theater at Cerritos, it made complete sense to shift my gaze to pursue a degree in acting. After all, I had been doing it all in that department. I didn’t think of it much as another fork, but a spork that could embrace both the fluidity and substance of all expressions of storytelling.

Long Beach was a blur. I didn’t get to tack on dance classes as I had hoped, but I was introduced to Laban Efforts, Fitzmaurice Voicework and physical theater which fulfilled my yearning to move. I worked with imaginative directors who threaded movement into their style of storytelling. I got to be a Victorian lady in search of the future, an Angry Woman in a devised piece on refugees, a scientist – laundry woman – therapist – child and nurse splashing through pools, and learned that you can say vagina in public and no one dies because of it. I was inspired by watching weekly showcase performances directed by my peers and gave it a shot, too. In my final semester, I took a directing course with Anne D’Zmura and my creative world got bigger. One quick year later I walked down the graduation aisle right into the real world. And, this is where things got interesting.

Blessed with my first acting job after graduation, I found myself not able to complete my contract. These many years later I don’t know what triggered it or how I survived prior to this moment but I was struck with a severe case of anxiety and depression that paralyzed me to do any of the things I loved or be with the ones I loved. I couldn’t visit with my newly born nephew, it was that bad. I wasn’t working. I stopped creating. I wasn’t even eating well. I became agoraphobic – afraid to leave the safety of my four walls and slouching couch. Going for walks around the block were a chore and showering physically hurt. I thought I was dying. That’s the beauty and price of a very vivid imagination. My gift of creativity wasn’t balanced with the chemicals in my brain so it was a vicious cycle of racing and negative thoughts. One day the strength and hope living deep down inside shook me to my core. “I want my life back!”, I remember shouting and although it wasn’t instant it was the beginning of a very long recovery. I began therapy on a weekly basis and swallowed my first pill. Literally. Within two weeks I was starting to see pieces of myself come out of the darkness, but it would take months before I regained the physical and mental strength to engage with the world again.

It has been seventeen years since that first episode and I’ve experienced it two more times since. But, I am lucky to have people in my life who hold space for me to show up as I am. Between then and 2020 I have been a substitute teacher, directed musicals for children’s theater institutions, got married, worked as a dance and theater teaching artist for various organizations including International City Theater and South Coast Repertory; directed a plethora of new plays; produced a bunch; was a critic for L.A. Theater Review; became a board member for the Downey Arts Coalition; laid my sister Tina to rest; spent a residency with the Latino Theater Company as one of ten Mellon Fellows; was Assistant Director to Marcela Lorca at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; watched my mother-in-love cross over; sat on countless play selection committees; became a company member with PlayGround-LA; was part of a collective of theater artists (now known as LTA/LA) dedicated to changing the narrative of Latiné voices in American theater; continued my training with Director’s Lab West, Cornerstone Theater and UCLA. Not bad for a first gen Mexican-American from BG. On the heels of getting my master’s degree, I directed for the NY United Solo Festival, Cerritos Community College and was hired as an Assistant Professor for University of Redlands. Then, everything came to a screeching halt. That damn anxiety and depression reared its ugly head forcing me into a medical leave of absence. But, it wasn’t long before I got company as a global pandemic brought us all to our knees.

Like everyone else grappling with the real repercussions of COVID-19, I leaned into the one thing I had control over – my art. I reached out to family and friends who had kids and invited them to play with me on Zoom. Inspired by PlayAtHome.org I dusted off a script I wrote for one of my theater classes and reached out to friends and family members with kids. The result, a 25 minute filmed experience originally rehearsed on zoom with an intergenerational cast across 27 households. The process created so much unexpected joy and connection during the early months of the pandemic and we were doing it from our individual homes. I did this experience over and over again throughout the industry shutdown as a model to show the resilience of theater makers during an incredibly difficult time.

On Miss Most Pressing Issue by Zury Ruiz for Tulane University, we experimented with OBS software, green screens, and precision staging to combat the constraints of students performing live from their own dorm rooms to pull off the illusion of five actors sharing a pageant stage.

For G.I.P.S. Homecoming: The Show Must Go Online, co-director Forrest Hartl and I prepared alumni and current students from Cerritos College to perform live improv shows on Zoom. We pushed our relationship with virtual engagement because timing is critical in improv. We learned quickly which formats worked best on zoom, which needed adjustment, and which needed to be saved for in person events. Embracing that each person had to be their own production department, we manipulated visual perspectives by playing with relationship and placement to the lens. We played with lighting like using a cell phone’s flashlight or adding a filter in front of the lens for dynamic mood shifts; and toys, books, knick-knacks, food and yes, pets became props.

Most importantly, I used what I had been learning about my mental health as a resource on all eleven of my virtual projects to help others navigate their own anxieties.

In Fall of 2022, with masks on and sanitizers in hand, I returned to in person experiences. I taught a solo performance course at CSULB, directed a world premiere for Native Voices at the Autry in collaboration with The Latino Theater Company and accepted my first regional theater contract. I spent Jan-February of 2023 with the Dallas Theater Center on Karen Zacarias’ poignant comedy Native Gardens. I’ve done countless readings of new works both short and full length and I am continuing to freelance as a director at various colleges across the country.

If I look in the rearview mirror becoming a director seems like a natural trajectory. My early days of bossing classmates around during recess was really the act of a budding inclusive leader with a vision.

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

A thriving ecosystem operates from a place of abundance as opposed to scarcity which is contrary to how ours currently operates. There is room for everyone because just like snowflakes, no two works of art are alike. It’s important that society expands the types of art we consume and where we go to consume it. If you are a regular at the regional theater, substitute one of those productions with two at a smaller house. Seek out an artist talking about the same themes of artists you already know and love. Contemporaries of any given artist may be in concert or inspired with each other but it’s the individual experiences, perceptions, and skills of artists that shape the work. Stop using ONLY critic reviews to assess your curiosity about a given project. Reviews have become so binary as good or bad that they often neglect to address the nuances of what an artist achieved or what they are trying to say with their work. This also can only happen if more producers give developmental opportunities to marginalized groups so that the creative landscape truly represents the world we live in. More importantly, artists also need to be cheerleaders for their fellow peers without fear that their personal reputation is on the line. It’s easy to encourage people to go support the work of a fellow artist who is receiving “rave” reviews, but true champions of theater will spread the word of anybody’s work because in smaller houses, word of mouth is how we fill those seats. Filling those seats is how we ensure that all voices get an opportunity to be heard. And, if we get to hear a variety of voices, then maybe we can realize that there is space for everybody.

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

A lesson I had to unlearn over the years is that being a starving artist isn’t a right of passage, but a wider neglect on how artists are compensated for their work. It’s a myth that young or emerging artists need to start with unpaid opportunities and be grateful to list those experiences on their resume in order to legitimize their value. This is an exploitation of an individual’s gifts because it often results in free labor without nurturing an artist’s growth. I took on many no or low paying projects when I was younger because I wanted to make dance accessible to everyone. This meant that I often charged or accepted very low rates to teach when the person or organizations I worked for could have afforded to pay me more. I didn’t understand that what I was actually doing was robbing myself of financial sustainability. I vividly remember when I was in my early twenties that my family was going through a rough patch financially. I was in school and working part-time as an instructor, but whatever I earned went toward living expenses that weren’t enough to support my parents. Thanksgiving was right around the corner and somehow it was looking like we were in for a pizza dinner. As much as I love those cheesy discs, I couldn’t bear the thought of another Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes or stuffing. So, I bought groceries for my family with a credit card. Of course, I recognize now that pizza would have been just fine, but the point I’m trying to make is that our industry is no different than any other industry where workers deserve living wages. This has become clearer for me to understand as I’ve delved into producing and why I haven’t produced in a hot minute. I think it’s also become clearer because the last four projects have paid me significantly differently for the same amount of work. Understanding the value of my time, knowledge, and talent within the scope of the work being asked of me is how I determine if taking a job is paying the bills or my soul. I can be selective about that work, now, whereas when I was younger I didn’t realize I had the option. I didn’t know how to put a price on something I loved doing. I felt guilty asking for more money because I knew what it was like to not have enough money to take classes myself. I confused charity with livelihood and recognizing that my art was also my business. So, as I have moved into my position as a freelance director and educator, I not only take stock on how the work will pay my soul, but I also weigh the time commitment against the rate of pay. My CV is 9 pages long, so I’m not in the habit of taking on a job for the “experience” of it. If I believe in a project and I know it won’t put me at financial risk I often do it, but I’ve worked very hard for too long to accept in the myth that being a starving artist is a right of passage.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sylviacervantesblush/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sylvia.blush
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/7Iv1Qg1mhHk
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Personal Photo:: Jean Carlo Y. Aróstegui Production photos: Ryan Marsh, Pedro Joel , Karen Almond, Derek Christiansen, Robert Salas