By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Chuy Renteria started dancing-specifically breaking-at the age of 14. A magazine editor and writer these days, Renteria still uses breaking to express his identity-and defiance, rebellion, and frustration with the other dancers.

"We're in conversation. We're having the equivalent of a heated argument on the dance floor," he says. The improvisational street dance is rooted in African American and Latino culture. It originated in New York City in 1980s, alongside a growing hip-hop scene.

Renteria dances to engage with the labels pasted onto him, both accurate and biased.

"When people see me walking down the street, they can't help but think A, B, C, right? So when I go to sleep and I wake up, I can't take that away," he says.

'This is Me'

Renteria grew up in West Liberty, Iowa, in the 80s and 90s-a time and place that has shaped who he is and where his art leads him.

The city is less than two square miles in size; inside is a historically majority Hispanic population.

"Growing up in West Liberty, I felt too Mexican for the white people and too white for the Mexican people. And that was always this constant [existence] between those spaces," Renteria says.

As young as nine years old, the first-generation Mexican-American remembers racial slurs being flung at him. People would say they hated him.

"And when I found dance, it transcended all of that," he says. "It's like, this is me."

Finding Meaning

Renteria shares: "Just by nature of my own identity, in the context of the social constructs around us, me existing becomes this political conversation point to folks."

But that politicization isn't as direct a translation in dance as, say, artforms that use words or visuals. The dialogue is more subtle.

"Dance and movement, and that sort of expression, is just as valid, and it's just as politically cognizant of the world. It just does it in this kind of abstraction. It doesn't have to be hitting you over the head," he says.

Renteria's 2021 memoir We Heard It When We Were Young, along with his more recent blog posts in Of Spanglish and Maximalism, grapple with his past, the now, and beyond.

What is identity? How does intergenerational trauma and racism impact who we are? The list goes on: "Did I have a good childhood? Am I a good person because-or in spite of-my upbringing? ... Is my town a good town? The town that I grew up in, the town as of now, is it a good place?" Renteria asks.

"I'm really interested in the questions that I don't know the answer to."


Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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More than 400 teen artists will gather this Saturday in Southern California to learn about equity in arts education. The 3rd annual Arts Advocacy Day kicks off the California State Summer School for the Arts. Speakers and workshops will tackle issues like the troubled rollout of Proposition 28, which was supposed to fund new arts classes but has been diverted by some school districts.

Caitlin Lainoff, senior manager of youth engagement at the nonprofit Create CA which sponsors the event, said the event is important for its informational value.

"We want to make sure that students leave knowing that they are guaranteed money for the arts and that they can connect with their administrators to see how that money is spent and can reach out to their legislators at any point," she explained.

The program takes place at the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita. The goal is to inspire the state's next entrepreneurs, artists and culture makers to fight for education funding, during a particularly challenging time. The feds just froze almost $7 billion in education grants nationwide to see if they align with Trump administration priorities. The money was supposed to be distributed on July first, leaving districts scrambling.

Lainoff added that the programs such as theater, music and fine art are often the first to go when budgets are tight.

"The potential impact on arts programs is that instead of Prop 28 going to additional arts classes, they will be plugged in to previous arts classes or cut completely for other uses," she continued.

In May, the Trump administration proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and has already canceled grants to hundreds of arts organizations.

By Jonathan Feakins for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Judith Ruiz-Branch for Illinois News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

"It's a bit of a grandma-core hobby," Tierney Brosius admits.

But whether at her children's soccer tournaments or organizing an "Entomoloknitting Circle" at the Entomological Society of America's annual conference, Dr. Brosius has found that insect-themed needlecraft can serve not just as an artistic outlet, but as an organic, social means of science communication.

"I love insects in fashion; they're often used [for] being pretty, but also scary," she explains. "And I think that fashion designers often reach to insects because of that duality. There's tension there."

For the past decade, Dr. Brosius has hung her hat-and a growing collection of bespoke, hand-knitted vests-as a professor of biology at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. But she's also built a budding reputation as the entomological fashion maven under the moniker, "Dr. Beetle."

Her Instagram account documents sartorial projects that include a vest festooned with Salt Creek tiger beetles (the subject of Brosius's PhD), or a cocoon-style coat that commemorates 2024's double cicada brood.

Her artistic outreach, however, extends beyond the closet. Inside Augustana's Hanson Hall of Science, a 40 foot-long wall now hosts a vibrant, larger-than-life "Beetles of Illinois Identification Mural." Every species pictured-in all of their exoskeleton-ed wonder-were collected by Dr. Brosius and her undergraduates over the course of a single field season.

Wendy DesChene, an artist and professor at Auburn University in Alabama, collaborated with Dr. Brosius to create the mural. She met "Dr. Beetle" years ago while touring Augustana with PlantBot Genetics, a "satirical biotech company." As their friendship grew, including on-brand gift exchanges (Brosius once knitted her a pair of moth mittens), DesChene proposed working together to make a mural a reality.

"As an artist, it's hard to find scientists who don't belittle arts, or don't think of us as a true partnership," DesChene says. "I really wanted to work with somebody who I know as a peer, and who treats me and what I bring to the table as equal."

Dr. Brosius, meanwhile, had no such hang-ups. "I think that's why I interact with artists that deal with insects," she says. "They invite people to be curious. And that fear and hesitation can unfold into this sense of wonder: 'Oh my gosh, I never knew.' Even a drain fly, right? The silliest little thing ... but if you really get up close, they're like little teddy bears with wings."

The professor is especially fond of watching these transformations happen in real-time, in the class she teaches for non-majors. These are students who often enroll in the hopes of simply snagging a required biology credit, but who leave with a newfound love for nature's more chitinous creepy-crawlies. A few have gone so far as to become professional entomologists themselves.

"And I think that's what's so great about insects," she says, "because it's a great analogy for life: you can be a little tense and fearful, and it's probably because you don't know enough about it. Once you start to peel back the layers, that fear can fall away. And you're left with appreciation and love."


Jonathan Feakins wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Scene: It's December 2023. Reggie Holmes, 72, faces the audience at a choir concert. She's been singing since she was a baby, but things have changed.

"I turned around to apologize to the guy behind me. I said, 'I just want to sing, but it will sound really bad,'" Holmes says.

"My voice was lovely, but Parkinson's stole that from me."

In the past couple of years, she's somewhat reclaimed that voice-in large part thanks to Parkinsong Choir in rural Washburn, Wisconsin. Last year, it sprouted from a network of choral groups across the Midwest (and world) for folks with dementia and their caretakers.

Eyleen Braaten is the executive director of that parent network: Giving Voice, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In it, she sings with her dad, who has dementia.

"[It] is an opportunity to have a human-centered approach to creating programs that really bring wellbeing to people that are often told that they don't have too much to give," Braaten says of Giving Voice, which offers free toolkits for communities looking to start their own choirs.

Getting your song on is proven to boost memory and overall health, especially in cases of dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Polls show music (even just listening) is especially remedial with older adults. Music is social. Active. Even scientific.

It's something Stephanie Johnson knows well. In 2009, the board-certified music therapist founded Music Speaks and has worked with clients struggling with communication, memory, learning, early development, mental health ... the list goes on.

"If the brain is not operating in a way that it used to, due to a physical traumatic injury or a stroke or Parkinson's or dementia, we can incorporate music and help pull the information from a healthy part of that brain back into processing, whether it be speech or motor or cognition," Johnson says. She's helped nonverbal clients sing, even when speech remains difficult.

Think of the alphabet, she says: Would you have been able to memorize those 26 letters, in order, without that kindergarten-famous alphabet song?

Johnson's team of music therapists works across the Midwest and beyond, adjusting song tempo and dynamics to meet client needs. But folks without this care access, a local choir, or even a diagnosis can still reap musical benefits.

Anyone can queue up a beat (may we suggest our Essential Midwest playlist?) and let the brainwaves work their magic.

"Most often, the western world thinks of music as a song or a genre or an artist," Johnson says. But what about music as healing? As identity, recovery?

Singing, especially with Parkinsong Choir, is a source of joy, friendship, and belonging for Holmes: "My voice is not what it used to be . . . It's still kind of harsh and I have a vibrato you wouldn't believe," she says, laughing.

"But I can sing. And it's beautiful."


Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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