Heidi Duckler Dance Presents THE QUEST

On Saturday October 10th, 2020, the last day of THE QUEST 10-day series, Heidi Duckler Dance (HDD) presents the Civic Engagement Award, Community Activism Award, and Artistic Vision Award to three incredible female leaders in the Los Angeles community.

HDD will honor Yolanda Vera with the Civic Engagement Award, an award created to recognize outstanding individuals who have created significant impact in improving the quality of life of the community through their professional work. Her dedication to improving the health of low-income communities in Los Angeles is truly inspiring. Yolanda Vera has been serving as one of the lead project advisors in HDD's 3-year initiative at the Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center Campus. In 2018, HDD designed a project to bring its place-based practice of storytelling and art making to the campus. The artistic residency promotes civic pride, enhances the cultural vitality of the neighborhood, and bridges efforts between public health, art and culture.

Yolanda Vera is the Chief Executive Officer of the Martin Luther King Jr. Outpatient Center located on the medical campus. She served as Chief Counsel and Senior Policy Advisory, Office of LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, and has extensive background in civil rights and health-related matters. She is an attorney whose legal work includes positions with the Legal Aid Foundation, the National Health Law Program and the Western Center on Law and Poverty. She also served as the Director of LA Health Action, a California Endowment-funded non-profit dedicated to improving the health of low-income LA County communities, and as a member of the boards of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California and the Child Health Initiative of Greater LA. She earned a B.A. in English from Loyola Marymount and a J.D. from UCLA.

HDD will honor Dr.Theresa Gregor with the Community Activism Award, an award created to recognize outstanding individuals who have helped mobilize and educate the community on important issues. Dr. Theresa Gregor is an Assistant Professor in American Indian Studies at CSU Long Beach, who recently shared her research and story with HDD during our Unsettling Ramona Salon Series. We are so grateful for her wealth of knowledge and powerful voice.

She teaches American Indian Studies, relating content to Southern California Communities, Tribal Leadership and Governance, Women, and Community Building. Her tribal community work includes serving as the Executive Director of the Inter-Tribal Long Term Recovery Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a mission to strengthen and enhance the coordination of disaster preparedness and recovery efforts on tribal lands in Southern California.

HDD will honor Janna Ireland with the Artistic Vision Award, an award created to recognize outstanding individuals in the arts whose thought-provoking work has moved its witnesses towards social change. Her impactful photographic work includes There is Only One Paul R. Williams, a series that highlights the work of the first certified black architect west of the Mississippi River. She was recently published by Angel City Press in her new book Regarding Paul R. Williams. HDD has collaborated with Janna on a number of projects, as the company often investigates the intersection of dance and architecture.

Janna Ireland was born in Philadelphia, but has chosen Los Angeles as her home. She holds an MFA the from UCLA Department of Art and a BFA from the Department of Photography and Imaging at NYU. Ireland is the 2013 recipient of the Snider Prize, presented by the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Chicago, and in group exhibitions across the United States and internationally. She has been published in Aperture, Harper's, Art Papers, Vice, and The Los Angeles Times.

To watch this award ceremony and culminating performance featuring six dancers and live music, tune into our Zoom live stream, beginning at 6:30 on Saturday October 10th, 2020.

THE QUEST series engages audiences in an interactive search for truth in our environment, our memory, and the challenging present moment. Involving 35 talented individuals made up of dancers, musicians, composers, singers, voiceover artists, set designers, costume designers, lighting designers, and cinematographers, THE QUEST represents Heidi Duckler Dance's enduring dedication to inclusiveness and justice in dance, arts education, and our community.

As a dance company we use movement to explore intersectional topics affecting our city, especially its vulnerable populations. In this ten film, viewers will get a glimpse into the themes our year-round programming dives into. By bearing witness, ticket buyers will help us continue our work with students, veterans, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, foster youth, and people experiencing homelessness.

60% of the funds raised from THE QUEST go towards these educational programs, 30% to our professional performances, and 10% to general operating costs.

This project is supported in part by an Arts Grant from the California Arts Council, a state agency, the DEW Foundation, and the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

Purchase live stream ticket here: http://bit.ly/thequest10

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