Abreu, like Melendez, is one of the success stories. However, the film does not address the hardships these students and their families face. Work schedules, housing issues, and juggling make it nearly impossible for East Her Village to attend a dance class. For Melendez, the trauma of her years in the shelter comes alive when she faints during a visit to Seneca’s home. “I don’t feel so good,” he says, looking pale and looking for an exit. “I don’t want to be here.”
Dancing helped him transcend his situation, he said. “For me growing up, Diana was the person and dancing was the activity.”
Against the odds, Meléndez became a professional dancer, joining the New York Theater Ballet at age 14 and continuing to dance with companies in Argentina and Estonia. After retiring as a dancer, he directed LIFT for his year before becoming artistic director of his Albuquerque programming. NDI New Mexico, an organization that provides after-school arts education to children of all backgrounds.
His current goal, he said, is to apply the same principles of inclusiveness and accessibility that power LIFT and NDI to New York Theater Ballet. He intends to do this through events like his TED Talks in community spaces, marketing that speaks to people beyond traditional dance audiences, and performances to talk about the meaning behind his work.
“The important thing is to contextualize,” he said.he is the company upcoming performancescontains Tudor’s 1937 ballet “Dark Elegy”.
“What I want to say to an audience that has never seen a dance is, ‘Are you having a hard time understanding what’s going on in Ukraine right now?'” Melendez said. “This is a dance that was made 100 years ago and shows what these people are going through.”