Dance Projects
Echoes of the City: Disability Arts Exchange
(Spring 2026-Fall 2027)
Image Description: a photo of Vanessa during her performance of "Rain Glass Vortex" with projected livestream of QTBIPOC Disabled dancers: India Harville, Lu Chen, Ande Diedjomahor and Em Waters. In this photo, the two projected artists are visible, India and Lu, and Vanessa is on stage with them. They are under a pale blue light, and Vanessa is wearing a holographic hooded dress; her walker named Pluto is beside her. The background image of the projection includes technological items such as wires, circuit boards, recording devices and more, with a pale green filter.
Echoes of the City: Disability Arts Exchange is a series curated by Vanessa Hernández Cruz in partnership with The Music Center in Los Angeles, CA & Los Angeles Spoonie Collective. The series offers a space for Disabled artists, creators and dreamers of all experience levels to connect, imagine and create. Throughout our journey from Spring 2026-Fall 2027, we will explore powerful themes that shape our lives through the intricate tapestry of time and memory. Featuring guided monthly workshops led by QTBIPOC Disabled facilitators across the arts, we will channel these ideas into a collective body of work in connection with Vanessa Hernández Cruz’s new multimedia dance work “Echoing Memories in a Distant Future,” set to premiere in Fall 2027.
Echoing Memories in a Distant Future
(In-progress)
Echoing Memories in a Distant Future funded by the New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project Production Grant, is a new experimental dance performance that explores technological liberation & Disability Justice in both Vanessa's praxis and the work's narrative. Divided into two works, it begins with a duet performed by Vanessa Hernández Cruz and Kayla Hamilton that then morphs into a group piece where six QTBIPOC virtual Disabled artists will be projected on stage with them. Their journey takes place in a dystopian future where they are racing against time to escape a broken system. This work is set to premiere in Fall 2027 and tour in 2028. If you would like to book this work, email Vanessa: projects@galaxiesdance.info
This project centers QTBIPOC Disabled artists and community by focusing on accessibility in our community engagement events and performances.
Image Description: Kayla Hamilton and Vanessa Hernández Cruz pose together outdoors against a wall, styled as if about to drop an album. Kayla, a Black woman with locs, stands in profile with one leg bent, holding her white cane and leaning on Vanessa’s purple walker. Vanessa, a Chicana woman, leans on a metal gate in a goth outfit. The photo is washed in electric blue tones.
Photo by Whitney Browne