ABOUT FOCUS
Focus is held over 6 days in Los Angeles and is open to dancers ages 11 - 18. All Focus dancers are cast in our original music video with a professional recording artist, earning themselves an IMDb credit for their resume! The music video is directed and choreographed by So You Think You Can Dance winner Lauren Froderman.
LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVSERITY
1 LMU DRIVE, LOS ANGELES, CA 90045
ABOUT THE SPACE
All Focus events will take place on the campus of LMU. Classes will be held in the state of the art dance studios located within the Burns Fine Arts Complex along Alumni Mall and the Opening Ceremonies and Premiere will take place in theatre spaces onsite. We have a room block set up at the Hilton Culver City, just a quick 10-min drive down the road.
For 2024 we are excited to announce that we have not 1 but 2 American Idol Alumni's as our recording artists. Delaney Renee Wilson is returning and we're adding Tristen Gressett!
Delaney Renne Wilson Bio
Originally a Massachusetts native, Delaney now lives in Los Angeles where she is pursuing her musical career. Delaney went viral (with 49.6 million views!) after she was secretly recorded singing to a girl she was babysitting, which landed her an audition on American Idol. She went on to Hollywood Week and the rest you could say, is history. Her first single, Why I Fall, is out now and will be the song for our music video.
Tristen Gressett Bio
Coming Soon...
Liberate Artists brings in top-notch professionals from all over the country. From our production team to our videographers, everyone in the Liberation Nation has a dance background, making our staff truly unique.
EQUITY STATEMENT
At Liberate Artists we value being kind, compassionate, and caring while building brave dance experiences that support folks of all races, genders, abilities, disabilities, shapes, and economic backgrounds. At Liberate Artists you don’t have to be a professional dancer but you do have to be a good human in society.
Every Liberate Artists experience includes an Access Check-In which, "allows people to share any access needs they might have if they feel comfortable." (Disability Intersectionality Summit)
We check in with our registrants to meet their needs and provide reasonable accommodations because all bodies are dancing bodies if they want and choose to be.
At every Liberate Artists experience, we create name tags with dancers’ pronouns and preferred names because every dancer should know that their identities are worth respect and acknowledgment.
Recovery is an important component of building strong and healthy dancers. We include rest during our longer experiences to allow dancers to recover from movement and partner with organizations such as Doctors For Dancers to further reduce the risk of injury.
We also partner with our sibling organization, Dance Education Equity Association, to ensure that our experiences are always growing to be safer, more equitable, and more inclusive. Our teaching artists go through training to reduce the risk of harm and we utilize the DEEA Safety Tipline as a resource for safety. It’s an anonymous (if you’d like) tipline where folks can submit any instances of harm they may have endured at a Liberate Artists experience. This tipline was created to reduce the risk of harm from bullying, racism, discrimination, othering, and abuse of any kind. We’ve implemented policies, inspired by transformative justice practices, to work with students who have been harmed and/or causing harm.