Interview: Jasmine Mendoza

Pulse Check is an interview series led by Dance Presenting Series Marketing Manager Alyssa Gregory. The series is a way to check the pulse of how the Chicago Dance community is doing after a year of living with COVID-19. You will hear from a wide variety of artists who have managed to keep pushing forward despite the pandemic.

Our next interview is with Jasmine Mendoza. Jasmine is an improviser and during the pandemic has started her journey to become a doula. I wanted to talk to Jasmine because her work focuses on Black and Brown communities on the South and West side of Chicago, both areas hit hard by the pandemic. How has she been healing herself while also healing those that are in need?

Alyssa: Talk to me about pre-pandemic Jasmine.

Jasmine: Whew. Oh my goodness. There's so many, so many things. I mean, right before the pandemic, I was in New Orleans having the time of my life with the Instigation Festival which is this festival that blends Chicago and New Orleans music and movement and visual arts together for a week of improvised and interdisciplinary collaboration in both cities.

Some other things that are coming up for me is, just the way that I was working is so different from pre-pandemic work-life and just my whole mentality of working and it's so different now for me. I think this time has really helped me to realize where I need to be and stepping into this place of yeah, just where I need to be.

Alyssa: What has been kind of sustaining you throughout this time?

Jasmine: I mean, it's been a lot. I feel there are moments that have really broken me down in ways that… I mean, we've all never been here before. You've had to kind of recalibrate in these different ways. I think for me, it's been just really deeply listening to my needs because they constantly shift every single day.

And I have to say, you know, up until about a couple of months ago, I think things have really shifted for me. I lost my father in November and so that was my breaking point with everything mentally, physically, emotionally. And I had to find my way. I'm still finding my way back to myself in all of these different ways. And I think for me, it's this big thing about community and these safe spaces that I've been creating for myself and other people where we can come together and have conversations. And even though we're all isolated and these conversations can feel they're never-ending sometimes, it still has been so helpful. I always think about the people in my life in these settings and how I wouldn't be able to even be here sitting with you if it wasn't for the support of my family and my friends and my friends who are also my collaborators, who I was making work with pre-pandemic.

Those are things that have really been keeping me lifted. And as of maybe the last couple of months, I have been able to kind of feel this weight lifted in a way. I’m inspired by little things again, that I haven't felt in a long time. I started painting and drawing again, which I haven't done since the pandemic started. So, I think I'm just trying to remind myself there are so many possibilities and I'm such an improviser at heart, so the thought of lots of possibilities makes me really excited. And that gets me out of this place of overwhelming sense of anxiety.

Alyssa: I relate with that so much. The moment that you can feel even a little light of hope you're like, I wanna hold on to this. I need to hold on to this and experience it in every muscle of my body.

Jasmine: That just made me think about how I've been kind of processing moments like that in my body. And sitting with that and being, how does it feel, you know, deep in these different crevices of my body?

Alyssa: You talked about community, which is one of my favorite words. Do you think the idea of what community is has shifted throughout this pandemic? I guess I'm coming at it from a dance community idea, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Jasmine: Yeah, I don't know how any of us are supposed to get through something like this without community. And even just strangers, you know. People that maybe you don't know what their values are or ideas are about life or anything, but there's this sense of connecting with strangers during this time right now that can be scary but we're in this place together and we are all living in all these different realities right now.

Alyssa: Totally.

Jasmine: That's another layer on top of it. Not all of us are living in the same kind of communities, but when you find the people that are, it is medicine to the soul.

Alyssa: Okay I know you are becoming a doula. How did that come about? Was that before ‘Rona?

Jasmine: These were thoughts before ‘Rona, but I never thought that I had the time to do it. I've always been interested in ways that I can care for and extend my own experiences with movement and dance to marginalized communities. And it kind of stemmed from that place. I've been teaching dance in Chicago to Black and Brown youth on the South and West sides for five years or so, through different wellness organizations. It was really sitting with how can I just expand that for myself because it's important. It's really important for me in this life to be able to show up for myself so that I can show up for other people and bring healing to communities that deserve it. As, a person of color, there's no other way… So, yeah, I started doing my research and I began training in October of 2020 through an organization called The Birthing Advocacy. I hope to provide emotional, physical, and spiritual support through the full spectrum of pregnancy, abortion loss, birth, and postpartum while cross-pollinating my experience in relationship to movement to bring to the space of healing and collective care for folks.

Alyssa: You're still dancing in that work. It's movement, it's care, and it’s bodies.

Jasmine: Yeah, I feel so deeply that it's connected to my movement practice. There's no way that I would have been inspired by this idea of expanding care to communities, if it wasn't for my relationship to movement and how I've been healing my own body from past traumas for 32 years of my life now, you know.

Alyssa: What is one lesson that you've learned and what is a lesson that you think the community has learned during this time?

Jasmine: I've learned that it is okay to take my time. That I don't need to show up for anybody else, except for myself and that my art making, my movement practice, my dance practice is my own healing. And it'll only always be true to myself. And to the QT BIPOC communities that I'm speaking to. One lesson for artists during this time? Just to be able to sit with your own experiences before jumping onto the next project or thing. And make things for the sense of pleasure, enjoy, instead of some bigger outcome. I want to live in this pleasure, joy moment with making work forever and ever, and it can feel so hard to do that because of these pressures, but that doesn't even matter anymore.

Jasmine Mendoza is a visual and performance artist based in Chicago. She creates and performs multimedia performance that incorporates improvisation, sound, film, objects, and theatrical play. Jasmine is fascinated by imagery, time, environment, and the body's ability to transform and extend beyond its human form when informed by these ideas. She has presented work and performed at the Art Institute of Chicago, Elastic Arts, Links Hall, Comfort Station, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago Art Department, Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans, Music Box Village, the Lyric Theater, and held residencies at Links Hall, Carrizozo AIR, the Banff Centre, and ACRE. Frequent collaborators include FORCE! (Anna Martine Whitehead, Jenn Freeman, Zach Nicol), Lia Kohl, Corey Smith, Keaton Fox, Kioto Aoki, Kim Alpert, Charles Rumback, and Katinka Kleijn.