Interview with Amazing HBC Alum Arlesia McGowan
Today we had the exciting opportunity to talk with Arlesia McGowan, an amazingly insightful alumni of HBC and founder of ClassiX Arts, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and providing classical arts education to young Black artists! Arlesia shared with us her experiences at Harvard and with HBC, her inspiration for founding ClassiX Arts, and some advice for how to navigate the pandemic era in a positive way. We really appreciated Arlesia’s insights and wisdom and hope you will enjoy her responses to these 15 questions as much as we did!
❤️Audrey and Amy
1. What is your name?
Arlesia: Arlesia Grace McGowan
2. When did you graduate from Harvard?
Arlesia: In 2019.
3. What did you concentrate in when at Harvard?
Arlesia: I was a joint concentrator in human developmental and regenerative biology, HDRB for short, and music.
4. What is your job today?
Arlesia: I am an Executive Assistant to the CEO of R. Couri Hay Creative PR.
5. How did you choose your current occupation?
Arlesia: So I don't feel like I chose it. I feel like it came to me. After I graduated from graduate school last year -- from NYU Tisch -- I was looking for work in the music business industry, in arts administration, or in talent agent work. And while I was looking, I came across a PR internship -- it was PR work for nonprofits. And since I have a passion for nonprofits and running my own nonprofit, I decided to check it out, and I got the job! I started doing the internship, and I'm still doing PR now. But ultimately, I would like to run ClassiX Arts, my nonprofit, for the rest of my life. Hopefully, in the next 10 years, we will have enough capital to continue to grow and to provide for myself and my employees.
6. Moving back to dance a bit, how many years have you been dancing for?
Arlesia: That's a good question. I've been dancing since I was three. But I started consistently dancing when I was six. So if we did the math, I think that's about 16 years. 14 to 16 years. I don't remember, when I was younger, if there were times I took breaks, but definitely, after six years old, I was dancing all the way through college -- all the way till I graduated. And, even now, I try to dance when I can. I’ll always be a dancer.
7. What about your dance experience do you think impacts your career and work today?
Arlesia: I think it's the diversity part of it. Growing up, classical ballet is, for lack of better words, very white, right? And not as diverse. So I was always in spaces where I was the only one or one of two or three. And that didn't really occur to me till I was in college. HBC grew from like 20 to 60 members in four years, and I was still the only Black person after those four years. So I think my goal is to really diversify classical ballet and to hopefully have more Black ballerinas like Misty Copeland and Alicia Graf Mack from Paul Taylor. I just don't think there's enough. And so, I always prided myself in representing my race and my community. That is something that kept pushing me to continue in classical ballet because I just thought it was my responsibility to continue to represent myself and show people that we can do it too, even though we might have different body types or even though we might have Afros. Ballet is universal, even though it started as a European Western art form. That means as a Black woman, I can adopt it and make it my own.
8. What role did HBC play in your college life?
Arlesia: So HBC, besides it being like my main form of exercise in college, was one of those safe spaces -- like one of those places I could really exercise my creativity as well as where we could build community. I choreographed dances, and I worked with guest choreographers as well. HBC was one of my homes at Harvard. You don't really find very many of those special places. But I'm proud to say I was a member for all four years. They were there for me, I was there for them. This is one of my communities.
9. If you had to describe HBC in a single word what would it be?
Arlesia: Dynamic.
10. What inspired you to found ClassiX Arts?
Arlesia: So, I was classically trained, growing up, not only in ballet, but also in voice and piano. And related to what I was saying earlier, I was often the only one or one of the few Black people in these spaces, I would go to competitions, and I'd be the only Black person, even in choir, all the way up until college. There are very few people of color in the classical arts. It's never too late to address these issues, and so when I got to grad school at Tisch, I was looking for communities within my school. I found this fellowship called the creative career design fellowship. NYU was a huge entrepreneur hub, and even though I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur, I was always thinking of new ideas. So there was this class at Harvard called Social Engagement Through Music, where there was an assignment that asked us if we didn't have any barriers or anything stopping us, what would we create involving social engagement, your community, and music. So I wrote about having this community or school, where Black students could come and receive classical training for free, whether it's in ballet, or whether it's in flute, it doesn't matter. They could come to a space, train, and practice their art, all for free. If they don't have an instrument, we would provide it for them. But I never really thought that assignment would manifest into this later idea when I was applying for the fellowship, six months down the line. I really started to think, okay, what if I could actually make this happen, because as far as I know, there's not really any organization that caters just to the Black community, and their classical training, as well as inspiring them to use classical art forms, to dance to something like Megan Thee Stallion, and encouraging all of that. So, that's when I really started working on it. And I spent the Fall of 2019, coming up with my ideas, and pitching what I thought ClassiX could become. So that's kind of the short version of my process and how ClassiX started.
11. Can you describe one of your favorite current projects with ClassiX Arts?
Arlesia: Yeah! We actually have an upcoming event, which is a project we've been working on for the past three or four months. We have our first concert, which is called Roses In Bloom. The purpose of this concert is to tell the world we're here and we actually exist. We have about 10 to 15 Black artists who are performing classical pieces -- not just classical pieces from Western European composers, but also from Black classical artists like Nina Simone, who was a classically trained jazz singer. We're excited to merge classical art and other art such as hip hop, jazz, or whatever the form. It's a concert of solo works, with one group work of dancers in there. Overall, it's basically our way of telling the world yeah, we're here. We just want to inspire people, and show younger Black classical artists that we really do exist, even though we might be sparse. The mission of ClassiX is to diversify the classical world even more. But yeah, this concert is going to premiere this coming Thursday, 2/25, at 7pm. If you can donate, please donate to our Givebutter link, it can even be a $1 thing. We’re super excited for this event!
12. What do you find to be the biggest challenge for ClassiX Arts and other similar nonprofit arts organizations?
Arlesia: I think the biggest challenges are definitely funding and visibility, especially when just starting out. You really have to put a big effort into telling your personal community about who you are. Additionally, knowing how to brand and publicize is a huge part of nonprofit work, along with funding. We've thankfully been receiving some funding from very generous people. But funding is huge when it comes to nonprofits such as ours, because as I mentioned before, we want to provide students with the materials that they need for a classical education, such as instruments, for free. That means we have to have a lot of money by the time we start out in October, preferably more than $100,000. Applying to grants and asking for money in ways such as crowdfunding -- like this concert event we're about to have -- is what’s really important. We're doing something we love, but at the same time, we do need the resources and the funding to function. That's just a fact. So it's a challenge, but if other nonprofits can do it, we can too. I've been very grateful for people like yourselves and all of HBC, because you all believe in our mission and our goal and our progress. And we have been progressing, we've gotten a lot of visibility. Hopefully, we'll get more to where people know us from a national standpoint, and we can expand our programming. This is just the beginning of something that can literally change the world, so that's enough to keep me going through the difficulties. And hopefully, the results will show in the next 5 to 10 years, or maybe even this year!
13. Who is your biggest role model and why?
Arlesia: I think as of now, I would say my mom. My mom always taught me to do the most with what I have. Like I said, I'm pretty multifaceted, and I do a lot of different things. I grew up with my mom putting me in these many different activities and that is something that made me stand out among a lot of people, even when I applied to Harvard. That was the thing that my admissions officer pointed out, how I was part of a ballet company and a lot of other different things as well. And not just that, but I was good at everything. So my mom really instilled that in me. Being a Black woman, especially, this excellence matters a lot, and I had to work a bit harder to stand out, unfortunately. But I think that's something I did very well at with help from my mom. It was all inspired by her -- I didn't have a single babysitter growing up, she was very hands-on with me and my education, for me and my siblings. She still continues to this day to push me and to challenge me. And I think that's something that a lot of people don't come across. I'm almost 25 and she's still challenging me to go further. For example, I want to get my PhD, so she's always encouraging me even though it's hard since I have a full time job. I’m also a tutor, and then studying for school would be on top of all that. But most importantly, she's also taught me to never take no for an answer, saying that I could achieve what I wanted, if I put my mind to it. My mom has really influenced a great amount of my life.
14. What is something you are looking forward to when quarantine ends?
Arlesia: Wow, I think going to a concert! Besides Yardfest at Harvard, which I don't really count, I've only been to one concert. That's something that as of recently, I've been wanting to do more: going to Broadway or going to a concert, especially because this was taken away from me at this moment in time. My job isn't remote, so at least I’m already getting that experience, and it's very safe. So yeah, I’m looking forward to being with a lot of people in the same environment at a concert or live event, which I don't think will happen for a while, but it's still something to look forward to. We'll hopefully get back to it by the end of this year, but playing it safe, I would say next summer. Slowly but surely.
15. What advice would you give to current HBC members during these uncertain times?
Arlesia: Oh this is a good question! Well, in my time with HBC, I never would have imagined being in a situation like this. But, I would probably encourage all of you to use all of the avenues that you can to create, whether that's going to a field and dancing or dancing in the middle of the street. Even though we're all in different places, I feel like that makes virtual productions even more unique, right? Because you can use your different environments to create something really cool. I feel like it's a time to be even more creative. So I don't feel like this time is really a setback, but it's just another way to shift your perspective, because we're so used to this one way of doing things. It's not a setback. It's just a change in scenery. It's a changing environment. I really encourage you all to take advantage of this time. There's so many different cool things you can still do with dancing along with the different places you all are each in.