NY4NY Honoree Spotlight: Tanya Birl-Torres
Tanya Birl-Torres is the Artistic Director of the Washington Heights Womanist Arts Festival, which harnesses the power of music, movement, art, and self-expression to cultivate joy and connection for New Yorkers living uptown. With support from CitizensNYC, the Festival is expanding its community building in 2023 through two community dinners in the spring and fall, the Festival in the summer, and a yoga retreat in the winter.
As a Broadway performer, choreographer, and movement director for over 15 years, Tanya has a deep understanding of how the arts and movement can help people create change within themselves and embody who they truly are. She founded SoHumanity to combine her artistry with her passion for social justice and change on a systemic level. Her work centers on teaching both individuals and organizations how to activate their unique strengths, so they can create waves of change for themselves and for their communities.
The WaHi Womanist Arts Festival is a creative offspring of SoHumanity and its biggest community event. Co-founded by Tanya, Julissa Nuñez and Sarah Grosman, the Festival is entering its second year under the theme “Moving Love Through the Body” and hosting two communal dinners that are open and free to the public. Taking place on each equinox, the seasonal dinners are designed to inspire engaging conversations among community members, who come from diverse backgrounds, and promote access to nutritious food across Washington Heights.
As Tanya explains, “The value proposition for [these events] as explained by Audre Lorde is, ‘The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.’” You can hear more from Tanya in a recent conversation with her fellow New Yorker for New York honoree Michelle Miller.
In addition to her SoHumanity work, Tanya is a 2023/24 Map Fund Grantee and NoMAA micro-grant recipient for her development of A Play in 3 Movements, and is currently an artist in residence with the Hi-ARTS Critical Breaks program. CitizensNYC is thrilled to honor Tanya as a 2023 New Yorker for New York!