Two Arizona artists have been selected to participate in the NALAC Leadership Institute: Angelina Ramirez, a Flamenco artist from Tucson who now resides in Phoenix, and Alexandra Jimenez, a Tucson-based visual artist and printmaker.  

The NALAC Leadership Institute (NLI) is a week-long rigorous program in arts management and leadership development that delivers innovative and practical strategies that lead to successful business practices in the arts. The dynamic learning environment cultivates a familiar, inclusive cultural space that provides multiple generations of Latino artists, arts managers and cultural promoters the support, knowledge, and agency to confidently respond to and initiate solutions to complex cultural questions.

Angelina Ramirez began studying Flamenco at the age of nine. She has been a member of Flamenco y Mas, touring with the National Theater Company and Yjastros, the American Flamenco Repertory Company. She founded Flamenco
Por La Vida and was the recipient of the 2014 Phoenix Mayor’s Arts Award. Ramirez was one of ten teaching artists to be selected to participate in the inaugural AZ Creative Aging Teaching Artist Institute, and currently teaches flamenco to students ages 3 to 103 throughout the valley.

Alexandra Jimenez is an artist and researcher. Her image-making uses a variety of processes—design, illustration, animation, and printmaking—that often involves digitally combining hand-illustrated elements with photography, watercolors and vector images. Currently, she is using these art forms to explore both the personal and collective histories of the Sonoran Desert, including her own heritage and the changing landscape of Tucson, Arizona. In 2015, Jimenez received an Artist Research & Development Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts in support of her project Abecedario del Sur.

Arizona NLI Alumni

Arizona has sent a number of exemplary arts leaders to NLI over the years. Arizona alumni include the following:

Tanya Alvarez (Tucson, 2007)

Marco Albarrán (Tempe, 2007)

Jason Aragon (Tucson, 2012)

Melissa Brown-Dominguez (Tucson, 2014)

Adriana Gallego (Phoenix, 2008)

Xochitl Gil Higuchi (Tucson, 2007)

Casandra Hernandez Faham (Phoenix, 2014)

Yvonne Montoya (Tucson, 2011)

Gabriela Muñoz (Phoenix, 2009)

Daniela Ontiveros (Tucson, 2013)

Michele Orduña (Tucson, 2011)

Reuben  T. Roqueni (Tucson, 2007).

About NALAC

The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization exclusively dedicated to the promotion, advancement, development, and cultivation of the Latino arts field. In this capacity, NALAC stimulates and facilitates intergenerational dialogues among disciplines, languages, and traditional and contemporary expressions.