J. Andrea Porras / Yaya is a Queer, two-Spirit Curator

 

J. Andrea Porras / Yaya is a Queer, two-Spirit curator, producer, intersectional artist, and practitioner; with over 30 years of experience in performance, organizing, facilitation, grant making, grant reviewing, philanthropy, and mentoring. Porras curates’ visual exhibitions, creates site specific installations, ritual performance, teatro y flor y canto movimiento. 

Porras earned their B.A. from California State University Sacramento's Theater Dance and Cultural Anthropology Departments, where they specialized in Black, Indigenous, and Chicano Theater. They focused on acting, improv movement, playwriting, producing, and video documenting. 

They studied, taught, performed, and participated in Inter-Tribal ceremonies as Caribbean Danza Mexika traditional dancers predominantly connecting and building in Northern California across the Southwest and later in Cuba, Mexico, Africa, and New York.

Arts Administration: 

Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. They served as the city's Arts Education coordinator and later Co-founded, Directed, and Facilitated a Roots, Altars, and Movement course at World Arts Space. 

Arts Grant Specialist for the California Arts Council, where they managed a portfolio totaling approximately $9 million in funding per year. 

I am an agent for BIPOC communities as a member of the Caltrans Office of Race and Equity, Native American Liaison Branch Headquarters. 

University of Davis Education Opportunity Program recruited them as student teachers/peer mentors in Ethnic Studies, Acting, Chicano Theater, Cultural Anthropology, and African African-Caribbean dance. 

Philanthropic focus: 

They have offered intersectional multimedia art between edutainment and story sharing, storytelling ceremonies through solo and collaborations for over 25 years. 

Porras co-founded Movimiento Molcajete (1997) Contemporary Indigenous Teatro Co. & MA Series Arts (2018), a 501c3 non-profit MA Series Arts nonprofit 2018: dedicated to supporting performance, research & practice by women y queers of color, honoring the full spectrum of cultural and gender identities.

Action manager, community, and art gallery curator at Taller Arte del Nuevo. TANA is based in the rural community of Woodland, CA.