Una vuelta MÁS

Everything you touch changes you.
Everything you change changes you.
The only lasting truth is Change.
God is Change
Octavia Butler

Time never stops, and in its relentless march, it embraces us, passes through us, and transforms us; this is how the end of this year has surprised us with changes, growth, transformations, encounters, and celebrations. The time of year has come when we begin to close processes and prepare the ground to sow the seeds of the following year, a time to reflect on the work, celebrate successes, review mistakes, and take a break to have energy for what the next cycle will bring.

This year we celebrated 10 years of an unstoppable journey, building paths for reparation and fertilizing the land of this migratory territory that we call MÁS. We have done this hand in hand with the artists, groups, collectives, organizations, and collaborators who have joined forces with us to make it possible for the MÁS dream to live on, creating a worthy territory for Afro and Indigenous artists of Abya Yala both in Seattle and in the territories of Latin America from where we connect and intertwine.

2024 gave us the opportunity to reaffirm the importance of the collective in the processes of creation, planning and construction of spaces and events, through the process of creating our collective budget and the collective planning of the youth program. This year also gave rise to our collaboration with Seattle Fandango Project for the visit of the Fandanguera artist Gemaly Padua, which gave us the opportunity to solidify networks and generate a series of gatherings and events with different fandango communities that organize in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

We invite you to move with us and help us continue to grow and transform. We hope that this new turn, this new year, fills you with ancestral blessings.

Let MÁS touch you and change you, join the effort to continue moving MÁS forward and live with the abundance of resources that we dream of.

Support us with a donation,
You can be part of the force for change.

Here we leave you more details of our growth and successes divided by programs.

MÁS Conversaciones para MÁS Orgullo:

This year there was a transformation in the MÁS Conversaciones para MÁS Orgullo program. We expanded the space — where gossip, healing, laughter, deep reflections and the possibility of speaking in Spanish and listening to pain, concerns, visions and joys were reflected and bounced back — from one virtual window to another virtual window, adding the MÁS Podcast. This gives us a timeless virtuality that allows us to amplify the scope of our conversations and reach more people.
We see this podcast as a virtual circle with voices that travel in the footsteps of the African diaspora to amplify and center Black voices with the intention of strengthening connections and sharing the experiences of Afro, Afro-indigenous, and Black people from our territories. During 2025 we will continue to offer one series a year of virtual conversations in addition to multi-episode series of our new podcast.

On November 12th we released the first episode of season 1 of MÁS Podcast para MÁS Orgullo. You can listen to episode 1-3 on Spotify and YouTube. More information on our website.

Conectándonos MÁS Youth Program

This year we have been immersed in the process of rebuilding our youth program committee and working to increase our capacity. We are preparing to launch a new edition of the program. Registration will open the first week of January 2025 and our launch party will be on Friday, February 21, 2025.

Conectándonos MÁS is a youth program that seeks to educate and inspire young people to connect and explore their ancestral roots and learn about the cultural contributions of Afro-descendants in Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean. In this program, young people learn about the Black history of Latin America and its connection to the human rights of Afro-descendants through connection with local artists who promote Afro-diasporic arts. The program culminates with a final community celebration open to the public where we will have a reception sharing the art pieces and other works created by participating youth with the Seattle community.

MÁS Workshops:

Our year of workshops began in the winter of 2024 with the Autobiographical Writing Workshop, Metresas and Dissident Imaginaries in the Face of Colonialitygiven by Johan Mijailwith whom we collaborated for the production of the Fanzine Twisting the Words 2a literary anthology resulting from the workshop.

We continued in the spring with the Bomba Puertorriqueña workshops with Otoqui Reyes, which focused on dance and piquetes. In the summer we continued Otoqui’s Bomba workshops but this time focused on percussion.

We closed the year in November with our fall workshops with Sembrando Comunidad 2024. Developed and organized in collaboration with the Seattle Fandango Project, Carolina Martínez of San Diego, and Tierras Milperas Fandango de Portland, we brought workshops and events guided by Gemaly Padua Uscanga to the communities of the United States.

Our work has been supported this year by RVC, Department of Education and Early Learning, ArtsFund, Black Future Co-op Fund, 4Culture and many dedicated community members who have been by our side for years.

Our Team at MÁS