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Choose954 Podcast Episode #78 With Casandra Tanenbaum


Evan Snow: And welcome back to another episode of the Choose954 podcast, episode 78, with our upcoming AAF Creatives and speaker, Cassandra Tenenbaum, who you'll be able to hear her full story this Friday morning as part of our monthly breakfast lecture series. But if you didn’t know about Choose954, myself, Evan Snow, and my business partner, Mr. Andrew Martino, started a social movement to cultivate culture and community across Broward County as arts advocates and community builders, to keep people in the know about a lot of great things that are going on and make this a better place to live and not just a better place to vacation. But the point of the podcast is to connect you with interesting people like her that make our community what it is, and you’ll get to hear some really interesting things that we’ve been following and supporting for a few years that we’re very proud Cassandra has undertaken. But without much further ado, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself at a high level?


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Sure. So thanks, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me to this space, and I’m really looking forward to Friday’s talk. I have been doing silly things in the world since 1980. I’m Florida born and raised. I’m a graduate of the local Palm Beach County arts high school, which is now Alexander W. Dreyfuss Jr. School of the Arts. But most of the time that I was a student there, it was Palm Beach County School of the Arts, and at that time, it served seventh through twelfth grade. And while I was there, I was a major in communication arts. From that space, I got to explore public speaking, I got to explore journalism, I really fell in love with the possibilities of graphic design, and I started pursuing that in a professional way on a professional level while I was still in high school. And, you know, then I kept doing things.


When I was raised, I was raised by a single mother who’s also a professional musician. And so it was very normal for me as a very young child to hear music in the home, music being played and practiced in the home. She taught instrumentalists in the various woodwinds as well as bagpipes, so it was really normal to experience the life of a working artist. I would go with her to gigs, I would sit in the audience and clap my little hands off, and I was very used to that, so it seemed very normal that I would be encouraged to pursue any of the creative exploits that I showed interest in. So I started playing piano when I was four. I started dance also when I was four and continued dancing and playing music all the way up through high school. In high school, I got really enamored with speech and debate, so I really had to pick my battles on the weekends. What am I going to spend my weekend working on? Is it going to be piano, or is it going to be dance, or is it going to be speech and debate? Ultimately, speech and debate won, and then also graphic design. And from there, I really started exploring art on my own terms when I went to college and started to experiment with what was possible in the realm of graphic design, professionally and personally, and also exploring some other forms of digital art and doing a lot of fun experimental performances, which is how I got into circus arts and something that I’m continuing with to this day, and also how I got into poetry slam and performance poetry, which is something that I continued.


Evan Snow: Very interesting, and I appreciate you pursuing your passions, now that I know what it led to. I know this multi-talented, multifaceted creative life generally is hard to explain or not always understood by people. "Oh, you do this, you do that, how do you do all these things?" But when you're passionate about them, they obviously come a lot easier. And thankfully, these passions have led the way to you creating platforms to highlight and showcase other people pursuing their passions. Would you care to share a little bit about how we initially kind of connected through Flow Fest?


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Sure. So in 2008, I became a hula hoop dance instructor. I had been practicing and performing here and there since the early 2000s, and a really good friend of mine who was a lawyer was like, "You should teach people how to do this." I said, "I mean, I’m a teacher, but I have no idea how to teach this." So I went to a training, and I got trained, and I was teaching hula hoop dance classes. But then I was also traveling to study with people who I considered masters in this form, in this particular movement discipline with hula hoops, and then also in juggling and circus arts. And I thought, "I wish I could bring my entire community along with me to experience these events where so many people are gathered in one space, and they’re all focused on exploring this one idea that we’re all enamored with." There was this really interesting and powerful collective field of consciousness that I was noticing in these big events that I was traveling to, but I couldn’t bring my community along with me, so I said, "Well, I’ll bring one to my community." And I created Florida Flow Fest in 2011, and I have been running circus arts workshop festivals called Flow Fests ever since.

When we moved the festival to Fort Lauderdale, which was in 2018, we actually ended up coinciding—I don’t want to say colliding because I don’t think that that’s entirely accurate—


Evan Snow: No, you’re right.


Cassandra Tenenbaum: —with the Fort Lauderdale Art and Design Week, which is also a very interesting and powerful festival to express community creativity and to really bring the eyes of the world to the Fort Lauderdale art scene. So it just seemed like a pretty natural fit to connect with you and the work that you’re doing through Choose954 and AAF Creative Zen and also the Zero Empty Spaces project. I mean, all of those projects are building up and shining out the massive expressive power and resourcefulness of creatives across the state, but particularly in Broward County, and so I was very excited to connect with you.


Evan Snow: Amen. And I obviously appreciated the festival, A, in just creating platforms to highlight and showcase creatives in their respective fields and pursuing their respective passions, and that it happened to align, you know, coincide with the Art Week. But now that I’ve since become a yogi myself and have a lot of friends that actually attend and participate in the festival, I have a greater appreciation for it because you’re right, there really aren’t so many platforms if you’re not pursuing, you know, certain movement practices professionally where you really can go be amongst your peers, be amongst your community, and be celebrated and supported. And I know a couple of friends in particular—one of them my yoga instructor, I’m about to go see, Yanni Amador—who loves your festival and looks forward to it, and I commend you for just providing that space, that container, and that support for the community. It’s a beautiful thing. Do you have the dates confirmed for 2023?


Cassandra Tenenbaum: I do not have the dates confirmed for 2023. It’s been on my list, but I’ve got a couple of logistical kind of infrastructure things with Flow Fests going on right now that have delayed me in finalizing the application. But I’m expecting it to be the same weekend as we had it this past year, which would be January 21st or January 22nd.


Evan Snow: No problem. We’ll be glad to support, you know, either way once you get that confirmed and commend you on the effort there. I also found, you know, pretty fascinating and also equally beneficial to the community, the work that you do as a "quote-unquote" day job. Could you care to share what you do with the Boys and Girls Club?


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Oh, I would love to. I’m obsessed with my job. So in addition to running Flow Fest—and actually, the Flow Fest project, when I created Florida Flow Fest in 2011, I thought it would just be one festival. It has now expanded—actually, 2019 was the year that we had the most Flow Fests in a year. So I produced circus arts workshop festivals in 2019 in San Diego, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Texas, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. So when I say, like, you know, the logistics and the infrastructure, I’m getting ready to launch the full calendar for 2023, and I want all of those pieces to be in place before I say anything about dates. But in addition to the festivals, in 2018, I started working as the Cultural Arts Program Manager for Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County. Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County has 17 clubs all throughout the county, about six of which we call standalone clubs. Those are all along the East Coast, from Riviera Beach down to Boca and then out to Wellington. We have seven clubs in the Glades area, six of which are at elementary school sites from Canal Point down to South Bay, and then we also have a teen center, a brand-new state-of-the-art facility in Belle Glade for the teens, and it’s fantastic.


Recently, we’ve been creating, through our partnerships with the Florida Department of Education and the 21st Century Community Learning Center Program, we have created four high school-based sites at John I. Leonard, Santaluces High School, Forest Hill High School, and Lake Worth High School. So for Boys and Girls Clubs and for all of those clubs, I am the go-to for arts partnerships with community organizations like The Symphonia, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the Norton Museum of Art, FAU Galleries, and more. And then also, I produce lessons and curriculum in visual arts and performing arts for all of the kids we serve, and we serve around 10,000 kids a year.


Evan Snow: Wow. And, you know, I commend you on multiple fronts, but, you know, it’s not always the easiest for people in the arts to be able to pursue their passions, to, you know, make livings. A lot of times, my business partner would say, "I wanted to be an artist, but I like nice things," so he got into advertising, you know, where he’s still able to be creative. But—


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Honestly, and I don’t blame them. Honestly, I have been very attuned to advertising for the last 20 years because I know how much creative talent moved in that direction. They’re certainly not alone in that.


Evan Snow: Amen. And it should—and also, as you mentioned, with your experience with graphic design, which obviously lends a hand with, I’m sure, all the hats that you wear. This really shows that you can pursue a life in the arts, and even on the administration side, these are important jobs. You know, kids go to a field trip to the Boca Raton Museum or to Norton—those things don’t just happen. Somebody has to work to connect the dots and make sure the funding’s there and that the bus shows up on time and all the things that go into it. And these are just some of the things that you’ll get to hear and learn more about Cassandra and her story this Friday morning as part of AAF Creative Zen, which is supported by our American Advertising Federation local chapter of Broward and the Palm Beaches alongside Choose954. If you weren’t sure about Creative Zen, we host a monthly breakfast lecture series mini TED talk to connect, engage, and inspire our creative community one Friday morning a month, generally the second Friday morning every month. That’s where I had my initial aha moment, which led me down this crazy path of art, culture, community building, and creative entrepreneurship, which is why I like to pay it back and pay it forward by continuing to host these events for free because you never know who’s going to be sitting in the chair, seeking or yearning for some inspiration that could ultimately change the course of their life, their community, or even our world.


I’m really glad that you mentioned poetry and poetry slams because, I don’t know if you know this, but you are in very good company. You are, I believe, going to be the fourth poet that we’ve had, and the first three I’m sure you’re familiar with: Darius Daughtry, Art Prevails Project, Click The Poet, Jerry Savage, and we’ve also had Asia Sampson share during COVID. It was remote, virtual, but it was still amazing, and these are all on our YouTube. So why don’t you also—


Cassandra Tenenbaum: You also have a writer.


Evan Snow: —we do. Yes, I’m sorry. Much love to Brenda. Much love to you, Brenda.


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Yeah, Asia and I, we have been dancing around each other for a very, very long time, both in the design realm because he’s also a professional graphic designer and an incredible artist, but specifically in the poetry realm. We’ve been elbowing each other in the ribs for a long time. But, yeah, I’ve been very blessed to kind of fall into performance poetry as a way to exercise my big mouth. I love speaking words, and I kind of came into it while I was in college. I dropped out of college—I dropped out of undergrad twice. And the second time I dropped out, I found myself over here on this coast. I was studying over in Sarasota, found myself back in Palm Beach County, and found out about a poetry slam, and went and started competing. And within—goodness, I think it was within four months, I had won my way onto my first national poetry slam team, and that was in 2003. And then when we got back, the then person who was in charge—the MC and the slam mistress for that slam—asked if I would be open to taking over the slam, which I did. And then I ran it for seven years, every Tuesday night at Dada. It continues. It’s now under the watchful eye and gracious guidance of Chunky, who has taken that team to some pretty incredible achievements in competition, because poetry slam is a competition.


It was a pretty wild time for my life, and I’m grateful for it. I learned a lot about coordinating events and producing events through that work, and I’ve been very grateful to be putting myself—and also be lightly shoved or nudged—into environments where I can collect different skills, so I can wear all of these hats and speak when I need to speak, design whatever I need to design, and just step up on behalf of what we want to see and what we want to create. And I am grateful to be able to be open to that for the community, to really tell me, like, "This is what we want." "Oh, you really want that? Okay, I’ll do that. Let’s do it." I think the most recent example of that was in 2020. I noticed in a social media group a bunch of the circus artists that I work with were kind of pining for the opportunity to go train in firewalk instruction, to lead firewalks, which is like walking on hot coals, essentially. They wanted to go and get trained to be instructors in this, to lead these experiences for people. And I was like, "You really want to be trained in this? Okay, I’ll bring a master trainer to Florida, and we’ll hold a firewalk instructor training." And we did. It was right before Florida Flow Fest in 2020. It was a wild time. I never thought I’d be hauling sod and firewood in my little Kia Soul, but there I am. And I’m not much of a roughing it kind of girl. To me, roughing it is slow room service. So for me to be in this space of putting this on, I was appreciative that it made me stretch and grow in a lot of ways I wasn’t expecting. So, yeah, more skills.


Evan Snow: I love it. And that’s how things happen, and that’s how we’re able to make progress—by people stepping outside their comfort zone. As I was alluding to, somebody has to connect the dots with, you know, the Boca Raton Museum, the Norton Museum, for field trips. Somebody has to connect the dots when the community says that they want something, like getting a certification in any realm. It’s always the people that take the initiative—you weren’t forced to do it, but you knew it was going to be beneficial to the community, so I commend you on doing that. I think all this is fantastic and really excited for you to share your full story this Friday morning. But before we get there, I did have one question about—what is Monkey Dust?


Cassandra Tenenbaum: [Laughter] Monkey Dust is—well, so once upon a time, I was involved in a personal development training program, kind of like the Landmark Forum, called the Gratitude Training. And in one of those spaces, I was actually in the first group to experience the Gratitude Training. This was back in 2010, and I subsequently stuck around in that community and supported in service for a number of trainings, quite a few trainings. And I, with my friend Chris Delgado, who’s also known as the artist Quack Chris, with a K, she and I had created this idea of Monkey Dust, which is kind of like the excitement and passion and inspiration and creativity that flows through the air like glitter, but you can’t really see it. It’s, you know, like the dust of evolution, let’s say that. Like all of that creative goodness is Monkey Dust. And we would, like, rub our hands together and be like, "Poof, Monkey Dust." And then we created a graphic design collective together, her and I, called Monkey Dust, and we were taking on design clients at the time. She was really looking for more of a full-time position, and she found one. And subsequently, I reached out to ask if it would be all right if I incorporated Monkey Dust Productions as my entity for producing events, and she said yes. So Monkey Dust Productions LLC is my company, under which Flow Fests is a nonprofit project. So it’s a nonprofit project of my for-profit company, and I still do design, and I still do event support and coordination and production work under contract for other entities as well as Monkey Dust Productions.


Evan Snow: Phenomenal. I’m a sucker for the backstory, so I appreciate it. I appreciate you sharing that, and I might have to borrow some of that Monkey Dust sometime, you know?


Cassandra Tenenbaum: [Laughter] Oh, it’s good.


Evan Snow: Oh, no, I trust it. I see it. For those that would like to follow along on your journey and stay in touch, where can they find you on social media and the interwebs?


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Well, the best way really is to follow my projects, and the biggest one of those is Flow Fests. So on Instagram, flowfest, F-L-O-W-F-E-S-T-S, Flow Fests, because there’s more than one of them. And we’re also creating a version of the Flow Fest experience to travel to different kinds of campuses. That could be company campuses, that could be school campuses, colleges, and universities. So that project is Flow Fest on Campus, and those are the critical spaces to watch. We also, of course, have the book of faces, and I’m still grateful to be using those pages on Facebook. So Flow Fests, and then each individual Flow Fest project has its own Facebook page. So Florida Flow Fest if you’re local, and if you’re ever traveling, there’s Northwest Flow Fest, Midwest Flow Fest, and Texas Flow Fest. Those pages are still very active, and there are still events going on as the year goes on. So that’s the best way. And then if you want to find me personally, Monkey Dust Cassandra on Instagram, and that’s Cassandra with one S. All of the arts projects that I create with Boys and Girls Clubs, if I post them anywhere, I post them to Monkey Dust Cassandra. I don’t tend to post them myself personally, but Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County does, so I also encourage you to follow them on Instagram and Facebook—Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County.


Evan Snow: 100%. I would encourage you to support all of the above. And email address in case somebody isn’t on social and wants to reach out?


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Totally, flowfests@gmail.com.


Evan Snow: Phenomenal. Definitely stay tuned and save the dates for what should be a return, a nice edition, and return to Fort Lauderdale Art and Design Week, the fifth annual installment. You’re gonna kill me, there’s one thing I did forget to mention.


Cassandra Tenenbaum: No, I’m not going to kill you.


Evan Snow: Okay.


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Flowfests.com, the website itself, has a calendar of flow arts events across the U.S. and around the world. So, and that’s a public Google calendar. If you hear of an event that you think should be listed, send me an email, but flowfests.com is not just for my festivals; it’s flow arts festivals and events around the U.S. and around the world. Sorry, please continue.


Evan Snow: No, no, would that include, but not limited to, yoga festivals as well?


Cassandra Tenenbaum: You know, that is an interesting question. I’m open to including them, but I think there is a debate going on in the world of flow arts—which is a funny thing to say, the world of flow arts, there’s such a funny group of cats—but there is a debate going on about what constitutes a flow art. And I love engaging in this debate, and also the value of having different kinds of festival spaces. A lot of the flow arts events are retreat-style festivals where there’s fire spinning all night, and we’re out in the middle of private land, and we can play our bass as loud as we want and that kind of thing. It’s a different vibe than the festivals that I create, but there’s a lot of value for a lot of different voices, and ultimately, I would include yoga events, but some people might disagree with me on that.


Evan Snow: I’d be interested to entertain this debate for another moment. And I know the festivals that you’re referring to, which I’ve attended and enjoy as well, but I would venture to say, if nothing else, if at a minimum, obviously, I think we all could agree that the practice—the physical practice of yoga—would obviously serve to be beneficial to anybody practicing a flow art. If you’re balanced, aligned, flowing, loose, and honoring your body, then it’s going to enable and allow you to be a more functioning, higher-functioning, better-functioning flow artist. I do understand that a yoga festival generally is not the same vibe or experience as you would encounter at a flow festival, but I’d be obviously, by design, interested to kind of—I like to poke the bear sometimes—to kind of hear your thoughts and correlate for those that might be interested and maybe fuel the debate a little bit further.


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’ll say I am also an avid yogi, and I have a personal practice that I am 100% committed to and passionately in love with. Yoga—the practice of asana, yoga asana, postures—which is the physical movement branch of the yogic path, has helped me recover from injury, massive injury, that I wasn’t able to really walk on my right leg for almost a year after an injury that I sustained in a dance practice. So it’s personal for me, and of course, I highly recommend engaging in a yoga practice with a skilled instructor to support health and movement arts. We kind of wreck our body in a lot of the flow arts practices, and yoga is such a powerful therapeutic tool. So I would want everyone to develop a practice for themselves and really study it. It’s valuable.

Having said that, the definition of what constitutes a flow art has a lot to do with the competing definitions and use of the word flow. So flow could be a series of elements that are connected to each other, so it could be a series of movements, like a yoga flow, or it could be, you know, an event flow. We use this word a lot, and we use it in choreography, you know, like stringing things together—that’s the flow. But flow arts tend to emphasize a different definition of the word flow, which is related to the flow state. And so because flow arts kind of uniquely prime the brain by increasing challenge with increasing skill, they are particularly useful for accessing the flow state. And I would say that, by and large, yoga is not nearly as effective as a practice in accessing the flow state on a regular basis as any of the other flow arts movement disciplines, and I look forward to getting into this more on Friday. It’s really interesting.


Evan Snow: It is really interesting, and that was actually very well put. I welcome further heated debate on the topic, as raising awareness about all of these practices and all these forms of movement can truly only help better those that practice them, as long as practiced safely, and like you mentioned, with a skilled and hopefully certified instructor on the yoga side and a knowledgeable instructor on the flow arts side. It can only really enhance your life, if nothing else, just having movement in your life is obviously proven to be beneficial scientifically and physically.


And you triggered one last memory that I just wanted to share briefly, and I totally forget her flow name, but I was participating in a group called Accent Club, which is a goal-setting accountability mini mastermind group where people would come before COVID—unfortunately, we haven’t resumed it since—but they would come with an idea, a dream, a goal, a passion, or they didn’t even have to have any of those things. We would literally help somebody form those things. And I remember a friend of ours, Dani, that came, and she said, "I want to hula hoop at festivals." And that was her goal. Some people wanted to, you know, launch a startup. Some people wanted to start a true storytelling series. Her goal was to go, not necessarily even initially to get paid, just to be able to go to festivals and hula hoop professionally, recreationally. And through Accent Club, not only did she achieve that goal, but I believe she also started getting into teaching, and I know that she has attended your festivals. I’m gonna reconnect with her and kind of touch base to see how things are going. But it really is a powerful art form, and especially if you’re able to create platforms to move the movement forward and inspire and connect and engage others, like you’ve been able to do with Flow Fest. That’s a beautiful thing. If you’re able to teach others, that’s a beautiful thing. If you’re able to just share your practice with others at a festival or at a gathering, that’s a beautiful thing. So I strongly encourage you, if you’ve never hula hooped or if you’ve never practiced a flow art—I’m sure there’s tons of YouTube videos out there—but I would encourage you to get out physically in your community, look up Flow Fests, look up their public calendar, look up—I’m sure there are Meetup groups and other opportunities for people to connect locally.


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Oh, yeah, there are regular jams on, I think, two different days of the week in Broward County. There’s a Tuesday night jam at LauderAle Brewery, and then there’s a Sunday jam—I don’t know if the Sunday jam is once a month, but that’s at TY Park in Hollywood area. But yes, I mean, absolutely get outside and play.


Evan Snow: Amen. And if you need any encouragement on that, come visit me on Friday morning at Creative Zen. I am super excited to encourage people to get outside and play. And actually, The Great Fuel Café, our host venue, actually has a covered, shaded back area with some artificial grass that they will host yoga when it gets a little cooler. So maybe if you—


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Oh!


Evan Snow: —bring a hoop back after the talk, maybe if somebody wants to try it for the first time—


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Oh, yeah, for sure.


Evan Snow: —you could give them a try.


Cassandra Tenenbaum: Oh, I’m bringing hoops.


Evan Snow: Okay, very good. So that’s going to be this Friday morning, August the 12th, at Great Fuel Café, which is on Commercial Boulevard, east of Federal Highway, in the Fort Lauderdale area, the northern Fort Lauderdale area. The doors open at 8:30, the talk starts at 9, you’re out of there by 10. If you’re concerned with missing an hour and change of work, I have a very good list of all truthful things that you can use to tell your boss as to why it would be beneficial for you to miss an hour and change of work to potentially change your life, your company’s life, your coworkers' lives—gain inspiration, gain knowledge, bring that back to your team, network, and all the things. And this is a truly free event, there’s no catch or anything like that. So you can find that under AAF Creative Zen.


A couple other things to look out for coming up here, not in the not-too-distant future: we have the return of 954 Day, which will actually have a flow component to it. Something we started during COVID to connect, engage, and exercise with our local community. It started off as a community-driven bike ride through downtown Fort Lauderdale previously. Now that I’ve moved to Hollywood, we’re going to do it in Hollywood, starting at Arts Park. And actually, Yanni, Yoga with Yanni, is going to lead a light flow before we go through this bike ride around 3:30 on September the 5th at 4 p.m. is when the bike ride—954 Day will be September 5th at 4 p.m. We’ll be starting at Arts Park in downtown Hollywood at Young Circle, and if you want to come join for the yoga flow at 3:30, it’ll be free. If you want to make a donation of $9.54, it’ll go to Yoga for Change, which is a great nonprofit that supports various people going through substance abuse, people in prisons, women’s shelters—they provide a myriad of great yoga resources to the community.


We also are very excited for the return of the Female Brew Fest as part of Greater Fort Lauderdale Beer Week, some initiatives that are also started by our agency, the United—fifth states installment at the Kimpton Goodland Hotel in Fort Lauderdale Beach. The Female Brew Fest, started by my business partner’s wife, Frances Martino, is a platform to highlight and showcase women in the craft beer industry—either brewery owners or brew mistresses—that are literally reshaping the craft beer industry and now have a platform to be highlighted, showcased, and supported. So that’s September the 17th in the afternoon at the Kimpton Goodland Hotel. There’s a ton of great events going on that week as part of the festival and as part of Greater Fort Lauderdale Beer Week, which extends throughout Broward County to support the craft beer industry with many various award-winning breweries here in the 954. And we encourage you to save the date once again for Fort Lauderdale Art and Design Week, which is the last week in January. We’ll have plenty of great events going on—studio tours, our discourse series of talks, Quick The Poet’s annual anniversary flow is—I'm sorry, MegaFlow—takes place during that week. You can find out more at ftladw.com. If you ever have any questions, you can reach out to me. I’m an open book at Choose954. EvanSnow13, you can email me, choose954@unitedisgroup.com, and we hope to see you Friday morning. It’s a free event, and giving you guys more reasons to Choose954. Cassandra, we appreciate your time, and we’ll see you soon.


Cassandra Tenenbaum: See you soon. Thanks so much, Evan.


Evan Snow: My pleasure, thank you.


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