Dancing Her Way into Social Justice

Ana Silvia Avendaño-Curiel embraced art during a period of transition, not knowing how it would shape her entire future

By Holly Bowers

For Ana Silvia Avendaño-Curiel, activism begins with art—specifically, dance. Avendaño-Curiel has been dancing since she was six, when her single mother placed her in an after-school dance program for childcare. While her talent may have bloomed out of necessity, ballet, hip-hop and Mexican folklorico dance became an anchor.

When she was 13, her mother earned a prestigious position in a teacher exchange program. The family moved from Mexico City to Colorado, where Avendaño-Curiel found community dancing with Grupo Folklorico Sabor Latino. “Dance helped me transition into a country that was very, very different in terms of everything: language, culture, norms, pace of life,” she says.

Today, dance remains an important pillar of Avendaño-Curiel’s social justice work. A principal dancer with ArtistiCO Dance Company, she turns to dance to nourish her soul, but it also gives her space to think outside the box and reminds her to stay open to critique and opportunities to learn.  

Avendaño-Curiel is deeply involved in the local arts community, but that’s just one piece of what she does. In fact, it might be easier to ask what she isn’t involved in than to list all the things she does. Professionally, Avendaño-Curiel serves
 as the equity policy advisor for the city of Boulder. Her work includes co-facilitating the city’s team of Community Connectors-in-Residence, a program designed to build trust and better connect historically excluded communities with the city; supporting and consulting on policy and programs; and overseeing leadership development, with a focus on equity. 

She was recently selected as a board member of Juntos Colorado, the regional chapter of the Local Government Hispanic Network. She mentors young leaders and stays active in the immigrant community. When her children were in elementary school, she served as the co-chair of the Families & Educators Together team there, helping to break down barriers for families that were not as engaged with the school system. 

Avendaño-Curiel’s career in social justice began at the Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence in Boulder, where she worked for six years after college. She calls herself “a very proud offspring” of the organization, which she credits with teaching and guiding her to a better understanding of social justice. At Safehouse, she learned about the various barriers that different communities face based on their varying and intersectional identities. 

If Safehouse formally brought Avendaño-Curiel into the social justice world, the seeds were planted long before. Her early experiences as an immigrant to Colorado were formative, both to her understanding of her own identity and to her community focus. 

Knowing that life for her three children could be drastically different in the U.S., Avendaño-Curiel’s mother navigated the immigration system, ultimately finding a job at a school district that sponsored her green card. Watching her mother weather the uncertainty shaped Avendaño-Curiel in many ways. “I saw the complexities of the system, I lived the frustrations,” she says. 

She recalls being treated differently in school because of her background. It was the first time she realized she was a brown person. She had to prove that she could keep up with the academic rigor of international baccalaureate classes. And while she definitely could—she graduated with honors from Thornton High School and attended Colorado State University on a Daniels Scholarship, studying international studies and gender studies with a focus on Latin America—she still struggled with the feeling of ni de aquí, ni de allá (neither from here nor from there).

That’s why her mother very intentionally built community around Avendaño-Curiel and her siblings. It’s a lesson that infuses all her work. “We’re not supposed to be doing this life on our own,” she says. 

For Avendaño-Curiel, community means listening, introspection and being willing to step into the messy middle to repair harms and find a path toward collective good. It’s finding ways to bring historically excluded communities into the conversation around spaces and processes that weren’t designed with them in mind. It’s having difficult conversations with her majority-LGBTQ+ dance company about safety following the Club Q shooting in 2022. It’s ensuring her three children feel comfortable addressing their own biases, even as she works on hers. 

People are taking notice—last year, Avendaño-Curiel was named one of the 100 top influencers in local government by Engaging Local Government Leaders. It’s all part of the work. “We all have the power to influence systems through our collective power,” she says. “I stand on the shoulders of giants who have carved the path so I can do my part in this work. What are you going to do with your influence and power?”