This Is Yugen: Finding Beauty In The NJ Dance Community
Xavier Boone
July 3, 2024
Yugen Dance Project founder Gabriel Aniel and member John Victor told us how dance can become so important.
Yugen Dance Project founder Gabriel Aniel and member John Victor told us how dance can become so important.
“With Zumba and ballroom I felt like my confidence went super high and ever since then I just feel unstoppable and I don’t care what people have to say about me. I know who I am and that is what I want to provide to everybody,” the West New York resident said.
What’s the importance of storytelling from a Black perspective? Here’s what the founder and head of editorial Black In Jersey said.
“You can be the people who graduate and serve our people. You don’t have to be someone who’s from out of town to come here and leave. You can be growing up in this community, in our system and come back full circle to be the person in leadership.”
Archangel Raphael’s Mission provides mobile barbershops and showers to New Jersey’s most overlooked communities since 2014 and intends to do more in the future.
“… The people that criss-cross this campus, the ones that I love taking care for, are people who are pursuing something incredibly noble: a shot at a better life,” NJCU President said.
“There’s power in your voice. There’s power in community, and we’ve experienced the results of it,” Riley said. “There’s unity in community,” Community Board president MacCormack continued.
Photo by co-founder Neidy Gutierrez. Julian Muscio grew up in the restaurant industry. A child of immigrants from Argentina, Muscio and his siblings grew up working in and out of their family’s restaurant, Paisano’s, a beloved Italian restaurant in Rutherford. When Muscio moved to Jersey City ten years ago, he
“I grew up in an era where people were trying to make my choices for my life. And so now I fight to be a voice for everyone, to make a choice for their life,” the council president said.
“Sometimes you have good days, and sometimes you have bad days, but you cannot give up,” Benanti’s Delicatessen owner told Slice of Culture. “I have my wife, my daughter and two grandchildren, and I thank God that everything is good.”
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