The following is an original production of AZPM News.

(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, Visit a dance studio teaching young people to be themselves.

(Erik) When I was a kid, I always got into a lot of trouble because I didn't have positive influences.

And then growing up, seeing where instructors could actually influence, you know, a lot.

So I'd rather be the person I needed when I was a kid.

(Tom) See why a century old workout is surging in popularity.

(Soleil) I think the best exercise for anybody is the exercise that you want to do and you're going to do consistently.

And I think that's where Pilates has really struck it.

(Tom) And learn about a University of Arizona program providing stability and community for students coming out of foster care.

(Dani) It's a really, really important student population that that we need to protect and we need to love and we need to support.

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated from the recently renovated Santa Rita Park.

I'm Tom McNamara.

You know, in southern Tucson, there's a dance studio where learning the moves is only part of the experience.

At the Drop Dance Studio, students are finding confidence, creativity and a place where they can really be themselves.

♪ SOULFUL ORGAN ♪ (Ruben) So the Drop is a lot of things, but for me, it's a space where people can come and have a safe space to learn how to move and dance with other people.

But ultimately, it's just a street dance studio.

♪ TRAP MUSIC ♪ (Michelle) I feel empowered.

I feel free, and I get to be myself.

(Emma) It's just like a form of expression and releasing energy.

(Sireyna) We have so much fun, and it helps me express myself a lot in different ways, like my clothing and hair.

♪ TRAP MUSIC CONTINUES ♪ (Ruben) Growing up, we've always loved to learn different dances amongst our friends and our family.

We bounce one, two, three, pivot, four, five, six, seven, again There wasn't necessarily a space for that in the community, so we would usually practice in the parking lots, in the parks, back in the day, because it was like a lot of gang violence and gang affiliation stuff.

It was a little bit harder for us to be out in the open.

So it felt a little unsafe back then.

So we wanted to create a spot where it was close to who we are, where other kids can actually come and be able to feel a little bit safer.

(Monique) A safe space is important for someone to really, truly feel free to express themselves, keeps them doing something good for themselves and keeping them out of the streets.

♪ R&B GUITAR ♪ (Ruben) We focus on the underserved communities, mostly on the southern side of Tucson.

So many people shy away from coming here because of location.

But when they get to come into the space and really see what we're all about, so many people actually discover that it's way more of a home.

(Sireyna) I used to come watch my mom take classes, and so I've been here since I was really little.

♪ WEST-COAST TRAP BEAT ♪ (Sireyna) We can all be ourselves around each other, and we have so much fun.

So we've all grown a bond, and like I'm really close to some of the people.

♪ WEST-COAST BEAT CONTINUES ♪ (Ruben) We strictly go based off of drop-in.

So anyone that kind of wants to come and try out a class, usually every single week, there's drop-ins that they can come into and just try out.

(Monique) We do offer for anyone who can't afford classes to maybe donate their time to help clean the studio in exchange for a class or maybe assist at the front desk.

So we try to keep it affordable for those in the area, because everyone deserves to dance.

(Ruben) In our hip hop classes, you're going to learn how to listen to music, how to groove, how to bounce, how to rock.

♪ OPERATIC TRAP BEAT ♪ Within hip hop, there's the main style that comes from that, which is breaking.

One, two, three, four.

♪ DISCO BEAT ♪ (Erik) Breakdancing has been a big collaboration of different styles.

It came out of poverty.

And a lot of people that didn't have no other ways to entertain themselves, they just started doing what they seen on TV.

And that was like acrobats and gymnastics, flips on mattresses and stuff like that.

♪ DISCO BEAT CONTINUES ♪ When I was a kid, I always got into a lot of trouble because I didn't have positive influences.

And then growing up, umm seeing where the instructors could actually influence, you know, a lot.

So I'd rather be the person I needed when I was a kid.

One of our big ones that we're mainly known for is waacking.

♪ GLITTERY SYNTH & GUITAR ♪ A lot of arm movements.

(Monique) Waacking originated in the 70s to disco music.

It was created in the underground gay clubs of LA, mainly by the Black and Latino men.

♪ GLITTERY SYNTH & GUITAR CONTINUE ♪ (Ruben) We also teach just basic choreography classes, where the instructors usually just kind of string together movements to a piece of song.

♪ DARK ELECTRONIC BEAT ♪ A lot of people come in shy, timid, maybe even a little scared.

(Michelle) The moment I started coming here, I did feel welcome.

And I was shy, but I broke out of that shot really quick because everyone is so nice and encouraging.

(Emma) When you're kind of like in your group of people, you kind of like feel highlighted with the people out the front that's cheering you on and hyping you up, it's a level of euphoria that's like kind of unmatched, you know?

(Ruben) I think it's something that dance has given me, and it's just confidence.

When they get like that, oh, yeah, like this is what it's supposed to feel like, and this is what it's supposed to look like it's like, yes.

(Ruben) The world is a pretty harsh place and if you don't have a specific outlet that you can feel excited to go to, I feel like it's very easy for anybody to just kind of feel lost.

I just feel like there's a whole lot of things that come into play outside of dance that will help them in life in general.

(Ruben) What I feel like dance has done for us is allowed us to be that beacon for people to come and be attracted to and try and see if that's their outlet.

♪ MUSIC FADES ♪ ♪ RELAXING MUSIC ♪ Pilates may be nearly 100 years old, but its popularity continues to grow here in Southern Arizona.

So next, you'll see how people of all ages are building strength, improving mobility, and staying active for years to come.

(Stephanie) It's the most challenging thing I've ever taught, the most interesting thing I've ever taught.

It's held my attention for the last 15 years.

♪ CALM AMBIENT SONG ♪ (Soleil) I think the coolest thing about Pilates, as opposed to some other modalities of exercise, is that you can get on a reformer and you can do that class to your own level, basically your entire life.

Would you believe that I'm 74 years old?

That's what Pilates has done for me.

It's kept my body in shape.

I work with people that are younger than me that are in wheelchairs.

So you're going to find a lot of people coming to Pilates that know this, that know that they want to be vital and healthy and be able to move and stay upright for as long as they can.

And that's one of the reasons why there's been an explosion of Pilates in the country.

(Soleil) Pilates is super low impact strength training.

The ultimate goal of Pilates though is core strengthening and mobility.

(Stephanie) In Pilates we don't picture the core as like a muscular structure.

It is our skeleton, our spine, our center.

We not only focus on what our arms are doing and our legs are doing, but our core is doing, our spine is doing, and at different levels of our spine.

(Soleil) It's also going to help your posture.

It's really good for pelvic floor.

So it's the kind of thing where you do it for years and it's going to allow you to take care of your grandkids and pick them up and go walking with them, etc, etc.

The mobility that happens within your spine echoes out through other part, to other parts of your body.

Joseph Pilates says you're as young as your spine is supple.

(Mark) Pilates actually takes the name from the person that, the master and who developed it and who was Joseph Pilates who was originally from Germany and he rehabbed soldiers during World War I and did such a great job.

He developed a reputation.

He started developing all the equipment that you see in this studio.

He came over to the United States I think in the 30s and set up shop in New York.

Down the street was Martha Graham's studio and she sent him over a dancer, a female dancer that was injured and he rehabbed her and it just kind of exploded in the female population.

Joseph Pilates basically introduced us to the classical method.

(Soleil) We come from a time where exercises had to really kill you, and had to walk out and be like, "Ugh."

But Pilates you walk out standing taller, feeling good, feeling prepared for your day and that makes people want to come back.

I think the best exercise for anybody is the exercise that you want to do and you're going to do consistently.

And I think that's where Pilates has really struck it is that it's something that people want to do because they walk out feeling so much better, not completely torn down and so it becomes the exercise people do consistently.

(Aubrey) I was just calculating that back in my head and I feel like it's been about two decades that I've been doing Pilates.

I've had a lot of injuries from being a runner and so Stephanie kind of helped me navigate those injuries through Pilates and how to use my body more efficiently and more effectively.

(Natalie) I used to be a volleyball player and I was an athlete and all those things and then I really wanted to try something low impact, less intense just because I felt like my high intensity training was affecting my body, hurting my knees.

I had some ankle and foot injuries and things like that.

So when I started getting into Pilates, like I said, I was like, "Wow, this is great," because I'm moving my body and I don't feel like I'm in pain after.

I think it's helped my posture, I think it's helped my spine, I think it's helped engage my core.

I think it's just all around an amazing workout.

One of my disabilities is arthritis and I suffer with it very chronically.

I am in pain every day.

I didn't think that I was actually going to be able to do Pilates because of it and actually doing Pilates every day has brought back a lot of mobility that I thought I had lost maybe even forever.

My pain has gone down tremendously.

It's kind of crazy how much energy and strength it has given me.

(Cassandra) I really do like the format between the reformer or having the mat as an option.

I do like that and coming, just the community keeps me coming back.

I think it gets me out of my mindset and my zone some days.

It's been a better one, a better mood.

(Stephanie) The popularity of Pilates is on the rise because it's amazing.

It's an amazing modality that everybody can do.

It's a comfortable modality.

It's something that complements what everybody does.

I just want more people moving, whatever that is for them.

So whether it's Pilates, whether it's strength training, whether it's heated mat, walking with your friends outside every single morning, I just want to see more people moving and I want to bring that feeling of enthusiasm and excitement and productivity to more of Tucson.

♪ RELAXING AMBIENT SONG ♪ Navigating college can be difficult enough, but for students facing the impacts of foster care and housing insecurity, that journey can be even tougher.

So next, meet the people behind Fostering Success.

It's a University of Arizona program that's helping students to build confidence, community and a path forward.

♪ RELAXING AMBIENT SONG ♪ (Dani) My name is Dani Carrillo and I am the director for Fostering Success here at the University of Arizona.

We officially launched in fall of 2018.

From the beginning, we have served students who have experienced the foster care system, have experienced housing insecurity or homelessness, or were unaccompanied youth or associated with youth on their own here in Tucson.

♪ RELAXING AMBIENT SONG ♪ I received my Bachelor of Science in Public Health with a minor in Nutritional Sciences from U of A. And I decided to go back and pursue my Master's in Nursing.

(Dani) Students can join the program from the first day that they come here to the last day that they are here.

And we have students join for all sorts of reasons.

A lot of students are coming into Fostering Success because they're just lacking a support system.

But some students do come to us because they want to build community here based on those lived experiences because they can be very isolating.

♪ RELAXING AMBIENT SONG ♪ [ MUMBLED TALKING ] Yes.

(Katerina) My name is Katerina.

I'm a senior coordinator with Fostering Success.

I heard about Fostering Success while I was in grad school here at the U of A. One of my best friends in grad school was a participant, and she was a student staff, and then she was a graduate assistant.

And I heard a lot of good things, so I saw the impact just like speaking with her daily.

She would talk about Dani as her second mom, so like I would see Dani on emails for similar like organizations that we were part of for their meeting.

So I knew that I could trust her, and I knew it was like a safe place to land.

A lot of my role is pretty student-facing, so meeting with students when they come into Fostering Success, showing them around the office, getting to know them, and then also just like checking in with how they're doing, seeing how school's going, just like getting to know their personal lives, helping them with any question that they have that they might not feel comfortable asking anywhere else.

So a lot of questions about like financial aid or classes or where to find things on campus, but also just anything that they have on their mind.

So sometimes it's showing me their chess game that they have on their phone, and sometimes it's like, "I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight," or "I don't know how I'm going to pay rent."

♪ RELAXING AMBIENT SONG ♪ (Dani) All of our student employees are also student participants in the program, so there's a shared language here, and that helps build a lot of safety for our students.

Psychological safety, physical safety is the root of everything that we do.

If a student feels safe here, then we're able to actually legitimately support them.

We approach everyone that we work with, students and campus partners, community partners from a space of wanting to establish safety.

[ MUMBLED TALKING ] (Jasmine) My name is Jasmine, and I graduated from the U of A in 2026 this past May with a Bachelor of Arts in Information Science and a minor in Astronomical Studies.

That first year I was just kind of like, I met with my peer mentor, but then the next year things started getting kind of crazy with my major.

My second year here, I really got involved, and they were trying to convince me to work, but I was like, "I'm not ready for that."

So it was a lot of like, I needed support here, and so that's what I came for.

(Sarah) Well, when I first joined the program, it was still kind of in its phases of being built.

I was a participant for about a month, and I would meet one-on-one with a peer mentor for a semester, and we would just kind of build rapport, get to know each other, and then eventually I went on becoming a peer mentor myself.

Right now I'm a registered nurse at Tucson Medical Center in the emergency department, and I've always wanted to be kind of in the healthcare and emergency.

Specifically, I've always wanted to do, just because it's like when people are kind of at the lowest, I kind of want to be the one to kind of help.

It's very scary and very daunting, and I had experiences in emergency and really good nurses, and it really inspired me to want to be a nurse myself and give that same care.

(Dani) Officially, welcome to this event.

It is our eighth annual milestone celebration.

And most of our traditions for this event, unlike most things that we do, have actually stayed very consistent throughout the years.

So make sure that you're adding words of wisdom to our wall, you're documenting your successes, the big ones, the little ones, because the little ones get you to the big ones.

It's been a hard year.

It really has, and you all are here, and that means something.

That means something to me, and it means something to everyone else who is here.

You truly do belong here with us, and I am so incredibly grateful to have you here.

(Ari) I had a student who I was working with when I first started as a peer mentor.

We went through COVID together.

When I graduated, she was no longer my student.

I remember coming to a milestone event, and she was there.

I think she told me, "I wouldn't have made it through graduation without you."

Oh, I'm going to cry, actually.

And then she asked me to take a picture, and I think it was monumental because she wasn't really one for photos.

(Dani) As of right now, we are able to operate with the staff that we do have through the end of June 2027.

That's not to say that we will end on June of 2027, but the pressure is on to make sure that we are able to create some sustainability for our students, to make sure that there is a space carved out for them no matter what.

It's a really, really important student population that we need to protect and we need to love and we need to support.

A lot of students are coming to this university, and most universities, feeling like they have a backdrop of someone who loves them no matter what.

They can take risks, they can mess up, they can fail a class, they can do bad on an assignment without there being catastrophic consequences of losing support from any space.

(Jasmine) Standing up for myself and advocating for myself, that is not that scary.

I really learned to be me and advocate for me rather than just go with the flow 100% of the time.

(Sarah) My heart and soul is into this program, and I feel like whenever people talk about my journey and where I am today, Fostering Success is definitely a big part of that.

It's really kind of built me to the person I am today.

(Katerina) Every day I have something new that I'm laughing at or celebrating people's successes too, so it's heartwarming when you get to help someone solve a problem that they are super stressed about, but it's also really exciting to celebrate with them.

Like, "I got an A on the exam that I was really stressed about," or "I got the job," or "I got to present my research," and just seeing all their growth and celebrating all their growth of people.

It is more than students in a program or staff members in a program in a very specific role.

It goes so much deeper than that.

Our students are carrying an immense amount on their shoulders and on their hearts.

If the weight of that gets too heavy, it's alright.

I will be there to make sure that they have a place to feel safe while they get back up and they continue to carry it.

That story was produced by our outstanding student employee Angelica Pelaez, who is graduating in December 2026.

She worked at AZPM for four years as a production assistant, editor and producer while attending the University of Arizona.

And, Angelica, a sincere thank you for all you've done for us and best of luck moving forward.

In August 2026, Arizona Public Media and Tucson Spotlight teamed up with the Tucson Jewish Community Center's Day program, Taglit B'Yachad, to host a storytelling workshop and a live event at the Baker Center for Public Media.

The collaboration highlighted the experiences of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The goal was to build stronger relationships with the IDD community and share stories in their own words.

In the workshop, participants chose to talk about a time that they were brave.

Here's Kristi Ambrosini with her story, with narration from her art instructor, Matt Katz.

(Matt) I was brave when me and my family moved to Arizona for a new start during the pandemic.

We lived in Staten Island.

I did not like how they treated me at my art day program.

They treated me like a baby, and not like an adult.

My family and I had visited Arizona before for vacation, and we loved it.

My niece needed a fresh start because she was dealing with bullying.

I love my nieces, and we are very close.

When I moved to Tucson, I realized I did not miss the snow.

I was nervous to meet new people and make friends.

I worried if people would be nice.

I started the day program at the JCC, and told Rachel that I wanted to approach Tyler, someone in the program who was sitting alone.

Rachel asked me what I was waiting for.

Now Tyler and I are good friends.

I want day programs to treat people with disabilities with respect, and like an adult, not like a baby.

The JCC day program helps me do the things I want to do, like work.

I want to work.

I love making art.

The day program helps me make coffee I can be independent.

I'm looking forward to making more art, having our art show in the fall, and seeing my friends.

♪ SLOW SYNTHS ♪ (Tom) This public storytelling event was supported by the Reynolds Journalism Institute in partnership with WordSlaw.

You can find out more about the collaboration and see all the stories on our website, azpm.org.

Before we go, here's a sneak peek at a few stories we're working on.

What, there's an image in art that every single person is compelled to do, whether they're devout, an atheist, agnostic, a Muslim, a Jewish person, a Catholic, they're all in here, all in here.

Well, because of just coming to a very devout community as it is here at the border, you know, before I started just putting up Star Wars, what will the community think?

And know what a community thinks, which is why religion was created.

Because they always know what the community's thinking.

They have everybody come down once a week, that they would have a good feel for that.

And they all came in, you know, LDS Bishop, Catholic Deacon, Presbyterian, Lutheran Methodist, Baptist, name it.

Rabbi had to zoom in.

And they all said the same thing.

Even looking at the aliens and the cigarettes and all these things.

Said, "E.B., if someone "doesn't like what you're doing "here, they have a brittle spirit.

"They need to go to church.

"Please send them to mine."

I am not trying to just paint what's in front of me, I'm trying to romanticize it.

I wanna take you to almost like a fantasy or a romanticization of my home.

A lot of Southwest art is beautiful, but it kind of has the 60s oil painting palette, and I wanna see the Southwest now.

[CAR WOOSHING PAST] [Danny] His art is really colorful.

It covers large areas quickly.

Fifth Avenue in downtown Safford looked like a slot canyon of tans and browns, and light tans, and medium browns.

Now it's vibrant and colorful.

[Brittany] My favorite part about his art is the brightness and the color.

It just lightens up the whole room.

And I'm so grateful it's his style because I like it too.

[Brandt] Southwest dreams, that's what I'm shooting for.

I almost always have to tone the colors just a little bit down or up, just push to that dreaminess and that daydream feel.

Thank you for joining us from here at the newly renovated Santa Rita Park.

I'm Tom McNamara and we'll see you again next week.