Art has
something
to say.
Conversations about art, identity, storytelling, leadership, and the courage to create.
Choreographer and Artistic Director Julianna Rubio Slager brings the perspective of an artist, institution builder, and Mexican-American woman to questions that extend far beyond the stage.
Invite Julianna to speak →
From the
studio to
the stage.
The questions I explore through choreography are the same questions I bring into conversation.
Who gets to tell our stories? How do we hold complexity without simplifying people? What does it mean to create with conviction, lead with imagination, and make room for voices that have been overlooked?
As a choreographer, cofounder, and Artistic Director of Ballet Five Eight, I have spent more than a decade building an artistic institution while creating work that explores memory, identity, dignity, and the contradictions of human life.
My talks draw from the realities of making art: the creative process, the challenges of leadership, the experience of navigating cultural identity, and the belief that art can open conversations we might otherwise avoid.
Stories have power. They shape how we understand ourselves, how communities are remembered, and whose experiences are considered worthy of attention.
Drawing from her experience as a Mexican-American choreographer working within the classical ballet tradition, Julianna explores the responsibility of artists to question inherited narratives and imagine new ones.
Through examples from her narrative ballets, including La Llorona and The Lost Women of Juárez, she considers the difference between telling a story about someone and creating space for a more truthful, human understanding of their experience.
This talk invites audiences to examine the stories they have inherited, the assumptions they carry, and the possibility of becoming more intentional authors of their own lives.
Central questions
- Who has historically controlled our cultural narratives?
- What changes when familiar stories are told from another perspective?
- How can artists represent difficult experiences without reducing people to stereotypes?
- What does it mean to reclaim agency over our own stories?
What changes when we allow people to become more than the stories we have been told about them?
Ideas in conversation.
Living Between Worlds
Navigating cultural identity in spaces where you may be both an insider and an outsider. A reflection on heritage, belonging, representation, and finding an authentic artistic voice without surrendering the complexity of who you are.
Making Room to Lead
What does it take for women to build institutions, lead creative teams, and sustain ambitious artistic lives? Julianna explores the intersections of motherhood, leadership, artistic authority, and the challenge of resisting false choices.
The Art of Noticing
Creativity begins with attention. Drawing from her work as a choreographer and educator, Julianna explores how observation, curiosity, memory, and the discipline of noticing help us develop a richer creative life.
Art as a Bridge
How can art help us encounter people whose experiences differ from our own? An exploration of storytelling, empathy, cultural memory, and the capacity of performance to invite dialogue without demanding easy agreement.
Creating with Conviction
Building meaningful work requires both a strong artistic vision and the willingness to remain curious. Julianna discusses creative risk, resilience, collaboration, criticism, and the ongoing work of protecting an artist's imagination.
More Than a Career
How do artists sustain meaningful creative work across different seasons of life? A conversation about ambition, family, discipline, reinvention, and developing a lasting relationship with one's art.
Faith and Art
in the Public Square
For audiences interested in the intersection of spiritual conviction and contemporary culture, Julianna explores how artists can engage enduring questions of meaning, beauty, suffering, and hope without reducing art to illustration or easy answers. This conversation can be adapted for arts, university, and faith-based settings.
Experience
that gives
the ideas
weight.
Julianna Rubio Slager is a Mexican-American choreographer, Artistic Director, and cofounder of Ballet Five Eight. Her body of work includes approximately 70 ballets, among them 19 full-length productions.
Since founding Ballet Five Eight in 2012, she has helped build a professional dance institution, develop new audiences, lead artistic teams, and bring original narrative ballets to stages across the United States.
Her artistic perspective has been featured in Chicago Magazine, Chicago Tonight, WBEZ, and other arts and news outlets. She was selected as a National Visiting Fellow of the School of American Ballet.
As an artist, educator, mother, and organizational leader, she brings both practical experience and a willingness to ask difficult questions. Her approach is thoughtful, accessible, and grounded in the belief that art matters because people matter.
Where ideas meet people.
Each engagement can be tailored to the audience, setting, and central questions of the event. Julianna is available for keynote talks, lectures, moderated conversations, panels, and select interactive presentations.
Conferences & Events
Keynote addresses for arts conferences, women's leadership gatherings, cultural events, and interdisciplinary conversations.
Universities & Schools
Guest lectures, artist talks, conversations on identity and creativity, and interdisciplinary presentations connecting the arts with the humanities.
Panels & Conversations
Moderated discussions, interviews, community forums, and panels on artistic practice, cultural storytelling, leadership, and the creative life.
Start a
conversation.
Looking for a speaker who can bring artistic insight, lived experience, and meaningful questions to your event?
I welcome invitations from universities, conferences, cultural organizations, community forums, and leadership gatherings. Let's explore what would be most useful for your audience.
Inquire about speaking →Keynotes, lectures, panels, and custom engagements available by arrangement.