Title:
Marisa Hamamoto on Infinite Flow Dance, the Disability Film Challenge and Autism

Subtitle:
The Arts in Inclusion a Japanese American Dancing Beyond the Boundaries

Transcript:

Alycia Anderson: Welcome to Pushing Forward with Alycia, a podcast that gives disability a voice. Each week we will explore topics like confidence, ambition, resilience, and finding success against all odds. We are creating a collective community that believes that all things are possible for all people. Open hearts, clear paths.

Let’s go.

Welcome back to Pushing Forward with Alycia. Thrilled about this episode y’all. We have Marisa Hamamoto. She is trailblazing the keynote speaker stage. She is a dancer. She’s a founder, she’s an entrepreneur. She founded Infinite Flow Dance.

We’re gonna hear all about what that is. She’s been named one of People Magazine’s, women Changing the World. Congratulations on that. She is a spinal stroke survivor. She was late diagnosed autistic, and she’s a proud fourth generation Japanese American. I love all of this intersectional identity power.

She just completed her latest project for the Disability Film Challenge titled Killed It.

We need to hear all about that. She’s making impact everywhere. Welcome to the show, Marisa.

Thank you so much for your time to tell your beautiful story.

Marisa Hamamoto: Thank you, Alycia, for having me. My first encounter with you was shortly after you gave your TED talk.

I found it, and it was like a year or two later that we connected over social media. So happy to be here.

Alycia Anderson: Thanks for the plug. You are one that lifts me up through social media, through the work that we do together and in our lives, and I really appreciate that from you. It’s really fun to meet you finally and make the connection.

So you’ve been called a woman changing the world, rightfully, with that resume that I just listed off. I watched an interview on your change maker documentary, which is amazing. Everybody needs to go watch that. In that documentary you are quoted saying small actions can lead to big changes, which I really love that quote.

Can you talk a little bit about your journey and the way you’ve made it into our community and your advocacy? Can you give us a little bit of history?

Marisa Hamamoto: Sure. Absolutely. So if you Google my name with whatever information that you find about me, generally you will find that I am a stroke survivor or a spinal stroke survivor who was once paralyzed from the neck down. And that eventually led to creating Infinite Flow, which is a nonprofit and dance company that employs disabled dancers with a mission to advance disability inclusion, one dance at a time.

And we’ve gotten quite a bit of publicity and traction with Infinite Flow. Yes, I was paralyzed the neck down when I was in college. It was a very big life altering event, especially as a dancer who had been moving their body walking, dancing on the feet, jumping a lot.

Yes, it was a pretty traumatic life changing event. So that is totally true. However, there more layers to why I do what I do as a disability inclusion advocate. I grew up in Irvine, California during the eighties and nineties.

Irvine at this time was a predominantly white city where my family being Japanese American was a minority. At school I got picked on for looking different and I quickly learned that our differences can divide us. The highlight of my week, during elementary school was a once a week ballet class after school, where even though I was the only dancer of color in ballet class, something about moving my body to music with the other dancers made me feel like I belonged.

So though I was only like six and seven, I intuitively discovered the power of dance to unite us despite our differences. And then, during my teenage years I just fell in love with dancing. I aspired to become a professional ballerina. My whole life, at that time, really revolved around that dream to become a professional ballet dancer.

But this was when trouble started in my dance life. I was told left and right that I didn’t have the right body for ballet. I was occasionally either typecasted because ethnicity or flat out told yeah, you don’t really look the part, being Asian, so I would be pushed to the side.

And so I just started to live in this duality where on one end I knew that dance was a universal language that belonged to everybody. Yet the dance world was basically saying it’s only accessible to a few. Long story short, I never made it as a ballerina. But the universe did have a better plan and there was a defining moment that really carried me through to what I do today.

During my senior high school year I received a scholarship to attend a performing arts high school called Idlewild Arts Academy.

Idlewild was a boarding high school two hours away from Los Angeles, and this was a school that really valued diversity and inclusion. It was one of those schools where gay kids got to be gay and with many international students attending the school multiculturalism was very much celebrated all year long.

This was the first year in my 12 years of schooling where I really felt like I belonged and I actually fit in, which had never happened before until then. I was a dance major, and the last dance concert of the year was the student choreographed dance concert where all the senior dance students had an opportunity to choreograph a six minute work.

I was a senior among 14 others, and we were assigned to choose our cast, choose our music, and turn that information into the department chair’s office. So that’s what we did. And then on the day that casting was announced I was really anxious to see which of my classmates and my friends had selected me into their work.

So I decided to sneak into the dance studio a little earlier than everyone And I went into this dim dance studio with a heavy backpack full of books and dance shoes, and approached a department bulletin board, which was on the side of the dance studio.

I scan the three sheets of paper, which was the casting notice, and I don’t see my name anywhere except for US choreographer for my own work. I blink, look again and I don’t see my name anywhere, and I just started to cry because, it’s one thing to be, rejected by authority and teachers and outside entities, but it was another thing to be rejected by your own peers. I thought I had bonded with my class, and thought these were my friends. I remember crying and thinking am I just not good enough? And no, I’m one of the better dancers.

Do they just not like me? And I just couldn’t believe that this was how my childhood was going to end. So I cried and cried really feeling, sorry for myself. But then when I looked at the casting notice again. I started really looking at all the names. I noticed that seven other dancers.

Mostly from the lower grades were missing. And I looked at that and I was like that does not seem right. This is a student dance concert. Shouldn’t everybody be able to participate in this? What are these seven students gonna do like for the next five weeks? if they’re not part of this show, that does not make sense.

Just like all this injustice bubbled inside me. It just fumed up to the point that I took out a pencil out of my backpack and wrote down all seven names into my own cast and I barely knew these seven students. By the time Showtime came around and five weeks of rehearsal, I got to know them well and some of them are still Facebook friends of mine.

And that year I was named Dance Major of the year, but the real win was that since I graduated high school in the year 2000, the high school placed a policy ensuring that all dance students participate in the end of the year student choreography showcase, and it’s been 25 years, multiple directorship changes et cetera, et cetera.

That policy is still there. And so what I learned from all this is that, oh wow, me, taking out a pencil outta my backpack, writing down seven names. This small action led to lasting change and change to come. That policy, that incident, in high school definitely planted a seed for later on creating infinite flow, and Infinite Flow’s mission is to reimagine possibilities and advance disability inclusion one dance at a time.

It’s not about. Doing a hundred thousand things at once. It’s one person at a time, one dance at a time, one interaction at a time, one change at a time. It really just starts with one, one small thing. And that’s my theory and everything, even including like my own. Personal kind of growth and transformation.

It’s what’s one thing I can improve on, for example, in like my time management, which is something that I have to constantly work on. What’s one thing I can do this week to better that part of myself or like even with Infinite Flow too whether it’s on the business side or artistic side, when I start to get really frustrated or really overwhelmed because just.

So much going on. I myself, what’s that one thing that’s really important right now to do?

Alycia Anderson: I love that and you know that you taking out a pencil, and being brave at that age is a really good lesson for our community listening that when you feel like you need to advocate for yourself, that’s when advocacy was born for you.

You take out a pencil and you go, you know what? I belong here and I’m gonna create space and I’m gonna advocate for myself. Seven strokes of the pencil, including the ones that were left out, an advocate was born. And look at what you’ve created.

Marisa Hamamoto: A theory, a philosophy, a theme that you’re carrying through your advocacy, your businesses and in life. That’s a really important lesson. Thank you so much for sharing that path. The documentary is beautiful. We’ll put all the information in the, show notes. To highlight one more thing there. I think in addition to the idea of one action, one small action, one thing at a time That episode really prompted me to continually ask who is left out?

What’s one thing I can do this week to better that part of myself or like even with Infinite Flow too whether it’s on the business side or artistic side, when I start to get really frustrated or really overwhelmed because just so much going on. I myself, what’s that one thing that’s really important right now to do?

Who is left out, what new door could I open? Even within our disability community there’s silos and there’s division, and there’s sub communities, and all of that.

And, sometimes there’s cliques. always, I’m thinking, who is left out? This is great. the project that we did is great, but who is still not being served? Are we unintentionally excluding someone? It is just a question that I chronically ask myself.

I would say, sometimes I don’t always have the answers, unfortunately but just asking, Who is left out and that’s not just a disability inclusion, thing, sometimes you gotta just go, okay, who am I leaving out here?

Alycia Anderson: Your dance company is so diverse. You can see that without even saying a word. You have all kinds of abilities, all kinds of races, all kinds of genders. Can you talk about the vision behind that? Walk us through that a little bit.

Marisa Hamamoto: Yeah, absolutely. When I first created Infinite Flow, what I saw was and to this day, this hasn’t changed. It’s this world class dance company that’s really redefining dance, redefining beauty, redefining what it means to be a human in a way, too. And the infinity sign represents two people dancing, harmony, and eternity.

And so if you look at infinite flow’s videos, you’re gonna see a lot of duets. It’s not just, I am a ballroom dancer, professionally, ballroom, salsa dancer, tango dancer. I do have this love for partner dancing and the way that partner dancing really breaks barriers.

And, when you’re dancing with someone, beyond the labels, beyond race, gender, size, age, disability, sexuality it’s, et cetera. the infinity sign represents two people dancing as one. But I have always seen this really innovative creative out of the box dance company composed of dancers that have, non-traditional bodies and disabled bodies all dancing together at a very high level.

Really redefining and changing the perspectives of humans. I wanted to make sure that the message of inclusion was always in there. So it’s not about putting a disabled body on a pedestal. It was more about what can we do together but also still create from the idea that.

Disability inclusion, leads to a lot of innovation. So placing disability inclusion first, not last. And that’s something that I know that you advocate for all the time. If the world was built with disabled people in mind first, I think it would be a better world altogether for everybody.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah. it’s really incredible. There is a good amount of wheelchair dance representation out there, but yours is very intersectional in its representation That representation gives all body types. An example, a vision of how you might be a professional dancer, but also how you might just go on a date and enjoy, you can watch what you’re doing and envision somebody who’s ambulatory dancing with somebody that’s in a wheelchair or two wheelchairs the immense amount of different

Dances and representation you have is really amazing. And I think we need more of it. it’s wonderful how you’ve married all of that together so beautifully. You’re doing a really good job of it.

Marisa Hamamoto: Yeah. And we did start off as a wheelchair dance company. I thought I had a niche down. I just loved my, personally, I had so much transformation discovery through, starting to dance with a wheelchair dancer and having a wheelchair dance partner. And that whole thing was just so transformational that it started off as that.

But as soon as, I brought in a deaf dancer into our company. Things totally shifted and Shaheem, who is amazing deaf dancer who was already advocating for more inclusivity and more representation, through dance on his own.

He found a community to do advocacy with through dance. And he resonated with that, and that was when I realized, oh, I think what I’m creating here is actually a little bit bigger than where I started, yeah. And it’s, do my, 13, 14 dancers on my roster, do they represent everything?

No, they do not. But can we put out the message about. How, each body is beautiful and we can, all attempt to connect with new people that we don’t know and find beautiful connection. Yes, we can do that. but I will say my own knowledge around what is a disability, and the disability one-on-one knowledge has definitely very much grown over the last decade.

And, I didn’t even know the word neurodiversity, like when I started. I didn’t know that I was autistic until three years ago, and I did not know that 70 to 80% of disabled people have non apparent disabilities. So as the, creative brain behind Infinite Flow, I would say in the last, two, three years after I got my own autism diagnosis and then having more dancers with non apparent disabilities enter our space, both in our community and company.

There’s been a challenge of, so how do we make those non apparent disabilities more apparent? And make sure that like they’re seeing, our stories are as important as the wheelchair dancers and those with visible disabilities and obvious disabilities.

And yeah, so storytelling. Has been a big component to all of that. I feel like I wanna do even more of that as time goes too.

Alycia Anderson: Can we talk about that for a minute? The late diagnosis. Non apparent disability. I’m sure there’s thousands and thousands of people that are in that same situation who have either gotten a late diagnosis and are like, exploring at least even quietly. I wonder if I need to look into this.

Can you talk about your journey a little bit with that because I think that would be really helpful. I think there’s a lot of people in your situation grappling with.

Marisa Hamamoto: So first of all, I do wish I had gotten a diagnosis a little bit earlier as a child. it was my community at Infinite Flow that educated me about Neurodivergence. So whether that was about A-D-H-D-O-C-D, autism, a DD the list goes on and on.

But I learned about these disabilities. I met people, became friends with those that were neurodivergent. And I started to question whether I was neurodivergent. There was a close person in my life that I felt was also neurodivergent. He ended up, Getting assessed and surely enough was autistic.

And because I was somewhat involved in his diagnosis being the observer I started to feel like I was checking a lot of boxes in the autism spectrum. And it just got to the point where I just wanted clarity and I also wanted. To understand what autism was a little bit more on my own.

so I went and got assessed.

This process really shed light on a lot of challenges I was having growing up, whether it’s on the side of noise sensitivity, different sensitivities and just social anxiety.

I grew up being socially confused. I didn’t know how to handle a lot of different situations, and I think my family just defined it as, oh, you know what, you’re just shy and some people are just not socially smart. So you’re just not one of those social people, was how my family put it. And so I was like, okay, I guess I’m just not the social person, anyways, it shed light on a lot of challenges that I was having. And then also I grew up not understanding jokes Everybody would be laughing except for me. And I’m like, I don’t get why people are laughing.

And so I would laugh along just to fit in. Like that was something that I did often. But then inside I was thinking, am I stupid? Like, why am I not understanding these things? And to this day, like figurative language is I have to either look it up on Google or or have a friend explain.

To the extreme. Now I laugh about it. My dance room, my dance company, they roll their eyes laugh, and we just laughed about it.

They’re like, okay, Marisa’s clearly, not understanding this. Let’s break this down for her. So anyways, now I laugh about it, but I think growing up as a kid, I just thought I was stupid,

Alycia Anderson: I can imagine getting a later diagnosis and I’m just assuming. Could help you just connect the dots of who you are, and it must be such a beautiful, freeing thing to finally understand oh, that’s what’s going on. It’s not all of these other things that I’ve been making excuses for or masking for, or doing the work to try to keep up on with things that are just, you’re processing differently.

And it has to be amazing. to be able to connect the dots of your life.

Marisa Hamamoto: I mean I will also admit that it’s not a good trap. To be in where, making your autism an excuse for everything that, maybe went quote unquote wrong. I would very much be careful for that. But just in summary I realized, oh, I’m not broken.

I’m just autistic. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m not the only person that goes through this that’s gone through this. and there’s a lot of conversation around. Autism right now, especially in the social media space. And I’ve had a few videos around my autism go viral too, so I get a lot of comments and dms and, I take this as just learning what people are going through.

It is hard to find psychologists who assess adults, I have to say. If you have the resources to go and get a medical assessment, then, go do it.

if you find that you’re autistic, but you don’t wanna put that out there, then you don’t have to.

Disclosure is an optional thing. For someone like yourself, Alycia, you don’t have a choice. You’re a wheelchair user. We see your disability. you can’t hide it, and so that’s a whole different situation. There is still a lot of shame around neurodivergence and especially if you’re Asian American. There’s not many people that look like me that disclose their neurodivergence. And that’s another reason why I just decided. I’m like, you know what?

I’m disclosing my age and my autism.

Alycia Anderson: And I think to your point, the non apparent disability conversation is so important and, it’s difficult and it’s because it’s easy. You can mask if you want. Like you’re saying, I can’t, so I just have to full bore ahead, face it, even though sometimes I wish I could hide it.

And that conversation needs to be, advocated for and talked about more so people feel more comfortable being who they are. So I think you’re doing a really good job with that representation as well, along with all of the other things. Okay, so I wanna shift to the Disability Film Challenge please.

Oh my gosh.

Please tell us about your film. It’s an exciting film, and it has a really wonderful message. Can you talk a little bit about what the disability film challenge is and the piece of art that you have created, please?

Marisa Hamamoto: Sure. Absolutely. The Disability Film Challenge, I believe was created 12, 13, maybe 14 years ago by this wonderful disability advocate and actor named Nic Novicki. Who is a little person? Basically the idea behind the disability film Challenge is to create a short film in a very limited amount of time with at least one person with a disability, either in front of or behind the camera.

Initially it was a weekend challenge and now it’s five to six days. So this year it was like. Six days, five and a half days, however way you wanna define it. And the theme was thriller. And for me, I’ve been watching this challenge from the side for the last decade since I created Infinite Flow.

Many people in my company and community have. Participated in this challenge. I’ve had a blind dancer named Natalie Trevonne, who won best actor twice. Currently I have a dancer named Danny Gomez who recently joined Infinite Flow that, you know what, two of his films have gotten best film.

So anyways we’re a small disability.

Alycia Anderson: Small plug. Danny was on the show too.

Marisa Hamamoto: Yes, Danny. We love you, Danny. Anyways, yeah, so I, and I’ve, so I’ve seen a lot of films that have been created through the challenge. I’ve supported a lot of films from the side, and it’s been wonderful. I have to say this project is absolutely wonderful in getting more disabled people.

On camera behind the camera, creating content around disability. Anyways, it’s been wonderful. So I’ve been just on the side watching this challenge and I never thought about entering it, full honesty. There’s been a couple times where my right hand filmmaker Kenzo, has brought it up saying, Hey, should we maybe enter this challenge? And I think there’s maybe a year that I was like, oh yeah, maybe we should think about entering the challenge. We’re like creating a film and over a two days, five days, it doesn’t matter.

Alycia Anderson: A lot.

Marisa Hamamoto: year there’s a lot of people around me entering the challenge, talking about the challenge. And so I’m hearing this and I’m just, and I think I asked a couple people saying, Hey, I’m happy to be an extra hand, this and that. And last minute, last literally. Four days before the deadline, something like that, deadline to enter.

I come up with an idea and I’m like should I do it? Should I not? I called Kenzo my right hand filmmaker that we’ve been creating videos for 10 years now, saying, Hey, I have an idea for this. You wanna come on board? So he’s yeah, just. What is it? And I said, okay, let me work on an outline and send it to you.

the film that we created is called Killed It. I wrote, produced, and acted in this Kenzo shot it, directed it, and edited it. So it was like this project that we, Partnered on together. I brought in another Asian American woman named Sharon who has cerebral palsy using a power chair, as my scene partner and I played an autistic character.

I don’t wanna give too much away, but a little bit about what we talked about, like the literal communication the missing social cues. I put autism at the center of this, and I’ll admit like I think one reason why, even though it was last minute idea and I just got the urge to do this one thing that it pushed me to go, you know what?

If you’ve got the urge, go do it. first of all, I think just in general, even within disability representation, people of color representation is low including in the disability film challenge, I think there could be more. I hadn’t seen too many stories around non apparent disabilities within the film challenge, at least the ones that have made it to the finals or have won.

And go figure. It’s like, how do we put that story out? it’s complex as a writer, I mean as the idea person, I had to go, okay, If wheelchair users that are unable to walk, are using the fact that they can’t walk as part of their storyline, part of their character, part of the obstacle, part of creating a plot.

If that is being used that way, what is that to an autistic character, so I had to think through that even though it was a very short period of time, because I had been thinking about how to make something like autism more visible, I ended up using a lot of parts of myself that I felt ashamed about as fuel to create a film.

I won’t lie, our film is a little creepy. People have written essays about their interpretation of our film. When I’m reading these things, going. Oh my gosh. Okay, people are, there’s a lot going on here.

’cause it’s also a psychological thriller. It’s also based on a lot of my trauma as a dancer that I just put out there. Anyways, and then the other part of this is my scene partner Sharon, has a visible disability. She is a power chair user. You can see her disability and kind of like my goal and I think in retrospect was how can I have her character be not necessarily a character that has to have that visible disability, but how can we make her visible disability as a sign of power. So that was like another like message that was in there that I coming

There’s a lot of layers to it, and I love the way you two communicate like you there. It’s very creative and I don’t wanna give away anything either, but it keeps you sitting on the seat of your chair. It is a thriller, but it’s very thoughtful and it’s deep. And it is very well done. That’s the word I keep on getting Marisa. This film is just so deep and I’m like, oh my God, really?

Alycia Anderson: Congratulations. How do we support you in the film challenge?

Marisa Hamamoto: Just look at it. I know that finalists are being announced on May 4th. Winners are being announced on May 8th, I believe. Through. Some hybrid events here in LA. I’m planning to attend them regardless because I love our community.

It’s my community and it’s a small world. One thing I will say I watched a lot of, there’s 123 films submitted. So first of all, Nic Novicki good job. That’s 123 teams creating. Something about disability, something putting disability at the center.

And I will say I watched probably about almost all the films. I think there’s maybe 20 that I haven’t gone through yet, but I have not seen one film. That did not have an intentional message in it.

Filmmaking as an art and a craft. Yes, the levels very all over the place. Some people shot a film with their iPhone to someone like Kenzo, like my right hand filmmaker who has devoted his entire, college and adult life to filmmaking. So again, different levels here. However, not one film I thought was done with bad intention or no intention. So I really appreciate that. I appreciate that people are, basically using what they have, the skills they have, the people they have to create something, put it out there. I truly enjoy watching all the films.

As a result of people in Infinite Flows, community, finding each other and then forming a team and then creating something. and to me, that makes me so happy that there were people that found each other in class and were like, Hey, you write, I act, I have an idea. Can we. Put our brains together and make this happen.

And so that was also something that was really fun to see. and then I think like on social media too, just people that I’ve seen from afar but haven’t really had contact with. We’ve started following each other because we see each other’s films.

And so from that perspective, I’ve had a blast. I will say during those five days, I was also traveling for half the time and Kenzo and I both had other jobs. So the physical part was pretty tough, but I’ll say that it was worth it from the perspective of, yeah, I just had a lot of fun.

Alycia Anderson: Congratulations.

Marisa Hamamoto: Crossing fingers, our film does well within the challenge. But either way, I’m proud of what we created. I really appreciate the many people who have either sent me dms or have commented on my social media posts or the YouTube video who have really shared a lot.

I think one thing I will say that I learned through this too is Storytelling is really important and film challenge or not.

If you have something to say, then. Package it up and say it, whether it’s through dance or through words or through writing or through a podcast. I think the courage to put your perspectives out there is something that’s really important and I really appreciated the film challenge, giving many people the opportunity to do that.

Alycia Anderson: I think that’s really good advice. I think a lot of our community on this podcast and beyond is itching. They want to share their stories. They feel it passionately inside of them. So I think that’s really good advice that if you feel something inside of you that you need to share with the world, do it in whatever facet you feel best in doing so, can we? Okay, so I wanna make sure we’re leaving all of your information. Your keynote speaker, you’ve got your dance company, how do we contact you to hire you, work with you, all of the things.

Marisa Hamamoto: Yeah. My email address is Marisa@Marisahamamoto.com. you can just write to me or Marisa Infinite Flow dance.org. Just, do leave a note that you heard me on Alycia’s pushing Forward podcast, so I know we’re, context wise, you know where you found me. I would say, connect with me on social mediaif you really wanna get my attention, I do recommend that you just email me.

I’m pretty easily reachable. I just ask that if there is something specific that you want from me that you just say it. I hate to say that, but I do receive quite a bit of random dms of, oh, I wanna connect with you.

Great. What specifically do you wanna connect with me on? So I’m autistic, I need clarity on communication. Otherwise, I just start to go, okay, this person just clearly not being clear with why they wanna connect with me. And then I go into this spiral of just unnecessary brain chaos, so just be direct. if you need advice on X, Y, and Z just be direct with me and you’ll get ahold of me faster.

Alycia Anderson: Marisa, you’re doing such amazing work. Thank you so much for pushing forward, so much advocacy in our community, and speaking of pushing forward, we end the show with a pushing forward moment, a mantra advice, anything that you could gift away to our community to inspire them in their own path of sharing their own story.

Marisa Hamamoto: Yeah. My pushing forward advice is that each and every one of you are born with gifts and you are here on this earth to use those gifts to thrive and make a difference in the world. Whatever those gifts are, maybe those gifts are things that you’ve developed, but either way, you are here to make a difference.

You are here to have an amazing life and you matter. Like Marisa at 18 pulled out a pencil, wrote down seven names, and made lasting change. Then every single one of us, every single one of you, your actions matter, your voice matter, your expression matters. So don’t be afraid, follow your heart. Don’t say, oh, I’m a no one, so nobody’s gonna care. You’ll be surprised. You’ll be surprised on if you really do follow your heart on where that goes.

Alycia Anderson: I love it. Thank you so much for taking time to share space with me. We are gonna leave all of your information in the show notes, so all the companies that are following this can reach out to you and hire you to speak and dance and do all your work. Thank you. I’m so happy you’re in my life.

Marisa Hamamoto: you so much, Alycia. We gotta do like an in-person something.

Alycia Anderson: That’s happening for

Marisa Hamamoto: Yeah, with all your podcast guests in LA.

Alycia Anderson: Manifest that sister.

Marisa Hamamoto: You probably have about 10 of us in LA so Yeah. Thank you so much for, just bringing me onto this podcast and connecting with me.

Alycia Anderson: Thank you again for your time and thank you so much for our community, for sharing space with us today. This has been pushing forward with Alycia, and that is, as you know how we roll on this podcast. We will see you next time.