Shelby Williams-Gonzalez 

With 2 decades of experience in the arts education field and 24 years as a professional dancer, Shelby Williams-Gonzalez has a career made up of overlapping networks. Artist, educator, and leader pushing for social change. As the CEO and President of Inner-City Arts, Shelby is dedicated to creatively educating LA's youth with sustained arts exposure and immersion. She believes that investing human and financial resources around young people is necessary for LA’s youth to grow as unique individuals and flourish as creative adults. As a professional dancer, Shelby has been a member of the national touring and critically acclaimed Afro-Brazilian dance company Viver Brasil, since 2006 as a dancer and choreographer. Viver Brasil is a community of professional artists dedicated to honoring the African legacy through contemporary dance theater; utilizing Afro-Brazilian dance and music in performance, arts education and community and cultural exchange programs. Her most recent work with the company, “Revealed,” explored the intersection of traditional Orixa (Afro-Brazilian Deities) dance and current racial and social inequities resulting in overpoliced communities and mass killings of black bodies both in the United States and Brazil. Shelby also serves on the Board of Directors for the Arts for Healing And Justice Network, Suarez Dance Theater and NationImagined. She holds a B.A. in Dance and Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and is a proud native angelino, mom, wife, and avid shoe shopper!