AM MAR ISSUE #123

ISSUE #123

PHOTO CREDIT | KIMMIE SMITH

@AthleisureMag

PUBLISHER

Paul Farkas

EDITORIAL

Kimmie Smith

Co-Founder, Creative + Style Director

Paul Farkas

Co-Founder, Artistic Director, Tech Director + Men’s Lifestyle Director

PHOTOGRAPHY CONTRIBUTIONS

PHOTOGRAPHERS | Nathan Adams | Ed Anderson | Brent Bielmann

| Paul Farkas | Hector Gomez | Tony Heff | Marie Lombardo |

Marcelo Maragni | Ryan Miller | Dominic Mosquiera | Nina Scholl |

Ed Sloane | Kimmie Smith | Serafina Marketing |

ADVERTISING

info@athleisuremag.com

@ATHLEISUREMAG

CONNECT + VISIT

E-mail: info@athleisuremag.com

Website: www.athleisuremag.com

TM

Athleisure Mag , a Division of Athleisure Media LLC.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS

Paul Farkas | Kimmie Smith

HOST

Kimmie Smith

MIXING

Athleisure Studio Team

ATHLEISURE STUDIO

PODCAST NETWORK SHOWS

#TRIBEGOALS | ATHLEISURE KITCHEN |

BUNGALOW SK | THE 9LIST |

@ATHLEISURESTUDIO

CONNECT + VISIT

E-mail: info@athleisuremag.com

Website: www.athleisureStudio.com

(c)2025 All Rights Reserved by Athleisure Media LLC. No part of this publication, or relat-

ed online content or social posts or commentary, including any and/or all pictures, articles,

artworks, and overall design may be reproduced, copied, transmitted, transcribed, stored, or

translated in any form or manner, by electronic means, or otherwise, without the written per-

mission of the publisher.

The information contained in Athleisure Mag digital magazine, on AthleisureMag.com website,

printed material, and/or social media accounts (the “Content”) is provided ‘as is’ without war-

ranty of any kind. The views expressed and/or images/videos provided by third-parties featured

and/or interviewed in this Content are not necessarily the views, opinions or statements by Ath-

leisure Media, publisher, editors or its employees. Athleisure Media and publisher do not accept

responsibility for any errors or omissions. NONE OF THE CONTENT SHOULD BE INTERPRETED AS

MEDICAL, LEGAL, OR FINANCIAL ADVICE. NOTHING WITHIN THE CONTENT IS INTENDED TO RECOM-

MEND OR SUGGEST SPECIFIC COURSES OF ACTION AND SHOULD NOT BE TREATED AS SUCH.

TM

table of contents

issue #123

mar 2026

232

STYLE FEATURES

HOW TO DRESS

262

240

IN OUR BAG

269 ROCK THIS WHEN

CHECKING OUT YOUR

NEIGHBORHOOD

BEAUTY FEATURES

MATCHA BEAUTY

Surfing the Dream

Caroline Marks

This month’s Cover Story is with WSL Champion and Team USA Olympic Gold Medalist,

Caroline Marks. We talk with her about her passion for the sport, kicking off the

WSL Tour, and becoming a surf ambassador for Lexus!

16

273

ATHLEISURE BEAUTY

Youth on Pointe

Misty Copeland

Ahead of this year’s 2026 Stars of Today Meets the Stars of Tomorrow Gala which

takes place this month, we sat down with Misty Copeland, honorees, and more to

find out about this noted event.

42

258

LIFESTYLE FEATURES

ATHLEISURE LIST

NEW YORK PILATES

Joshua Jackson 62

We caught up with Joshua to talk about

his partnership with the NHL along with

upcoming projects.

Morgan Riddle

70

Morgan is one of our favorite WAGS and

we caught up with her to talk tennis,

travel, and more.

260

ATHLEISURE LIST

CARLISLE BAY

Bust a Bracket Reese’s

Andraya Carter + Richard Jefferson

This time of year, it’s all about college basketball and cheering for our favorite

teams while predicting who will win it all! We took some to hang out at Reese’s

Bracket Summit to get tips on how to fill our brackets out as well as to win with

Reese’s. We chatted with analysts Andraya Carter and Richard Jefferson for more!

78

Maestro of Magic

130

Deborah Czeresko

We enjoyed our recent editorial shoot

with S1 winner of Blown Away, Deborah

Czeresko. We talk about glass blowing,

prokects, and more.

9PLAYLIST

Illenium

®

EDM DJ/Producer Illenium shares his

9PLAYLIST with us of songs that he is

listening to at the moment.

172

R3DCARP3T

174

THE 9LIST Exclusive

It was an incredible Awards Season and

we’re recapping our favorite looks! The

glam teams talk about how they made

the look and insight from the stars.

Art of the Snack

242

Berimbau Brazilian

This month, we share Berimbau Brazilian

Table to share their savory dishes,

amazing cocktails and a great vibe!

The World Surf League’s Tour kicks off the

season on Apr 1st for the Rip Curl Pro Bells

Beach and we can’t wait to see some phenomenal

surfing. One of the competitors

that we will have our eye on is Caroline

Marks WSL Champion for 2023, Olympic

Gold Medalist from Paris 2024 and is currently

ranked World #2 for the 2025 season.

We wanted to know more about her love

for surfing, how she came to it, and how

she stays in shape when she is hitting

those barrels! We also wanted to know

more about her soon to be released Red

Bull film, Now Days, her brand Pro Balance

Brands, and her recent ambassadorship

with Lexus!

ATHLEISURE MAG: It’s so great to connect

with you!

CAROLINE MARKS: Hello! I’m currently

over in Australia. I’m starting my season,

actually the first day of the waiting period

is tomorrow!

AM: It’s great to have you as this month’s

cover!

CM: I’m really excited. You’ve had a couple

people I know on the cover, so that’s

pretty cool. I just surfed this morning,

now I am talking with you, and then I will

be back out surfing!

AM: We assumed!

What is your first memory of surfing and

when did you fall in love with it?

CM: My first memory is pretty funny, because

there’s actually a photo of it. I was

in Costa Rica with my dad and I was on the

front of his longboard. I was super young,

maybe 3 years old. Then there’s another

photo of me and I’m literally standing

parallel and my borther’s like in the background

and he’s kind of making that, “oh

my gosh face.” I have a little bow in my

hair and it’s pretty cute. I remember falling

in love with it. It’s pretty funny because

I surfed when I was little and then I

actually got into horseback riding

while growing up. I loved animals

and stuff so I actually wanted to be a

veterinarian when I was younger and

then started barrel racing competitively,

and did that until I was 10 and

then didn’t really surf much then.

My oldest brother Luke was a competitive

surfer so I kind of just thought

surfing was his thing and I just kind of

let him do his thing and I rode horses,

and then I pretty much just wanted to

impress my brothers really bad, and

that’s why I started surfing. Then I remember

when I was 11 years old, I was

at the U12s Girls. There’s this event

called USA Championships at Lower

Trestles and it’s the biggest amateur

event as a kid. All the best kids from

Hawaii, all the east coast kids, and

all the west coast kids come out and

compete at Lowers and I ended up

entering the event just because my

brother was in it and I ended up winning.

I was like, “whoa, I must be all

right at this!” I just remember getting

this big trophy and surfing all day and

just having so much fun. I couldn’t

believe this is a thing you can do you

know? So, I remember from that moment

forward, that I want to do this.

This is so fun. So that’s where I really

was like, I want to be a professional

surfer. Wherever it takes me, I’m having

so much fun.

AM: Not to say that there is, but is

there a similarity or some kind of

crossover between barrel racing and

surfing for you?

CM: I mean, yeah, if you think about

it, I was actually talking about this the

other day in an interview, which is

funny. I never thought of it like this,

but you are on something that’s very

out of your control. The ocean’s very,

very out of your control. You’re on

an animal and you don’t really know

what it’s going to do. You can try to

control it, but you really can’t. You

know, they have a mind of their own.

I guess trying to go fast, like in surfing,

going fast is a good thing. It’s like riding

horses, that’s kind of like an art. And so

certainly, you’re swerving around the

barrels and in surfing, you’re riding the

waves. I guess there is a little bit of crossover,

more than I realized. So it’s pretty

funny.

I’ve got some funny photos when I was

like little. It was pretty classic.

AM: Obviously surfing on its own is a great

sport, you know, for the total body to stay

in shape. But what are work3outs that

you do to optimize yourself in the sport?

CM: I love Pilates! Core and surfing is really

important. I do a lot of lower leg work

in surfing. Definitely having strong legs is

really important because obviously you’re

on the board a lot. I also love swimming

because it’s just really good for your paddling

and really good for your lungs and

breathing and stuff. So those 3 things I

do as well as cycle in between. Biking and

swimming are kind of the things that I go

back and forth between, but I mostly do

Pilates and then just typical stuff in the

gym with my trainers.

AM: What is your favorite maneuver when

you’re surfing?

CM: This isn’t really a maneuver, but getting

barreled is probably the ultimate feeling

as a surfer!

AM: Oh wow!

CM: Oh yeah! You’re obviously in the tunnel

of the waves.

AM: It looks so beautiful, but it looks so

scary at the same time!

CM: Oh yeah, it is a bit of both for sure,

but definitely getting barreled is something

that’s just such an amazing feeling

and then just doing a big frontside carve

obviously just like laying into a big turn

that always feels really good going really

fast and just like laying into it. So those

two things I like!

AM: You are a 2X Olympian who won

a Gold medal in Paris. What has that

meant to you to surf on such a global

stage – you have had many stages,

but what does it mean to do it for the

Olympics?

CM: The Olympics, it doesn’t really

get any bigger than that you know?

It’s obviously a very global thing. It’s

one of the only things that brings the

whole world together. Not everyone

knows about surfing, but everyone

knows about the Olympics.

AM: Right.

CM: I was really proud to represent

my country on that big of a stage and

obviously to win. I mean, it’s just so

incredible. It’s definitely the proudest

moment in my career. I mean, it’s

obviously about the world title. It’s

hard to say one win for a WSL Championship

versus the Olympics as both

were the biggest dreams of mine as a

little girl and the fact that I did both

of them at 22 is pretty crazy! I am super

grateful. It was amazing and it’s

pretty hard to describe the feeling of

being able to represent your country,

but I’m really proud.

AM: Are you thinking about LA28?

CM: Of course! I want to be in as

many Olympics as possible, but obviously,

you know, LA28, it’s at a wave

that’s like Lower Trestles. It’s 5 minutes

from my house and obviously to

be the hosting nation is just extra motivation

because, it’s at home, which

is pretty incredible. So I’m definitely

thinking about it for sure.

AM: We can see you there! Anytime

we’ve seen you surf, we can see you’re

in your element and are just happy to

be one with the water, it’s all zen and

then we see you owning that barrel!

CM: Surfing has brought me everything really

- a lot of the best moments of my life.

I’ve met some of my best friends through

surfing. The ocean is such a healing place

for me, which is pretty cool to be able to

say that about my job.

AM: Yeah.

CM: My career is - I just go in the ocean.

Your day is instantly better, which is pretty

amazing.

AM: You just mentioned at the top that

the World Surf League Championship Tour

kicks off its 50th season starting tomorrow

for the first on-call day in Australia for

the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach at Bells Beach

in Victoria, Australia from Apr 1 – Apr 11th.

What are you looking forward to as it kicks

off?

CM: Yeah. I mean, first off, we’ve had our

longest off-season of our career.

AM: Yeah.

CM: Just with them changing it around

the schedule. It used to be - well way

back, before it was my first couple years

on tour it was April - December and then

they switched it to January – September.

It’s been that way for 5 years and now it’s

back to April so in order for them to do

that, we ended up having a 7 month long

off season which for us, that’s a very long

time. So usually our off season is pretty

short compared to other sports. I think

everyone’s just very excited because you

haven’t really seen us in jerseys in a while!

We also have some of the goats coming

back like Carissa Moore and Stephanie

Gilmore, which is amazing and they also

extended the Women’s Tour, so there’s a

lot of like milestones that have been broken

this year already! I think everyone’s

just really excited to see what happens. I

have no doubt it’s just going to be a firework

of a year. So I’m pretty excited.

AM: What’s your favorite one on the WSL

Tour?

CM: Well, that’s a hard one. I know.

AM: We ask the tough questions!

CM: It’s a hard one. I mean, Cloudbreak’s

pretty incredible. It’s such an

incredible wave. Jeffreys Bay, which

actually is not on tour this year, but

it’s in South Africa, that’s another

iconic one. Tahiti, obviously, just

from winning the Gold there. I just

have a lot of great memories there.

And then Lower Trestles, of course.

Lowers and Tahiti are probably my favorites,

just with Lowers being in my

backyard. It’s just such a fun wave.

But it’s hard because everywhere has

such beautiful things about it. But I’d

say Lowers is probably my favorite

wave on tour.

AM: Clearly you travel around the

world to different places quite frequently.

Are there 3 items that you

tend to take with you to make any

city or stop kind of feel like home?

CM: I mean, definitely. I’m not really

one to bring a pillow. We just have so

much stuff. We have our board bag,

all of our clothes, and stuff like that.

But I think just like a shirt from home,

something I sleep in at home, just

bringing it on the road. It’s the little

things like that which kind of make

me feel more at home or your favorite

coffee cup or whatever things

just make you feel more homey. But I

feel like I’ve gotten so used to traveling

that I’m able to adapt to it pretty

quickly. I do travel with an eye mask.

That’s something I do travel with to

sleep on the planes with. That’s important.

But nothing too crazy. Actually,

this year my sister-in-law packed

me a good luck charm in my bag so I

just leave it in my luggage and it goes

everywhere I go which is pretty cool!

AM: You definitely know it’s always

there because it’s just in the luggage

waiting to go.

CM: Exactly! i just leave it in there and it’s

a little good luck charm which is kind of

cool. I’m not too much of a creature of

habit in that sense. I kind of just go with

the flow.

AM: We had the pleasure of watching the

screener for Now Days right before chatting

with you. This is such a great film and

so enjoyable to watch. It’s shot beautifully

and it’s really great to see the 6 of you

being able to navigate the waves and to

tell your story. You recently had an event

for this here in NY even though the film debuts

in May. Why did you love being part

of this film and what can you tell us about

this?

CM: Thank you so much. I’m stoked you

got to watch it. First off, there hasn’t

been an all female surf film since 2011 and

that was Leave a Message. That film left

such an impact on me and I know it has

for many other girls. It was so cool to see

that. As much as it sounds simple to do,

an all-female star film, it’s so difficult to

get everyone together. We all have crazy

schedules from different countries. We’re

also each other’s biggest rivals.

AM: Right.

CM: That’s another thing that’s pretty

funny, but I’m just really proud of it. I

think, you know, obviously hopefully it

inspires the next generation. And I feel

like... that’s kind of our job in this generation

is to inspire the next one and to

push this forward and grow this forward

and that’s what the generations did before

us! That’s why we have equal pay.

The girls in this film and this generation,

I feel like we just had very good timing.

All the girls before us that fought for this

and for us and so now this film hopefully

inspires the next generation to go harder

and to push more. I’m really confident

in that and I’m just really proud of it you

know? It’s like two and a half years in the

making coming to Red Bull and anything

they put their hands on is pretty special.

I knew the surfing was going to be amazing,

but I also love how it tells a story of

“hey, we all obviously want to win.

Surfing is a very cutthroat individual

sport, but we also like pushing each

other in a healthy environment and

we are all good friends.” You know,

I see these girls more than my family

most of the year.

AM: Yeah.

CM: I’m with them so much. So, it

really shows that. And we’re all able

to relate to each other in a way that

we probably won’t with our other

friends, because we live this exact

same life. So, yeah, I’m super proud

of it and I just hope that the young

girls, young guys, whoever watches

it is just really inspired and wants to

go surfing. It’s pretty cool to see the

fruits of the labor because it definitely

was a lot of work, but it was worth

it!

AM: 100%! One of the things we like

most about Red Bull films is when they

have a number of individuals within

the same sport, like Mark McMorris

who was our cover this past December,

he had just debuted PAVED.

CM: Yeah.

AM: It’s incredible to see people in

a sport, but to see the individuality

as well as the things that bind them

together, it’s just so cool. We don’t

surf; however, living in NY we love the

surfing culture in Rockaway and Long

Beach. It’s so cool to see how surfers

show drive, grace, and flow which is

what is evident in this film. People are

going to enjoy it once it premieres.

CM: Thanks so much! I hope so.

There’s definitely been even for this

event, there’s been a lot of people

asking about it, which has been really

cool to see the hype around it.

You know, it was something that was

out of my comfort zone. Like I’ve always

been so just hyper focused on

competing and winning. That’s really

what it takes in order to win. So this was

cool because it was something that was

new to me and different. I’ve never done

a film like this before. So I was really proud

of that.

AM: Well, you also just became a surf ambassador

for Lexus, which is awesome.

Why are you excited about this partnership?

And why did you feel it was synergistic

to your brand?

CM: Yeah, I mean, first off, Lexus makes

such cool cars. And one of my friends,

Griffin Colapinto, he got signed a year prior

to me.

AM: Another cover of ours.

CM: Yeah! So I think just seeing the car and

seeing how it fits my lifestyle, it’s a great

combination between, sporty and luxury -

I really like that. I like how they celebrate

that. Also just getting to know everyone

behind Lexus, everyone’s really cool. It’s

a very family-oriented vibe, and I come

from a big family, so I really love that. And

so... I feel like it was a great partnership.

I got one here in Australia with me and

everyone’s like, nice car, nice wheels. I’m

getting all the compliments on it.

AM: Wow.

CM: It’s pretty cool. I got to roll to the first

event in style, it looks so cool.

AM: We have a Lexus SUV which is great

because sometimes for the magazine between

photography gear, styling items,

transporting the team to shoots or even

doing an event with goodie bags, you need

to be able to carry everything – it needs to

be fashionable, but you want to be able to

get to where you have to go with everything

in one piece.

CM: Absolutely. I feel like it fits all my

boards. It fits wetsuits, everything I need.

And also like it’s comfortable and it’s safe

and it’s sturdy. And I also just love it aesthetically.

I love and have the GX 550. I

love the way it looks. So that’s also a

bonus. I’m proud to drive the car. So

yeah, it’s awesome.

AM: Well, what does the partnership

look like in terms of what can we expect

to see you doing with them and

with the car? What will that look like

from a consumer side?

CM: So Griffin and I, we’re going to do

some collab videos here. We’re both

in Australia, which will be pretty fun.

So there’s a lot of beautiful beaches

here, a lot of great scenery. So stay

tuned for a cool video with that. And

obviously, you know, I’m going to be

traveling a lot this year. But wherever

they provide me a car, we’re going

to be providing content. Lexus sponsors

the U.S. Open, so I look forward

to seeing what they have in store for

this year’s event. I think I’m doing a

signing with them. We have great

things coming up. And yeah, I’m really

excited about it.

AM: Clearly you’re a business person

as an athlete and someone who has

a number of sponsors, and you have

added to your portfolio by creating

your own brand, Pro Balance Bands.

Tell us about this and why did you

want to launch it?

CM: Thanks for asking. It’s cool. My

dad, he’s very business-minded. He

comes from that background. He

taught me a lot about that side of

the world, which is really cool. I really

trust his opinion. I think after the

Gold medal, we kind of thought, how

do we capitalize on this? The bands

felt so natural to me and and my main

thing was, I travel a lot and I don’t

want to put a product out that I can’t

travel with because most of my life

is on the road, So the bands feels so

perfect. I’ve also been training with

them since I started working out way

more consistently in 2019, my second

year on tour and that was the year

I made the first Olympics. I just use

bands everywhere and I bring them everywhere

I go. They come in like a little

pouch. It’s great and you can do a lot with

bands so it felt so natural and it’s been really

fun.

It’s my first time starting a company and

obviously I have a lot of help doing it, but,

it’s been really cool and all the bands are

really good material. I use them every

single day. So it’s great. You’ll see me if

you watch the webcast warming up with

them. So I’m really proud of it and it’s

been going good so far. I think we’re going

to come out with some new products

as well.

AM: Nice.

CM: We started with the bands, but we’re

going to keep adding more things in. We

also have weekly videos of myself, my

brother, our other ambassadors doing

videos as well. My trainer too, he does videos,

which is cool. So if you want to know

how I train, you just go on the website

Pro Balance Bands or on our YouTube. It’s

exciting and I’m enjoying it. It’s been fun.

AM: Well, when you’re not on tour or

shooting campaigns or doing all these different

things, how do you take time for

yourself just to have a moment to yourself?

CM: Honestly, I’m a pretty simple girl. I

love just being with my friends whether

it’s as simple as, you know, going to get

a coffee or going out for dinner or watching

the sunset. Things like that bring me a

lot of joy. I think just kind of being in one

place and being with good people - I call

it my “feel good people.” When you’re

around people you really know, there’s

no effort.

AM: Exactly.

CM: You end up leaving hanging out with

them with more in your battery - it becomes

more full. It’s how I recharge. And

I also do love my own alone time as well. I

just love whether that’s just sitting on my

couch at home or just going for a

drive, that’s also really therapeutic to

me as well or going on a beach walk or

whatever. Things like that sound really

silly, but that’s kind of how, what

helps me unwind and I love that.

AM: Being that you’re in that next

generation of surfers, you’re trailblazing,

you’ve gotten all these different

awards and accolades. What do you

want your legacy to be seen as in this

sport or even in life?

CM: I mean, I just really want girls

and people in general to be inspired.

I love surfing. It’s really fun to me and

I hope I kind of give off that persona.

I just want to leave a legacy of being

hardworking, but also enjoying your

life too. You know, it can’t always

just be like work, work, work like this.

We live such an amazing life and we

should enjoy it. And there’s more to

it than surfing too. We’re in these different

countries. We’re in different

cultures. It’s really cool. Obviously

surfing is what brought me here. But

there’s so much more than that. And I

think hopefully I can leave a legacy of

just a really positive outlook on life,

surfing, and fun. I hope that makes

sense.

AM: It does. We always think about

that when you’re doing stuff, especially

now that obviously we live in an age

where people can see stuff socially,

you’re touching corners of the world

that someone who grew up that isn’t

living your life or experiences personally,

they can envision that for themselves.

Maybe if it’s not that same

thing, but something similar and it

just creates a spark and wonder. So

that’s really cool.

@caroline_markss

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | FRONT

COVER. PG 16 ,PD 24, PG 26 Ed Sloane/

World Surf League | PG 19 Tony Heff/

World Surf League | PG 20, PG 29

Brent Bielmann/World Surf League |

PG 22 ROXY | PG 30 Ryan Miller/Red

Bull Content Pool | PG 33 USA Surfing

| PG 34 Domenic Mosqueira/Red Bull

Content Pool | PG 36 Nathan Adams/

Red Bull Content Pool | PG 38 Marcelo

Marafni | BACK COVER CHAMPION

|

On April 16th the Youth America Grand

Prix will have its World’s Largest Ballet

Scholarship Competition for their 2026

Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow

Gala which is hosted by Misty Copeland.

Rebecca Hessel Cohen, Founder and

Creative Director of LoveShackFancy, as

well as Melanie Hamrick, choreographer,

author and ballerina will be honored at

David H. Koch Theater in NYC. The event’s

Gala Creative Chair is Marcella Guarino

Hymowitz. There will be perfromances

by Christine Shevchenko and Calvin Royal

III of the American Ballet Theatre, Polina

Semionova of the Berlin State Ballet, Roman

Mejia of New York City Ballet, Reece

Clarke of The Royal Ballet, and Nicoletta

Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko of La

Scala Ballet.

In addition to seeing phenomenal performances

and enjoying a dinner at the gala,

The Pointe Project shoes will be available

for all to bid on via Givebutter.com starting

on April 16th - April 23rd at 12pm ET.

You can still purchase tickets to YAGP

Gala. We had the chance to talk to a few

people ahead of this event. We had the

pleasure of interviewing Misty Copeland a

few years ago for our OCT ISSUE #94 and

as this year’s host, we wanted to catch up

with her on what she has been up to, why

YAGP is important to her, and upcoming

projects she is involved in.

ATHLEISURE MAG: We had the pleasure of

interviewing you a few years ago and it’s

great that we connected with you again!

What do you love about ballet?

MISTY COPELAND: I love that ballet is a

language beyond words. It’s discipline,

imagination, and storytelling through the

body. It gave me purpose and a way to

connect with people across cultures and

generations.

AM: What did it mean to you to be a Prima

Ballerina for the ABT?

MC: It was deeply meaningful both personally

and historically. It meant honoring

the path that came before me

while helping expand what audiences

believe is possible in ballet.

AM: You retired from the ABT, and we

know you just performed at the Oscars

with Sinners, what are the kinds

of projects that you will be taking on

that we can keep an eye out for?

MC: I have a new middle-grade novel,

Firebird Waltz, coming soon, along

with future performances and creative

projects across stage, film, and

producing. I’m also continuing to

grow the work of my foundation.

AM: You are hosting the YAGP Gala.

Why did you want to be involved in

this year’s event and what are you

looking forward to?

MC: YAGP plays such an important

role in nurturing young dancers. I

wanted to support and celebrate the

next generation of artists.

AM: Why is the Youth America Grand

Prix important for dancers?

MC: YAGP creates access to training,

mentorship, scholarships, and global

visibility. For many dancers, it’s a

life-changing opportunity.

@mistycopeland

We wanted to know more about the

importance of YAGP and sat down

with Marcella Guarino Hymowitz,

who is the YAGP Gala Creative Chair.

AM: Before we delve into YAGP and

the upcoming gala, can you tell me a

bit about your background?

MARCELLA GUARINO HYMOWITZ:

I’ve been dancing for as long as I

can remember—I started at three,

was assisting classes by twelve, and

performing professionally as a teenager.

Dance was my first language.

It taught me discipline, expression,

and how to connect with an audience

without saying a word.

Over time, my path evolved beyond performing

into choreography, creative direction,

and experience design. Today, I

run The Pearl in New York City, a dance

and wellness studio built around confidence,

community, and self-expression,

and I also create immersive entertainment

for events through Studio MGH.

Everything I do still stems from that same

foundation—using movement and storytelling

to make people feel something.

AM: When did you first fall in love with

dance and why do you love it?

MGH: I fell in love with dance very young,

but I think I understood WHY I loved it as

I got older. It’s one of the only art forms

where your body becomes the medium.

Dance gives you a way to process emotion,

to tell stories, and to transform—

not just how others see you, but how you

see yourself. It builds confidence in a very

real, physical way.

There’s also something magical about the

shared experience of it. Whether you’re

on stage or in a class, you’re connecting

with the people around you. That energy

is addictive.

AM: Why is YAGP so important for those

that are in the ballet community?

MGH: YAGP is incredibly important because

it creates access and opportunity in

a way that is truly life-changing for young

dancers.

For many students, traveling around the

world to audition for top schools and

companies simply isn’t financially possible.

What YAGP does is bring those opportunities

to them. With regional competitions

in many countries, dancers are

able to be seen by panels of judges representing

some of the most prestigious institutions

in the world—Stuttgart Ballet,

Princess Grace Academy, The Royal

Ballet School, Paris Opera Ballet

School, John Cranko School, La Scala,

ABT, Miami City Ballet, and many

more of the top companies across

the United States.

It’s not just exposure—it’s a direct

pathway. Through the support of

donors, YAGP is able to help bring

students to these competitions and

award scholarships that can completely

change the trajectory of a

dancer’s life.

Beyond that, it creates a global community.

Young dancers from different

backgrounds, countries, and training

styles come together, learn from one

another, and feel part of something

much bigger than themselves.

YAGP isn’t just shaping careers - it’s

shaping the future of ballet.

AM: You are serving as the gala’s Creative

Chair this year for the 2026 Stars

of Today Meets the Stars of Tomorrow

Gala. What does this role involve?

MGH: As Creative Chair, my role is to

shape the overall experience of the

evening - how it feels, how it flows,

and how the audience connects to

what they’re seeing.

That includes working closely with

YAGP’s founder, Larissa Saveliev, on

performance curation, pacing, transitions,

and the emotional arc of the

night. I’m thinking about everything

from the energy in the room to how

each moment builds on to the next.

And beyond that, my goal is to help

make the night one of the most exciting

ballet programs in New York this

season - to bring in new audiences

and create more fans of the art form

by exposing them to different interpretations

of ballet, and showing

how expansive and relevant it can be

today.

The party after the performance is also

exciting and fun because we will have all

of the performers with us. It gives guests

a chance to meet the performers and understand

how Youth America Grand Prix

helped to make their dreams come true.

AM: What are you looking forward to for

this year’s performance as well as the gala?

MGH: I’m most looking forward to that

moment when everything comes together

- the dancers, the music, the audience

- and you can feel the energy shift in the

room.

This gala is such a beautiful intersection

of emerging talent and established artists,

and there’s something really powerful

about witnessing that exchange in real

time.

I’m also especially excited to debut the

pointe shoes that will be auctioned off for

The Pointe Project. They’ll be on display

for the first time at the gala, with designs

from Carolina Herrera, Michael Kors, Alice

+ Olivia, Monse, and more. It’s such a

unique fusion of fashion and ballet, and

a really special way to celebrate creativity

across disciplines. These pointe shoes

will be available for all to bid on via Givebutter.com

starting April 16 and closing

one week later at 12pm EST on April 23rd.

AM: Are there any upcoming projects that

we should keep an eye out for from you?

MGH: We have a lot of exciting things

happening at The Pearl right now. We’re

continuing to expand our collaborations

and host pop-up wellness and fitness

events for adults that feel both elevated

and community-driven.

We’re also really focused on building

meaningful programming for teens - from

workout classes to “teen talks” featuring

inspiring voices speaking on topics that

matter to them. Creating a space where

they feel strong, seen, and supported is

incredibly important to me.

And starting this fall, we’ll be launching

both a competitive cheer team

and a dance team, led by top-tier instructors.

It’s a natural extension

of what The Pearl stands for - confidence,

discipline, and community -

just taken to the next level.

@marcellahymo

We wanted to talk with performers

who will be part of YAGP Gala

and caught up with ABT’s Christine

Shevchenko and Calvin Royal III.

AM: When did you first fall in love

with ballet?

CHRISTINE SHEVCHENKO: I vividly remember

falling in love with ballet at

the age of four. My mother took me

backstage to see “The Sleeping Beauty.”

A friend of hers was performing

as a prima ballerina in Ukraine, and

the show was quite lengthy - about

three hours. I stood mesmerized in

the wings, captivated by the music,

costumes, lighting, and the enchanting

story unfolding before me.

CALVIN ROYAL III: I came to ballet a

bit later than most, at fourteen. At

first, it was a curiosity more than anything,

but I fell in love with the discipline,

the music, and the feeling of

discovering something I didn’t know

I was capable of.

AM: When did you realize that you

wanted to be a ballerina and to do it

as a career?

CS: I realized I wanted to be a professional

ballerina when I was around

eleven. That was when things started

to click for me, and I began truly enjoying

my dance journey. Ballet consumed

my thoughts; even in school,

my mind would wander to ballet

classes and rehearsals.

CR III: When I started training seriously

and saw how much growth was

possible, I realized this could be more

than just a hobby. Being introduced to opportunities

like YAGP, summer intensives,

and eventually a scholarship to the ABT

School made it that much more real. That

this could actually be a path forward.

AM: What does it mean to you to dance

for ABT and is there a specific performance

that you are excited about that you will do

this Spring or Summer season?

CS: Dancing for ABT means the world to

me. This has been my dream company

ever since I admired legends like Baryshnikov

and Makarova, as well as the extensive

classical repertoire they offer.

I’m particularly thrilled to perform “Don

Quixote” again this season; it’s one of my

beloved ballets. Additionally, I’m eagerly

anticipating my role in “Onegin.”

CR III: Dancing with ABT has been one of

the defining chapters of my life. It’s where

I grew up, both as an artist and as a person

from student to Principal dancer over

the years. There’s a deep sense of responsibility

in carrying forward the company’s

legacy while also finding my own voice

within it. This season, I’m looking forward

to exploring roles that challenge me both

technically and emotionally, and allow

me to deepen my artistry. I’m constantly

searching for ways to bring meaning and

sincerity to the stage every time the curtain

goes up.

AM: Why is YAGP so important to ballet?

CS: YAGP plays a crucial role in the ballet

world because it offers life-changing opportunities

for young dancers to be noticed

by some of the most influential figures

in the industry. It fosters resilience

and confidence, provides invaluable stage

experience, and creates lasting friendships.

CR III: YAGP creates access. It’s a platform

that opened doors for myself and

thousands of young dancers, for decades,

who may not otherwise have a clear path

into the professional world. I see it as a

program that continues to shape the

next generation by connecting talent

with opportunity on a global scale.

AM: What are you looking forward

to for this year’s 2026 Stars of Today

Meets the Stars of Tomorrow Gala?

CS: I am excited to perform alongside

world-class dancers who are also

friends, and to inspire a new generation

of dancers to chase their dreams.

CR III: There’s something really special

about bringing together established

artists and young dancers on

the same stage. I’ll never forget being

an aspiring dancer looking up to

the pros. Returning this year feels full

circle, and a reminder of the continuum

of this art form. I’m looking forward

to that exchange of energy and

inspiration when the curtain rises at

Lincoln Center next month.

@christineshevchenko

@calvinroyaliii

This year’s auctioned pointe shoe

designs are those that we are excited

about as mentioned by Marcella.

Libby Klein is also contributing a design

at this year’s Gala. We wanted to

know more about her aesthetic and

why she wanted to participate.

AM: How would you describe your

work’s aesthetic?

LIBBY KLEIN: My work is rooted in

beauty, but not surface-level beauty.

It is layered, intentional, and deeply

symbolic.

I am a mother of six, and that shapes

everything I create. Every day I am

balancing two worlds, art and home.

Being a mother is not something separate

from my work. It is part of it.

I lost my father at a young age, and

that gave me a different relationship

with life early on. I learned to notice

what is fragile, what is meaningful, and

what truly lasts. I also come from a family

built on tradition and entrepreneurship,

the Reichmans, where creating and building

something lasting was always part of

our foundation.

Alongside that, I was deeply influenced

by my great-grandmother. She carried a

quiet strength and an understanding that

being a woman is not only about what

you give to others, but also what you create

from within yourself. That stayed with

me.

So I built a life where both could exist. I

am raising a family, and I am also an artist.

I never saw those as separate roles.

My work reflects that balance. It holds

beauty and responsibility, softness and

strength, tradition and growth. It is not

about escaping life, it is about taking everything

life gives you and turning it into

something meaningful.

I am drawn to blending old and new,

preserving tradition while allowing it

to evolve. You will see that in my work

through delicate, timeless compositions,

florals, birds, and natural elements, each

one placed with intention.

So the aesthetic is beauty, but beauty

with depth, with story, and with purpose.

AM: Where do you look for inspiration

when it comes to creating new pieces?

LK: I look at my life.

My children, my home, and the way I

choose to see the world, even when it is

not simple, especially when it is not simple.

I have always believed that you can either

focus on what is broken, or you can

choose to find the beauty within it. That

choice is where my work comes from.

I create from that perspective. I want to

bring into the world the beauty that I see.

I want people to feel something when

they look at my work, to see light, to

see hope, to see something good.

A lot of that is rooted in the power of

women. In motherhood, in creation,

in the quiet strength that women

carry every single day. There is something

incredibly powerful about being

a woman, about holding so much,

building so much, and still choosing

softness. That balance inspires me

constantly.

If someone can walk away from a

piece and feel even a little more

grounded, a little more inspired, or

simply reminded that there is still

beauty in the world, then I have done

what I set out to do.

At the end of the day, it is about making

the world feel a little brighter, a

little softer, and a little more whole.

AM: Why did you want to be involved

in the 2026 Stars of Today Meets the

Stars of Tomorrow Gala?

LK: As a mother of six, this felt deeply

personal to me.

I understand how important it is to

nurture talent and to give children

a space to grow, to express themselves,

and to believe in what they are

capable of. Life is not always easy, but

when a child is given the opportunity

to create, to move, and to be seen, it

can shape everything.

This gala represents that. It is not just

about performance, it is about possibility.

Being part of something that uplifts

the next generation, that gives young

dancers a platform and a sense of belief

in themselves, is incredibly meaningful

to me.

It aligns with everything I value, family,

growth, resilience, and the ability

to create something beautiful even

through challenge.

AM: Tell us about the pointe shoes that

you designed that will be auctioned off on

this night?

LK: I chose to center the design around

the poppy flower because its symbolism

really spoke to me. There is something

about the poppy. It represents hope, renewal,

and resilience how something can

grow and bloom even after difficulty. The

more I thought about it, the more it felt

so connected to ballet.

I also felt a personal connection to it. I

grew up in Israel, and this kind of flower

is deeply tied to the land. It carries a quiet

message of strength, of healing, and

of the idea that even in places that have

seen so much, beauty can still grow.

What you see on stage is beautiful, but

what it takes to get there is not easy. It

is repetition, pressure, setbacks, and still

choosing to get back up and keep going.

That is the poppy to me.

The red carries that strength. It is soft,

but it is not weak. That duality feels very

feminine to me, the idea that softness

and strength exist together.

I added a young bambi into the design

because it felt like these dancers, at the

beginning of something, still growing, still

stepping into who they are becoming.

The butterflies bring a sense of transformation,

that everything is constantly unfolding.

And the bees are something very personal

to me. There is this idea that a bee should

not be able to fly, but because it does not

know its limitations, it does anyway. That

reflects how I see life as a mother and as

an artist, and it is something I see in these

dancers as well.

So the shoes are not just decorative. They

are a reflection of that whole journey, of

becoming, of pushing through, and of

finding beauty in it all, and a quiet

hope for more unity, peace, and

beauty in the world.

AM: Are there any upcoming projects

or things we should keep an eye out

for?

LK: Lately, I’ve been working on a collection

that feels very close to me, the

Glow Collection. It really comes from

the idea that light doesn’t always

come easily, sometimes it’s something

you find after moving through

darker moments. That kind of beauty,

the kind that is built, not given, is

something I’ve come to appreciate

more over time.

I’ve also been involved in different

fundraising efforts and creating pieces

that support women, including

work around breast cancer awareness.

That part of what I do is very

important to me, making sure the art

gives back and reaches beyond itself.

@libbykleinart

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | YAGP

Joshua Jackson has been on a radar since

we fist saw him on The Mighty Ducks and

of course, when Dawson’s Creek came

out, we knew he would be an actor that

we would want to see in various series,

films, etc. Whether we see him in The Affair,

the reeboot of Fatal Attraction, and

Karate Kid: Legends. We wanted to talk

with him about his love for hockey, why

he partnered with AstraZeneca for their

intitiative to bring cancer awareness with

the NHL, and upcoming projects that he is

working on and where we can see him on

screen.

ATHLEISURE MAG: We’ve been fans of

yours since Mighty Ducks. In thinking

about hockey, our current cover is Jack

Hughes, which we’re super excited about!

People are loving Heated Rivalry, and everyone’s

talking about the Olympics and

the Golden Goal. What do you love about

this game as we know you’re a hockey fan

as well!

JOSHUA JACKSON: I mean, I’m a Canadian,

so it’s a sort of in our DNA. We’re

raised with it. The whole culture of Canada

is steeped in the game. I’ve loved it

since I was a little kid. I love the sort of

balletic violence of it. I love the grace that

these men find on the ice. Somebody’s

trying to take your head off, it is incredibly

fast-paced. It is incredibly athletic and in

a way that maybe, European soccer fans

get and American hockey fans get in this

moment - the passion for hockey is the joy

of hockey. So, like when it gets to playoff

time when it gets to Olympic time and the

whole nation, just like stops what it’s doing.

It’s so much fun to be a fan.

AM: You’ve partnered with AstraZeneca

for their Get Body Checked Against Cancer,

which is a part of their Hockey Fights

Cancer Initiative. What do you like being

about being a part of this campaign? Why

did you want to join it? And can you tell us

a bit about it?

JJ: Well, first, there’s the hockey connection,

right? This is a campaign that Astra-

Zeneca has already been a part of before I

was able to join them. I find myself

at this age now, where my family has

been touched by cancer, colleagues

of mine - their families have been

touched by cancer. I was shocked to

find out that 65% of men and I think

in general, in my cohort, have not actually

been screened for cancers. I

thought it was a great thing to be a

part of. I also love what they’ve done

with that getbodycheck.com website

that you can not only find providers,

not only find suggested testing, but

also a list of questions to get you into

the conversation with your doctor,

which I think is really helpful, because

I think it’s a hard and scary conversation

to start. Nobody wants to talk

about the Big C and no one wants to

imagine that it could be part of their

life. I think that it is just a great way

to get that conversation started because

we have come a long way and

the earlier that you detect something,

the better off your chances are.

AM: What does your involvement in

the campaign look like in terms of

what we’ll see from a consumer aspect?

JJ: I mean, from the consumer side,

you’ll see me and Gritty in a TV ad.

You’ll see just a variety of different

outreach of things that we’ll be doing

here over the course of the next couple

months just to spread awareness

about the specific website and the

people involved, but just generally

to spread awareness right? To hope

to inspire people like myself as I, you

know, you get a little bit older –

AM: Right!

JJ: You get a little older and you’re

like, “no I’m this kid!” And then you’re

like, wait, they’re talking about me!

AM: Yeah when you start talking with

people about things to look out for

when you’re in older ages, but you

don’t see yourself that way – it re-

minds you that you are getting older and

they are talking about you!

JJ: Right, and so we all have that. I think

most people feel that way. Like our brains

don’t keep up with our body after a certain

point. So for important things like this

right for women’s health things for men’s

health things for cancer screenings, it

is just important to not be embarrassed

to be in this conversation and to be proactive

in the places that you can be and

specifically for cancer with the screening

that is available to us. Now you can, you

can find things way earlier than in our

parents’ generation. So, this is all just outreach

to say, just be in the conversation.

Hopefully, it’s nothing, but it’s better to

know, than to not know.

AM: Our college nights were filled with

watching Dawson’s Creek, because that’s

when it, aired originally. We’d be running

back from the Psych Department back to

our dorms trying to get in and you could

hear the episodes throughout the halls.

We’ve enjoyed you in The Affair, Dr Death,

Dr Odyssey, and more. What is it that you

love about acting?

JJ: I love the opportunity to be in a scene

with somebody and to be surprised. It’s a

wonderful silly thing to do with your life. I

bumped in today to like two actors that I

absolutely love and was really kind of star

struck in a way.

You said that you were a Psych Major or

that you just took a Psych class?

AM: We just took a psych course as one of

our majors was Sociology and that professor

knew that his class was right before

Dawson’s Creek and he would stretch it

out as long as possible and you could hear

it and since I would watch it on VHS – I

didn’t want spoilers!

JJ: Back in the good old days!

There is a psychology and maybe even a

sociology component, but there is something

fun for me to be able to pretend. To

use pretending in order to be somebody

else to try to examine what it

means to be a human being. When

you’re in a scene with another person

or a bunch of other people, to see another

person’s interpretation and be

genuinely surprised - I don’t know

you, you just kind of lose yourself in

those interactions. That’s what really

keeps me coming back. I have been

doing this a long time!

AM: You have had such a longevity.

When we see your name attached to

it, regardless of the subject or genre,

we know it’s going to be good because

you really do in many ways transform

where you forget what we may have

liked about you, like in The Affair versus

how you present in Dr Odyssey.

JJ: Oh come on, you’re going to make

me blush!

AM: You do have two projects coming

up, Happy Hours, and How to Survive

Without Me. Tell us about them.

JJ: Well, they weirdly share a connection

with Dawson’s Creek, so Happy

Hours is with Katie Holmes (Ray Donovan,

Poker Face, The Wanderers).

She produced it, she wrote it, she

directed it, and she stars in it. She

wrote this story for the two of us to

be able to tell a love story after all

these years, having not worked together

since we were kids on Dawson’s

Creek. We got to do that last

Summer, and I was a little - I think

we both were a little bit nervous after

all these years to, like, see if that

thing was still there. But that thing is

still there, and it was so nice. I’m so

thankful to her as my friend, and in

that - my boss, right, for her to have

created the space for us to do that. I

hope the movie comes out well, and

I hope everybody enjoys it. But more

than anything, it was such a joy to get

to do that, and also to be, you know,

to, to be impressed and supportive of

my friend. You know, we’re not just

doing the scenes together, directing,

producing, and she’s writing. She’s just a

wonderful, powerful woman.

How to Survive Without Me – well not

oddly, is written by one of the Executive

Producers of Dawson’s Creek. So, Greg

Berlanti (The Flash, Arrow, YOU), way

back in the day, one of his first jobs was

on Dawson’s Creek before he went on to

become that I think is the single most prolific

producer in the history of television,

so he’s done all right for himself. This just

came back around that he has the show

and it shoots in LA, which is very important

for me right now, so I could be with

my daughters and take them to school.

It’s a beautiful, sad story about family -

adult family, right? That story starts six

months after the matriarch of the family

has passed away and it’s her trying to sort

of reach from beyond the grave to make

sure that her family stays bound together.

She’s not sure that they have the ability

to do it without her!

AM: Can you share 3 workouts or modalities

that you like to do?

JJ: It depends. The most consistent piece

of my life, is boxing. As I’ve gotten older,

I started doing Pilates, which has been

amazing because as it turns out, I’m like,

stiff, as shit, and not very flexible. It just

doesn’t work for you as you get older!

Then it’s really character dependent,

right? The difference between say doing

something like Dr Death, where I had to

go from being very underweight to play

the younger version of that character and

the to progressively put on weight and to

wear a prosthetic by the end of that show

– to something like, say, Fatal Attraction,

where you’re dealing with a man who’s

kind of a little bit past it, and dealing with

the end of his masculinity – a little paunchy

or a little softer. It just really depends!

@vancityjackson

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | Matrie Lombardo

We love when we’re in the midst of tennis

season and we see great matches on

the court, but the fashion and beauty that

WAGS bring is always worth watching!

Morgan Riddle is one that we are always

watching while she cheers on Taylor Fritz.

We took a few moments to find out about

her beauty musts, her partnership with IS-

DIN to highlight the Get It On Campaign,

and how we can incorporate our SPF into

our routine.

ATHLEISURE MAG: What was your first

beauty product that you fell in love with

and is it still part of your routines?

MORGAN RIDDLE: My first beauty product

that I fell in love with, I would say the

Dior Face and Body Foundation. I have

been using that for about 6 years now. So

that’s been an OG staple.

ATHLEISURE MAG: Who would you say are

your 3 beauty icons and what have they

taught you about caring for your skin?

MR: I wouldn’t say that I have any famous

beauty icons, but I would say that I follow

a number of skinfluencers on TikTok,

mostly more mature or older women that

are in their 40s/50s. They have tried all the

treatments and all of the products and I

feel that they have all of the best recommendations.

AM: We know that you’re constantly on

the go especially when you’re at tennis

tournaments. What beauty trends do you

love and how do you make them your own

for your lifestyle?

MR: I always have SPF and so that is obviously

a must. So the ISDIN Fusion Water

Magic is great, especially with many

of the tennis tournaments and because

I am in the Players Box, I am constantly

in the sun! If I don’t have SPF on that

just wouldn’t work as I am always getting

fried! My chest and my scalp - it can be

a lot! So I always make sure that I have

that. My skin is more dry so I always have

one of those Hyaluronic sprays throughout

the flight to just try and to prevent

breakouts. I used to always breakout

when I was traveling on planes a lot.

AM: Tell me about your partnership

with ISDIN, how it came about, and

why it is synergistic with you?

MR: I have actually known about this

brand for awhile. They are really popular

in Europe and they actually work

a lot on the tennis tour. They are the

biggest suncare brand in Spain. Then,

they just launched in the US and since

I had known about them for awhile as

well as using European skincare for

years ever since I first started traveling

on tour, I think I was already a fan

of the brand and then when I tried this

product, it sits so well under makeup

and I feel that I am always having issues

with face sunscreens and pilling.

As I said, I run more dry so sometimes

it feels a bit more patchy, but this one

has hyaluronic acid in it so it makes

my skin really, really glowy under the

makeup!

AM: Clearly we know that safe sun is

important. For those that have yet to

include it in their routines, how can

they make sure to incorporate it in

there?

MR: I always do habit stacking now

because I read that book Atomic

Habits. So as soon as I get up in the

morning and brush my teeth, I just

put sunscreen before I even go on

my morning walks. I think that just

adding it into something that you do

in your routine so that it is synergistic.

To reapply, I always have an extra

one in my bag that every time I open

my bag, I can see it and remind myself

to put it back on.

@moorrgs

@isdinusa

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | Morgan

Riddle

When March hits our calendars, our minds

turn to March Madness and seeing who

will take it all for Men’s and Women’s

basketball in the NCAA. It means that we

have a month of basketball, colleges that

we root for and those that we are not

as familiar with. There are so many stories,

and don’t even get us started on our

brackets as we attempt to guess the journey.

Whether it’s backed by stats, favorite

colors, or teams, it’s a great time had by

all. We made our way to Reese’s Bracket

Summit to hear from NY Liberty’s Breanna

Stewart and analysts Andraya Carter and

Richard Jefferson on how we can make

them and how Reese’s reawards or losses

as well!

ATHLEISURE MAG: We’ve enjoyed hearing

your commentary on various games.

What made you want to be an analyst?

ANDRAYA CARTER: Oh wow! I think that

the opportunity came before my interests

came and I remember when we were

in the tournament and this is when I was

a player. I don’t remember what analyst

was talking about me, but I was a role

player at Tennessee. I was a defensive

player and I didn’t score that many points.

Whoever the analyst was saw some value

in what I brought and they were running

some of my defensive highlights, and this

was in the Selection show, and there is a

picture of my teammate, Meighan Simmons

and she’s shaking my shoulders

because I was so shocked that they were

talking about me!

I think about that a lot when I first started

my career. I remember that moment

being so cool and I remember thinking I

could be an analyst that points out the

things that makes this game hard and

contributes to the success. I love the

game of basketball so much and being

able to break it down and so I think that

once I had the opportunity to be an analyst

and that it is something that you can

get better at, it almost became my new

sport. How much better can I get at being

an analyst? I watch film on it, I practiced

it, I broke it down, it was almost like even

though my career as a player ended,

I had something that I was able to

work towards. It was something that

I could improve on and it was something

that I could chase, and once

those 2 things clicked for me, I knew

I could do this. It was a long journey

for me from the time of realizing that

it clicked up to now – but that’s a story!

AM: It’s always enjoyable to hear from

you because you played the game and

you know first hand everything that is

involved in that.

What do you love about the game?

AC: Ugh, I love how so many little

things work together to make it happen.

There are so many ways to run

a play, so many ways to defend a

play, and so many roles that a player

can have. When you look at different

teams from season to season and

even looking at a team during the

season, there are so many ways to

look at this puzzle and to see how all

the pieces fit together! That’s within

a season, that’s within a team, that’s

within the players, and that’s even to

the game. There are so many things

to break down as these teams chase

championships. It’s different every

year and it is different game to game!

Sometimes there are those 2 teams

that play and when they do it again,

there are other things to evaluate.

To me, the way that the game just

builds and the way there are games

within a game, I love it so much! Being

able to grow up playing it and also

I think that the way it brings people

together and how sport is a universal

language, you get to meet so many

people along the way. Basketball

changed my life and I love being able

to watch how the game changes the

lives of others – it’s really special to

me.

AM: We really love this time of year,

March Madness and everything that is involved

in that! What do you love about

this time of year?

AC: I just love the intensity of it and being

win or go home! Obviously it’s heartbreaking

when a team loses, and to watch

teams have success and to continue to be

able to play and to keep their season alive,

for me the intensity of win or go home is

everything! Everything just levels up in

March for basketball and I think that also

watching players rise to the occasion and

having a player put their team on their

back and step up, you see something click

for them – that is amazing to see!

AM: You were giving tips earlier about how

one can set up their brackets. But for first

timers that may not know about checking

for stats or other things. How can they go

about putting their brackets together?

AC: For anyone that is setting up their

brackets for the first time this season,

the Every Bracket Busts For A Reese’s

Sweepstakes is perfect for them! You’re

bracket busts, you win some Reese’s and

the chance to go to the Men’s and Women’s

Final Four and Championships. Being

at the Final Four as well as the Championship

game in that environment is so special!

Shout out to anybody that is doing

their brackets for the first time! Thanks to

Reece’s you could get a chance to go!

I do think that filling out your bracket is

hard. How much research do you want to

do? How much time do you have? I am just

thinking about this off the top of my head,

if you don’t know much about a team and

you pull up their stats and see their leading

scorer and watch some highlights of

them or see what their game is like, and

what they are capable of. Watch the other

teams and see their leading scorer.

See which team gets you the most excited

and that is who you pick. I think that

whatever method you have, use that for

your whole bracket, trust it, and go with

it. Sometimes when I fill out my bracket,

I like because teams that have good defense

becayse when the lights are the

brightest and the emotion is really

big, sometimes your shots don’t go

in. There is so much excitement and

energy but defense travels and I think

as a player, you can control that a little

bit more. I could shoot my same

shot and it may not go in, but I can

control my defensive energy. Teams

that are good defensively, if I can’t

pick between the 2 teams, then I look

at who has the better defense because

defense travels.

AM: That’s a great tip!

Who are 3 teams that you are looking

at this year, that we should be focused

on?

AC: That’s tough! Men’s or Women’s?

AM: You choose!

AC: Well, Tennessee Women’s is interesting

given everything that they

have been through. Obviously, it’s a

really rough end of the season. I’m

particularly as a former Lady Vols and

as an analyst, I’m interested in if any

team had a rough end to their season

like that – how does that kick them

forward? Does it kick them forward,

does it give them a fresh start? Are

they able to use everything that they

went through as motivation to turn

it around? Or on the opposite side

as a former Lady Vols, it wouldn’t be

something that I would enjoy – but is

it too little too late to try and correct

things?

AM: Yeah!

AC: This is the time where you want

to be peaking and playing your best

basketball going into March. Is it too

late this time around? So Tennessee is

a very interesting team on the Women’s

side.

I’m very interested in UConn obviously,

the opportunity to go back-to-back

it’s something special and not some-

thing that many teams get the opportunity

to do. I am a very big fan of a few of

the players on the team as well as the system

that they play. Obviously here with

Reece’s, Breanna Stewart was hanging

out with us. She spoke to what Geno Auriemma

puts his players through in terms

of testing them throughout the year!

They don’t have the strongest strength of

schedule, but their biggest battle is their

head coach! So, UConn – will they repeat

as Champions?

I’m also interested in UCLA! That’s a team

that added new pieces, it’s a team that

lost to UConn last season in a way that I

know that they are not proud of, and in a

way that taught them a lot for Cori Close

and her players. They could have another

opportunity to make a deep run.

So those are teams that I have my eye

on of course there is South Carolina with

Dawn Staley – they are always a good

team to have my eye on as well!

AM: This is so great to hear!

Who do you think will win it all?

AC: I have UConn winning it all for the

women!

AM: Same!

AC: I think that on top of what I said, I

think Sarah Strong is a really hard player

to game plan against. You can put her

on so many places on the court and use

her in so many different actions on the

floor that I think that they are just a tough

game plan. We talk a lot about UConn’s

offense – Azzi Fudd is such a sharp shooter

and Sarah Strong is just so versatile,

and UConn is a very difficult team to score

against. None of their opponents in the

tournament scored 65 points last season.

I just talked about defense, but as good

as their offense is, their defense and their

ability to make teams go east to west instead

of north to south, is something that

I find very tough among other things for

Connecticut.

@andraya_carter

After speaking with Andraya, we sat

down with NBA Champion Richard

Jefferson to talk about his love of the

game, why he enjoys being an analyst

and also how he feels about Arizona!

ATHLEISURE MAG: We have been

fans of yours since you played in the

NBA and it’s very cool to be hanging

out with you right now.

Why did you want to be an analyst

once you retired from the game?

RICHARD JEFFERSON: The reason

why I wanted to be an analyst is because

I love the game of basketball

very deeply! You look at how you

can continue to express your love

to the game that has given so much

to me. So there is coaching, there is

player development, there are levels

of coaching from high school and

college. For me, I just loved talking

about the game of basketball. I started

a podcast 10 years ago because I

love hearing the stories about basketball

and also everybody has strengths

and areas of improvement. For me,

talking about the game of basketball

and giving knowledge because I was

a nerdy kid at 12 and 13 years old reading

basketball cards and sitting and

watching NBC and Marv Albert in the

Jordan era! I just studied it and loved

it as a kid! Then I grew into it as a basketball

player and then I played in the

NBA so I got to live it, and I always

felt that I was the lucky little kid that

got to live his dream! Now, I get to sit

here and talk about it, but I feel fortunate

because I have reference points

all the way back to the mid 80’s because

I grew up loving the game and

being able to study it!

AM: Same!

What do you love about basketball

and what personally draws you to it?

RJ: What draws me to it is that it is such

a beautiful game. You have to be a complete

player for the most part. You have

to be able to play offense and you have

to be able to play defense! You look at

football, I love it, it’s awesome, but you

have guys on one side of the ball and one

side on the other. In baseball, there is a

similarity to it. In basketball, it is – if you

are in a weak spot on offense, you will be

exposed! If you are on a weak spot on defense,

you will be exposed! Just like in life,

your goal is to be a complete person and

a well rounded person, it doesn’t mean

that you are great at everything, but you

are well rounded. That is what the game

of basketball is. In order to be a good or

great basketball player, in a prideful way,

you have to be a well rounded individual

and I think that there is something beautiful

about that in life in general.

AM: I love this time of year! When Selection

Sunday hits, you know you have some

great weeks of basketball that are taking

place – not my team this year, IU –

RJ: Congratulations on the football win!

AM: Thank you! That is like 5 Super Bowls!

RJ: Congratulations!

AM: What do you love about March Madness,

The Final Four, the Championship

game?

RJ: What I love about it – both sides men’s

and women’s is that I think that the Summer

Olympics is something that here in

America, everybody roots for and it is every

4 years. I don’t think that there is a single

thing in America that everyone comes

together – it’s university pride, it’s college

pride, it’s where your family is associated,

it’s rivalries - it’s all of these things. You

can be 60 years old and you’re a North

Carolina fan and you still fucking hate

Duke! Now, all of a sudden, all of these

old things that you had gets turned up for

1 month. Grandma knows it, your 5 year

old son knows it, people that don’t basketball

are like, “I’m just going to pick my

favorite colors!” That’s what sports

does and I don’t think that there is a

single greater event than the NCAA

Men’s and Women’s Tournament

that brings together everybody in our

country like that!

AM: Couldn’t agree more!

For 1st timers that are filling out those

brackets, what should they do?

RJ: Oh man, for 1st timers, let me

show you how to do it! Shout out Reese’s,

that’s why we’re here. If you

are a 1st Timer, this is what I would

do. I start with Arizona because they

are going to win the National Championship

and I do this every single year,

because Arizona is going to win. So

I have them in the winning spot and

then I go backwards. It’s a little unorthodox.

AM: Yeah it is.

RJ: That’s fine! This is where I think

that Reese’s has really cracked the

code! I have Duke losing in the 1st

Round. People are like, that’s a little

crazy!

AM + RJ: Is it though?

RJ: If Siena wins, I look like a genius! If

Siena loses, I turn in my bracket and I

win free Reese’s Cups! I still look like a

genius! So, I just don’t see that there

is a lose/lose situation. Why would I

root for a team that I cannot stand?

Why because I want a perfect bracket?

I’d rather them lose and look like a

genius, then have them win and I get

some cups! If they win, I’m pissed off

anyway so give me my prize.

AM: Love this and you are very proud

of this bracket!

RJ: I’m very, very proud and I have the

Women’s one also! I am very proud of

it and I will say this, across the board,

I have South Carolina - Dawn Staley

was my favorite Women’s player growing

up and she is my favorite coach. Across the

board, we had Stewie here, there was no

shade given to UConn – such respect and I

have nothing but positivity for them. They

are probably of all the schools Men and

Women aside, when we started talking

about them, they had the ultimate level of

respect, but we’re not talking about them

right now, we’re talking about the University

of Arizona and how we won the Big

12, we won the Big 12 Tournament, we

have the Big 12 Player of the Year, and we

have done all of the things that are needed

for us to win a Championship – so this

bracket is going to be perfect! There is on

thing that I have put out and I don’t mind

that you have Duke blue hair – it’s fine!

AM: Wait a minute, I am IU through and

through!

RJ: So right, we get through there as well

– Siena that’s who I am rooting for, they

are my sleeper pick mainly because I want

Reese’s Cups!

AM: So what are 3 teams that you’re looking

at that we should be thinking about?

RJ: You should be thinking about Siena

because they have a really good match up

in the 1st Round, but I think that they are

going to win against Duke.

Arizona, I talk about Arizona, but I think

with Arkansas, there is a big battle there

by the kid Darius Acuff Jr. who is very, very

good. I’m actually glad that we could potentially

play them in the Sweet 16. What

does that mean? It means that you get

your first 2 games in and then you have a

couple of days to prepare before you go

to the next game. Those preparation days

are the days where you say, “ok, we could

be going up agaunst an amazing player”

and you want some more prep against

that, because we do have an amazing

team.

AM: Ok, so my last question was going to

be who do you think will win, but we know

that clearly you feel that Arizona will win

it all!

RJ: You’re damn right!

AM: So what does gameday look like

for you?

RJ: Ok, I am pretty much immune to

any sport or any sport team. Arizona

is one that I am emotionally connected

to. I turn on the game. When they

are winning, I watch. They start losing,

I turn it off. That is a real thing because

again, it is the emotional connection.

Oftentimes, I will tune in and

out. I can’t sit and turn on an Arizona

game and just relax. That’s not possible

so I avoid the anxiety.

@richardajefferson

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDIT | Hershey’s

Although the Olympics have completed

this cycle, for the Winter Games 2026, we

enjoyed sitting down with Erin Jackson

Team USA Olympic Speedskating Gold

Medalist to talk about her love of the

sport, how she got into it, competing at

Milan-Cortina and more.

ATHLEISURE MAG: When did you fall in

love with speed skating, and what do you

love about this sport?

ERIN JACKSON: I actually loved this sport

for as long as I can remember. You know,

some of my earliest memories of skating

were just up and down my driveway and

the little plastic skates. So it started out

as just a hobby for me. I didn’t have any

dreams of being competitive in the sport.

I just started doing it because I loved it. So

that was my intro which was through roller

skating and then roller skating, led me

to inline skating, and then inline skating

led me to ice skating. So, yeah, it was just

kind, I guess, a very natural progression,

but it did just start with the love of the

sport and the love of the hobby I guess!

AM: I mean, there are so many things you

could have done! Why did you decide that

figure skating wasn’t the thing, but speed

skating was?

EJ: I actually did go that route first, so I

did what’s called artistic skating. And

that’s like figure skating, but also on roller

skates. Who knows? That that could have

been where I ended up, but my coaches

in artistic skating they actually moved

away to pursue figure skating on Ice for

their daughters. Their daughters ended

up competing in Sochi, I believe.

AM: Wow!

EJ: So who knows? Maybe I could have

gone that route, too? But when they

moved, I just let that be the end of figure

skating.

AM: Well, what does an average week

look like when it comes to training for upcoming

competitions?

EJ: So we train six days a week, most

days, it’s two training sessions. One

of those days, we’ll have three training

sessions one of those days, we’ll

have one training session, but we’re

training most the time. It’s kind of like

a full-time job, so we’ll have a morning

session for probably 3 hours or

so, and then rest in the afternoon for

lunch and then come back and have

another session later in the day.

Normally skating once a day, and then

the other session can be, you know,

like, bike intervals, or, you know, cardio

or weightlifting or something like

that.

AM: We were just going to ask about

three workouts that you do to optimize

for this particular sport? You

kind of just answered it. Our minds

are still wrapping around six days a

week. I mean, clearly, that is what you

have to do.

So this past Olympics marks your

third, where you were competing in

the 500 meter and the 1000 meter?

What does it mean to you to be able

to compete on such a global stage?

EJ: It’s a really cool honor, I guess,

like just being part of the Olympics

and just being able to be part of this

really large thing where people from

all over the world are coming to do

the thing that they devote their lives

to. We all just come here and do it together.

It’s just a really cool community

aspect, you know, part of this large

community of Olympians and Team

USA. And it’s, yeah, I feel like that’s

the best feeling of it, just like doing it

all together.

AM: What did you love most about

your experience this year, and you

know, being in the Olympics, and are

you thinking ahead to 2030?

EJ: Yeah, I am thinking of 2030, yeah,

I couldn’t imagine stopping the train

at this point. I definitely want to keep

going with all the progress I’ve made

this season, and I really want to carry

that forward. Some of my best memories

from this games were a toss-up between

watching my teammates this time

around, because for most of them, it was

their first Olympics. It’s getting to see

all the amazing firsts that they were experiencing

and then also watching other

Team USA events, like with athletes from

those sports. You know, they can give a

lot of insight and behind the scenes info

about the scoring and sometimes even

the drama in the sport. So, yeah, that was

a really cool thing too.

AM: Well, you are part of Happiness as The

Real Gold Hershey Campaign, which is so

fun to see that and to get to see other aspects

of you while you’re talking. Why did

you want to be involved in it? And what

does happiness mean to you?

EJ: Yeah, the Happiness is The Real Gold

Campaign, I feel like was a really important

thing to get out there in a really important

message, because it can just like

remind athletes and just people in general

that the people in your lives who love you

and care about you like, they’re gonna

love you, no matter what, because what

they really want for you is happiness.

AM: Yeah.

EJ: Your achievements are just kind of a

bonus for that. I feel like it was a really

great message and one that was really

heartfelt and emotional campaign, especially

with having our families involved. I

was really happy to be a part of it.

@speedyj

After chatting with Erin, we caught up

with her Team USA Speedskater, Jordan

Stolz. We wanted to hear about his passion,

a successful Winter Olympics, and

more!

ATHLEISURE MAG: How did you come to

the sport of speedskating and for those

that are not familiar with it, how would

you describe it to them?

JORDAN STOLZ: I would describe it as

a sport where you are constantly trying

to keep progressing and a sport

that is very satisfying when you improve.

The feeling of being able to go

fast on turns is a feeling that I can’t

get anywhere else! I can’t get it in a

car, I can’t do it on a mountain on a

bike – it’s something that is very surreal

and I think that people get addicted

to it!

I first got into it because of Apolo

Ohno (G2, S2, B4) back in 2010, and

I was watching him compete and it

was the first Olympics that I had ever

watched in my life. I was just really

into it and it caught my eye with the

way that he was passing people. It

was like a showman and I asked my

parents if I could start skating. and

I actually started with my sister on

our frozen pond in our backyard. We

shoveled a track and ever since then,

I have been doing pretty good.

AM: What are workouts that you find

beneficial for speedskating?

JS: I would say a lot of cycling. The

number 1 thing that changed for me

is when I spent a lot more time on a

bike. The weight room too – just building

up your squats. You have to have

power on the ice. You want to combine

those two, but you don’t want to

go too far with either one. You don’t

want to be this cyclist that weighs

130lbs, but you also don’t want to be

a body builder and then you would be

super slow on the ice – you’d have too

much weight. It’s kind of factoring all

of that in to work with the mechanics

of skating and the technique. I have

found that to be the most beneficial

for me.

AM: What were the Opening Ceremonies

like for you and what does it

mean to you to compete on such a

global stage?

JS: It means a lot to compete for Team

USA on the Olympics as a global stage

and to win 3 medals, the highest medal

count. That means a lot, not just for me,

but for speedskating itself and the whole

country. It’s great that I can bring more

awareness to speedskating, as it’s such a

cool sport and I’m glad to be able to do

that.

I didn’t walk the Opening Ceremonies,

but I loved watching it on TV when I was

in the Village.

AM: When it’s gameday, do anything that

gets you into the mindset to compete?

JS: I try to relax a lot and not to think too

much about the races. I want to be able to

get into the zone before getting into the

rink. Before that, I like to chit chat with

people, sit in bed and watch some reels,

and then I can get out there and be ready!

AM: You had an amazing Winter Games

2026! You won a Gold in the 500 M, and

then another one in the 1,000 M - the first

American male to do it in the same Olympics

since 1980, and you got Silver in the

1,500 - you also made 2 World Records -

what does it feel like to leave the Games

with those accolades?

JS: It means a lot especially to have my

name attached to Eric Heiden (5G) and it

means a lot to be thought of as a successful

speedskater in Olympic history for the

US. I hope that I can continue to progress

and do better going into 2030 and this is

just one of those stepping stones. When

I went to Beijing, I didn’t win any medals

there and then 4 years later, I trained a lot

and the World Cup had a lot of experiences

and then I was able to come here to

the Olympics in a very prepared way! Who

knows what can happen over the next 4

years? Hopefully something very similar

and I am feeling very good about the results

that I have had this entire season

and not just the ones that took place at

the Olympics. I’ve been skating some fast

times and had great track records.

AM: In your downtime in Milan, how

did you take time for yourself to reset

between competitions?

JS: It was just – there wasn’t a lot to

do in the Village, so it was about laying

in bed and trying to relax and focus.

AM: You partnered with Hershey’s For

the Happiness Campaign. Why did you

want to partner with them and what

does Happiness is the Real Gold mean

to you?

JS: I wanted to partner with them

because they are a huge household

name company. Having that name

tied around you at the Winter Olympics

is really special. It’s the highest

achievement that you can have as a

speed skater. First of all going to the

Olympics, and then being able to win

a Gold medal, with the name Hershey’s

behind you – that just means

a lot, especially how they support my

family in general. It’s authentic and I

feel that they really put the truth behind

the slogan that Happiness is The

Real Gold. They are 100% right about

that!

AM: Post Olympics, are there any

projects or upcoming competitions

we should know about?

JS: I have the World Champions coming

up – the World Sprints and the

World All Arounds – it’s a combination

race. It’s kind of like the 2nd thing

to the Olympics if you are considering

the Netherlands view. They view it

super seriously here. I think it’s really

cool and I will compete in both and try

to win both of them. It will be fun and

really hard! Everyone wants to hear if

I will be doing anything in cycling and

that’s probably not going to happen

because I will be focused on skating.

@stolz_jordan_

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDIT | Hershey’s

This month we held our Athleisure Mag

Summit Series where we invited a select

group of our readers and community together

to enjoy a class at SaltDrop in the

East Village. It was a great way for them

to be introduced to their Heated Sculpt

45 class, to meet the founder Dino Malvone

who led us through our session, and

they were gifted Sticky Be Socks as well

as a 3-piece beauty skincare routine from

Aeston West.

Avid readers know that last Winter, we included

SaltDrop in our feature Athleisure

List in our JAN ISSUE #109, and we wanted

to find out more about Dino, how he came

to the industry, why he wanted to create

his own method, and more!

ATHLEISURE MAG: We had the pleasure

of having you in Athleisure Mag last year

to kick off the year in our feature Athleisure

List and we took this class then which

was my first introduction to you! How did

you come to the world of fitness and what

made you want to put your flag in the fitness

industry?

DINO MALVONE: Fitness found me before

I was looking for it and honestly that’s the

only way I think it actually sticks. I wasn’t

chasing a career or a brand. I was a person

who kept coming back to movement

because it was the only thing that made

me feel like myself when everything else

felt like noise. And then at some point I

realized I was spending all this time in

spaces that didn’t fully see me or the people

around me and I thought someone

should do something about that. So I did.

I don’t think I chose fitness as much as I

just stopped pretending I wasn’t already

in it.

AM: What led to you wanting to create

SaltDrop?

DM: My time with Barre3 was genuinely

formative. I learned so much there, about

how to lead a room, how to lead a team,

and what it means to build something

that people actually want to come back

to. I have real gratitude for that chapter.

But at some point I started feeling the

edges of the formula and I wanted to

reach beyond them. I wanted to add

jumping sequences, choreography

that had a little more life to it, more

effervescence. Things that didn’t fit

inside what Barre3 was built to be and

honestly shouldn’t have. That wasn’t

the right container for those ideas. So

I made a decision that I think a lot of

people think about, but not everyone

actually does. I decided to put my energy

into building my own dream instead

of continuing to build someone

else’s. SaltDrop was what happened

when I finally took that seriously.

AM: I love how you call out and encourage

modifications. Why is it important

to you to have this as part of

your philosophy when you’re leading

a class?

DM: Because the fitness industry has

a savior complex and I’m not interested

in participating in it. The idea that

an instructor pushing you past your

limits is somehow doing you a favor

is something I actively reject. Your

body is not a project that I get credit

for fixing. When I offer a modification

I’m not being easy on you. I’m being

honest with you. I’m saying I trust

you to know yourself and I’m not going

to perform toughness at your expense.

That’s a different kind of rigor

and I think people feel the difference

immediately.

AM: How would you describe Salt-

Drop as a fitness concept?

DM: It’s the antidote to fitness culture.

Which I know sounds like something

everyone says, but I actually

mean it structurally. We are not optimizing

you. We are not tracking your

output or gamifying your progress or

making you feel like you need to earn

your place in the room. We’re just

creating conditions for you to actually

connect to your body and to the

people around you. That’s it. And it

turns out that’s pretty rare which says a

lot about where the industry is right now.

AM: For those who have not taken your

classes in person or virtually, what kinds

of classes do you offer?

DM: We have three formats right now.

Signature is our OG, the one that started

everything and still hits the way it always

has. Then we have Sculpt and Sculpt Heated,

both are no cardio, and the difference

is exactly what it sounds like because

Sculpt Heated is at 90 degrees and that

room does something to you. We are also

currently building out a Flow class and a

Strength class which I’m excited about

because they expand what SaltDrop can

be for people depending on what they

need on any given day. And all of it is being

developed inside something much bigger

because we are in the middle of a major

rebrand right now. So everything coming

is being built with a lot of intention and a

very clear vision of where this is all going.

It’s a good time to be paying attention.

AM: How do you go about deciding the

kinds of classes you will offer and do you

foresee adding something new to the lineup?

DM: I don’t really look at what’s trending,

because by the time something is trending

it’s already starting to die. I look at

what’s missing. What conversation is nobody

having yet in this space. What does

the person who feels unseen by the wellness

industry actually need right now.

That’s where I want to be. And yes there

is always something new taking shape.

I’m not someone who gets comfortable

easily and SaltDrop reflects that. We grow

when I grow and I’m always growing so.

AM: For those that may not have gone as

far in their fitness journey as they wanted,

what is something you would say to encourage

them to get on the mat?

DM: I’d say stop treating your body like it

owes you a different version of itself before

you’ll be kind to it. That negotiation

you’re having with yourself, the one

where you’ll start when you lose the

weight or have more time or feel more

motivated, that’s not a plan. That’s

a way of staying stuck that feels responsible.

The mat is not waiting for

you to deserve it. It’s just waiting for

you. Show up as you are and let the

rest figure itself out, because it will.

AM: What do you want people to walk

away feeling after taking one of your

classes?

DM: Like they remembered something

about themselves they had

been forgetting. That’s the only way

I know how to put it. Not accomplished,

not exhausted, not like they

checked a box. Like something that

had gone a little quiet in them got

loud again for a minute. That’s what

movement does when it’s done right,

and that’s what I’m always chasing in

a room.

AM: What can you tell us about the

SaltDrop community?

DM: They ruin you for other fitness

communities honestly. Once you’ve

been around people who actually

show up for each other and I mean

in real life not just in the comments,

you can’t really go back to the transactional

version of this. I’ve watched

people meet at SaltDrop and become

each other’s emergency contacts.

I’ve watched people move through

genuinely hard seasons of their lives

and have this community hold them.

That doesn’t come from a good class.

That comes from something much

harder to manufacture and much

more worth protecting.

AM: Recently, you were part of a

multi-day event at Canyon Ranch Lennox.

What can you tell us about this?

DM: Canyon Ranch Lenox is one of

those places that makes you realize

how loud your regular life actually is.

There’s a stillness there that isn’t forced.

It just exists and you settle into it pretty

quickly. Being invited to teach in that

environment was meaningful to me on a

personal level, because the people who

come to Canyon Ranch are not there to

be seen. They’re there to actually do the

work. That kind of room brings out something

different in me as a teacher and honestly

as a person. I left feeling clearer than

I had in a while.

AM: Thankfully we’re in the Spring and

looking forward to Summer. Are there any

upcoming projects or things that SaltDrop

will be doing that we should know about?

DM: I’m in a very creative season right

now personally and professionally and

SaltDrop is going to reflect that. There

are collaborations coming that I think will

surprise people in the best way, and the

podcast is taking shape in a way that feels

really right. I’m not going to give everything

away because I think the element

of surprise is underrated. But I’ll say this,

if you’ve been paying attention to what

SaltDrop is building toward, what comes

next is going to make sense in a very satisfying

way.

AM: You’re coming up on your 4th year

with your studio! What are 3 lessons that

you have learned?

DM: One, the community is the whole

thing. Not a feature, not a selling point,

the actual thing. If you get that right the

rest follows. Two, sustainability is not a

compromise. I used to think that slowing

down or resting was somehow at odds

with ambition, and I was wrong about that

in a way that cost me. You cannot build

something lasting from a place of depletion,

full stop. Three, your taste is your

business model. Stop trying to appeal to

everyone. The more specific and true you

are to your actual vision the more powerfully

the right people find you. The diluted

version of your idea helps nobody.

AM: You launched a podcast, I Hear You

Babe. Tell me about it and why you wanted

to start it?

DM: It started because I kept having

the same conversations over and

over with people in my classes. About

relationships, about their jobs, about

this feeling of living someone else’s

life instead of their own. And at some

point I thought, what if we just put

that in a room together.

The format is simple and I think that’s

why it works. Every week I give listeners

a prompt, something specific

enough to actually unlock a real story.

Things like tell me the moment

you realized you’d been chasing

someone else’s version of success. Or

tell me about the comment that was

small but stayed with you. And people

send me emails. Long ones, short

ones, funny ones, devastating ones. I

read them on air and I respond in real

time, not from a script, just the way

you would if a friend was telling you

something that mattered.

And I always go first. I talk about

what’s actually going on with me that

week, building SaltDrop, navigating

New York, whatever is real. Because I

think you have to earn the vulnerability

before you ask for it from anyone

else. That feels important to me.

The audience is mostly women, the

girliepops as I call them, and they are

incredibly engaged. They write back.

They send photos. They say hi to my

cats. It has genuinely become its own

community and I think that’s because

the show doesn’t try to fix anything.

It just tries to make people feel less

alone in whatever they’re going

through. That’s the whole job.

AM: You also have a project called I

Fear You Babe. Tell us about that.

DM: Most true crime makes the victim

the opening act. You get thirty

seconds of who they were and then

it’s all killer, all investigation, all spec-

tacle. And I sat with that for a long time before

I understood why it bothered me so

much. If you don’t know who Linda Dewey

was, not her case, her Tuesday mornings,

her job, the way she probably moved

through the world, then the justice part

is just plot. It’s entertainment dressed up

as something important. I Fear You Babe

is built around the opposite idea entirely.

We spend real time with who these people

were before everything happened.

Because I genuinely believe that is the

only way any of it matters.

We do two episodes a week. Thursdays

are the deep dives, the full portrait, the

story behind the story. Mondays are specifically

about what broke that week in active

cases, not recaps, not whatever went

viral, but things that actually moved. Because

the news cycle does not wait and

neither do the people still waiting for answers.

I built this show because I was tired of

true crime that forgets the whole point.

AM: When you are not working on your

business or prepping for your podcast,

how do you take time for yourself?

DM: I protect my mornings like they are

sacred because they are. That quiet before

everything starts is the most honest

part of my day and I will not negotiate on

it. Outside of that, it’s long dinners with

people who actually make me laugh, music

that I’m a little too emotionally invested

in, and coming home to Rocco and Vito

who have never once been impressed by

anything I’ve accomplished and I genuinely

think that’s good for me.

@thesaltdrop

@dinomalvone

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | Dino Malvone

This year’s is the 130th Boston Marathon

which takes place on Apri 20th. so marathon

season is in full swing! Peloton instructor

Becs Gentry is in the final stretch

of preparing for this marathon. We wanted

to talk about her passion for fitness,

training for this race, and more!

ATHLEISURE MAG: Before we delve into

the Boston Marathon that is coming up,

I’d like to know about your background as

we know you’re a Peloton instructor and

avid runner!

BECS GENTRY: I used to work in PR. I now

work in fitness. I got disenchanted by PR

and I discovered that I had a very strong

love and passion for fitness. I trained hard

and became a fitness instructor. Essentially

over the past, gosh, just over 10 years

my career has been fully in fitness. Before

that, it was about a good mixture of the

two.

AM: We have a number of our readers and

community that enjoy running marathons

and travel all over the world as well as

race here in NY at the NY Marathon! What

is it about running that you enjoy and why

do you enjoy participating in marathons?

BG: I love running because it frees me. It

allows me to organize my brain. It gives

me freedom. It gives me a great endorphin

high and I absolutely enjoy the actual

motion of doing it. It’s also a really good

community spirit. It’s great to meet people

and it is an awesome way to keep feeling

really healthy in your body too. I don’t

actually really enjoy participating in marathons

that much, as I know there’s a lot of

people who enjoy them a lot more than I

do. I find them to be very high stress environments,

especially big races. I enjoy

them once I’m going, but I think the lead

lead up to it I find very, very stressful.

AM: Because we have friends who are

training for marathons, we hear about

their training runs and are always amazed

that they can balance work, a family life,

and training - what are some tips you have

on achieving that?

BG: Okay, balance doesn’t exist. Balancing

work, family, training life, it

doesn’t exist at all. You have to understand

that when you’re going into an

18-week training plan ahead of a 26.2-

mile race, that some things are going

to skew towards being more focused

and other things are going to skew

towards having much less energy put

towards them. As long as you’re okay

with that, then that’s cool. You just

have to make sure you’re doing the

best you can in every single one of

those elements. The most important

thing is to enjoy it all.

AM: What kind of mindset should we

have as we have a number of commitments

from friends, family, and work

while navigating our long-term fitness

goals!

BG: This is a big question a lot of people

ask me and I think it is a lot about

us not being full-grown adults and

looking at our schedule and saying,

is this the right time for me to be

training for a marathon or do I have

101 commitments in my personal and

professional lives that are going to

impede my training and therefore

make me feel miserable about the

fact that I have not fully completed

the training or I’ve had to skip days

due to travel? So, we do need to start

kind of growing up in that respect

and looking at our schedules ahead

and thinking this race is going to be

here next year when I have potentially

nothing on the cards. But this year

when I have four weddings in four

different countries, I have an exam, I

have a potential job promotion, etc.

Maybe it’s just not the right time for

you. So put that into your mindset before

you agree to training for a marathon.

Because as I said, you want to

set yourself up for success and happiness,

right?

AM: Weather can be challenging especially

with the snowstorms we have

navigated here in NY as well as enter-

ing Spring (it climbed to 70 degrees) so we

know allergy season is definitely popping

up! How do we prepare for these elements

while staying motivated?

BG: Weather can be really challenging! It

is rough. Anyone knowing that they’re

running a spring marathon is going to

know that they are going to have to run

through a winter. We’ve had a particularly

awful winter here in New York. And trust

me when I say I’ve done a lot of treadmill

miles. When it flips the other way and we

go from winter into spring and the trees

blossom and we get all of the pollen coming

out, it can really hamper people because

they’re feeling those allergies come

through. We’re feeling snotty, we’re feeling

congested, we’re feeling itchy eyed,

we can’t sleep at night because we’re

trying to mouth breathe and when we’re

out running, we’re feeling all those things

and we’re also feeling really dehydrated

because we’re also trying to breathe

through our mouths while we’re running.

So that’s why working with a brand like

Xyzal has been amazing because it has

helped me so much knowing that I can

take this tablet before I go to bed and

wake up feeling no repercussions of seasonal

allergies and I can just get out there

and do my run.

AM: You have partnered with Xyzal for

the Boston Marathon. Why is allergy management

something that is overlooked

when it comes to race preparation?

BG: I do think allergies are something that

are overlooked for marathon race prep.

One in four runners is actually affected

by seasonal allergies and so I don’t think

the voice has been loud enough to understand

that there are things that are useful

for runners to use in order to keep their

training really strong. But also race day,

like race day is spring, so you definitely

want to keep this in mind.

AM: How does training during allergy season

need to be tweaked without sacrificing

your performance?

BG: Marathon training during allergy

season is huge because you just need

to be aware of what and how you

are affected by seasonal change. So

for most people it will be when the

trees start to bloom and there is a lot

more pollen in the air. So from winter

to spring people are going to really

feel those allergies kicking in. You’re

going to get those scratchy eyes,

blocked up nose. You’re going to feel

just a little bit off. So by taking a product

like Xyzal the night before, it’s the

first allergy medicine that you take at

nighttime. This means that the night

before your training, your long run or

your race, you’re going to take this

and you’re going to wake up feeling

absolutely normal. You know, you’re

not going to have all of those allergy

symptoms. Also, there are many apps

and obviously the weather forecast

app that you can look at to double

check. Say the middle of the week

and you’re planning on doing a long

run at the weekend, you can see the

forecast, you can see if there’s going

to be a high amount of pollen predicted

to be in the air on the weekend or

when you’re going to be doing your

long run. So plan ahead, make sure

you have your Xyzal by your bedside

and ready to use should the allergies

really be kicking off.

AM: What are the recovery aspects

that should be done while you’re

training so that you can stay on your

training schedule?

BG: Everyone is different. There’s lots

of recovery things that you may want

to do that the other person may not

do. I’m just going to give you a few

suggestions that people can try to

do. I love my Normatec recovery

boots. They’re compression boots.

They help provide blood flow stimulation.

Therefore, you’re potentially

going to have a lack of DOM, delayed

onset muscle soreness, which is accumulated

regularly. DOM is basically

lactic acid accymulated when you

work your muscles hard. So this just means

that there’s a better potential for you

to get up and get on with your workout

without feeling sore the next day. Taking

a magnesium salt, epsom salt bath after a

workout is also a really, really lovely way

to help the muscles relax and regenerate.

Getting a massage. Most of these things

are about flushing out the toxins that are

generated when you stress your body

out. So a massage is wonderful for that.

Making sure that you’re eating well and

rehydrating as part of your rest and recovery

is also very, very, very important.

AM: When you are a month out or 2

weeks out from a marathon, what do you

suggest should be done to get you ready

for the big race?

BG: When you’re two weeks out from a

marathon, that is when taper starts. Taper

is a decrease in intensity of the workout

routine that you have been doing

throughout your training program. So

you’re still going to probably be running

around the same amount of days as you

have been all the way through, but your

intensity, i.e. how fast you run, how long

you run for, will be very much different

to the rest of the program. This enables

your body to make the adaptations and

progressions it needs in order to thrive

on race day. That is one of the most important

things that you do need to do is

to taper and let yourself feel good ahead

of the big race.

AM: The day of the marathon, what are

things that you do to prepare yourself for

the marathon?

BG: On the day of the marathon, there

is a lot to prepare for. It’s a huge deal. I

mean, you’ve been preparing for it for 18

weeks, more than likely. The night before,

though, is the key to preparation, not the

day of. So the night before, you want to

get your whole race kit laid out. You want

to make sure your bib is pinned onto your

clothing. You want to make sure your

gels, if you’re using them, or whatever

fuel you’re using in the race, are securely

in pockets or in a running belt.

Like, I make sure everything is in my

SPI belt. You want to make sure you

know your route to the start line

if you’re taking public transport, if

you’re going to be getting an Uber, if

you’re walking, etc. You want to also

know a backup route just in case the

chosen route that you are taking has

anything affecting it. Make sure you

know two ways to get to your starting

point. You also need to know the

starting times and the corral opening

and closing times for your race. Both

are very, very important. If you miss

your closing time, it’s not like you’re

not going to run. You will just have to

go to the corral behind. On marathon

day, that should mean that you’re

basically just going to get up, get

dressed, eat your breakfast and get

out there. You want marathon day to

be as smooth sailing as possible.

AM: Once the marathon is over are

there post-training activities that you

do to come down from all of that energy?

BG: Once the marathon is over, there

is so much joy in that walk from receiving

the medal to friends and family

or to however you’re going to celebrate.

A lot of people don’t really talk

about the post-marathon blues, the

post-race blues, because you’ve just

put so much time and work into this

training for such a long time. And then

all of a sudden you have this void in

your life. So be ready to feel a little bit

kind of lost in a way when you look at

your schedule and it’s not filled with

miles. But also please make sure that

you do give your body the grace period

after running a marathon to recover.

It doesn’t mean you have to

stop running, but give yourself a time

until you feel you want to go for a run

and go for a nice, short, gentle, easy

paced jog and work your way back to

whatever level you want to be at.

AM: You have a lot going on from be-

ing a noted Peloton instructor, Global

Brand Ambassador of HOKA, and cohost

of Set the Pace Podcast for NYRR.

Is there anything coming up that you

want us to know about that we can

keep an eye out for?

BG: Yes, a lot of things coming up.

Nothing of which I’m going to be

talking about right now though, but

lots of races on the horizon, and lots

of fun to be had…!

@becsgentry

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | Becs Gentry

We always love a good sip and a bite and

there’s no one better to talk to about

this than with a chef. We met Chef Chris

Valdes during last year’s Food Network’s

NYC Wine Food Festival and we have seen

a number of his videos making incredible

dishes that are full of flavor! We took

some to ask him about how he got into

the industry, his passion for food, and his

martini and dish pairing that we should be

putting into rotation as the days get longer

and we settle into Spring.

ATHLEISURE MAG: It’s so great to connect

with you. We actually briefly met you last

year at Food Network’s Food Festival here

in NYC. You had some amazing Tostones –

so tasty and it was cool to see you doing

your thing.

CHEF CHRIS VALDES: Oh nice! You were

at Foodie Con!

AM: Yes! We could see the building but

couldn’t remember the event! It’s always

a good time covering the food festival

and that was a huge series of days and although

we have covered this festival over

the years, we had never done Foodie Con

before.

What dish made you fall in love with food?

CHEF CV: I think that the first dish that

made me fall in love with food was my

mom’s Boliche! It’s a Latin style roast that

is stuffed with chorizo and then you have

to sear it and then you have to cook it for

4 hours, then you have to let it cool, slice

it up, then you have to make the sauce for

it which is peas and carrots and tomato

sauce and red wine – then you have to

cook it again!

So, if someone is making this for you in

Latin culture, that means that they love

you! This means that they think that you

deserve the very best! My mom would

make this for us for every birthday, every

celebration, and I was always fascinated

with how much work it takes, but it is so

rewarding. She would serve it with rice

and fried Hawaiian plantains and this little

salad. When I think of childhood,

when I think of falling in love within

cooking, comfort, and love – that’s

where my mind takes me right there.

AM: That sounds amazing and we have

not had lunch yet, we want someone

to make that for us!

When did you realize that you wanted

to be a chef?

CHEF CV: At the age of 10, we lost everything.

We lost our restaurant. My

dad went away for 19 years and it was

just all over the place. My mom and I

moved into a small apartment building

and I remember that we found

out what satellite TV was and we got

that and I was flipping through the

channels and what seemed like a million

of them, I stopped on one channel

to see this guy go, “Bam!” I started

having a vision of myself cooking,

of myself clapping, feeding people,

being with other people and cooking

for them as well as seeing them happy.

I didn’t know how to describe all

of the things that I was seeing in my

head. A few days later, I kept watching

the same show which was Emeril

Live and that took me to create my

first dish which was Arroz con Pollo.

Long story short, my mom and I sat

down and ate my dish as we were

watching Emeril.

AM: What inspires you in terms of the

dishes that you create? Where are you

pulling from and where do you get

that inspiration from?

CHEF CV: I think that it just runs in my

blood. I was born into a family who

owned restaurants and food has always

been part of my culture, my

story, and my upbringing. Growing

up next to my mom, she was always

cooking so I would ask her why she

added in things, why it smelled that

way, and if I could help her. Mom

took the time to always answer my

questions, to help me, to let me cook

with her, and to let me taste. She would

let me see the ins and outs of running a

family owned restaurant and how the clients

would be so happy. They were always

excited and asking for certain dishes to

be made for the next day and to see that

love and interaction was so important to

me! It comes from that and I am Latino so

it just is in our blood. I’m so grateful to be

one of the fortunate ones that it runs in

me.

AM: You recently partnered with Tanqueray

and there is nothing like a good martini

to pair with your favorite dish! With

National Cocktail Day coming up, what

is your favorite martini and what do you

pair it with?

CHEF CV: Tanqueray has a martini for every

occasion and whether it is a classic

one like a Dirty Martini or something more

trend forward like a Dirty Spring Gibson

which is a take on the classic Gibson, it’s

the perfect transition into warmer weather.

I just love an Old Fashioned Martini. I

don’t think that you need to mess around

with it too much like a good gin such as

the Tanqueray London Gin. A bit of that

olive juice and a squeeze of lime and of

course, the olive. You need the olives!

AM: Of course!

What dish would you pair with that?

CHEF CV: So, the dish that I would have

with that is the one I did in collaboration

with the South Beach Food and Wine Festival

which is the Salchipapas con Salsa

Rosada. For the Salchipapas, you’re going

to fry the French fries and you’re going

to grab some beef links and you’re going

to cut them up and you will fry it in the

same oil as the French Fries. So when the

French Fries are cooked, they are going

to absorb the beef link flavor – so you’re

already starting on a good note. You’re

going to bring them out of the fryer and

you’re going to season them with a little

salt and black pepper and you’re going to

load it up with some Salchipapas Sauce

which is the Salsa Rosada which is ketchup,

mayo, pickle juice in there and

you just mix it up and your pour it

over the warm crisp French Fries. My

doctor always asks me if I am eating

my greens so I ad a little scallion just

for color.

AM: Wow! That sounds amazing.

It’s been 5 years since One With the

Kitchen came out. How has that been

for you and can we expect another

cookbook from you?

CHEF CV: I’m going to be celebrating

shortly with a few national appearances

and to do something with the

book. It has been a love story to my

culture and my heritage. I call it the

book that just keeps on giving. The

more I link to it and reference to it,

the more I realize how much love I

put into it. We were going through

COVID and that was at a time where

half the time I was donating 50,000

meals to people here in Miami and

the other time I was doing the book.

When I was doing the book, I was so

focused and I was choosing the recipes,

tapping into my childhood memories

and I was going back and forth.

It has been so special to me celebrate

5 years since this book dropped and I

can’t believe that 5 years has already

passed. We’re going to be celebrating

in a nice and special way.

I’m also celebrating which is going

to sound so weird as it has taken me

9 years. I have 100,000 subscribers

on my YouTube channel and when I

looked at how many I have uploaded,

it has been well over 200 so it’s not a

surprise. I had fallen asleep on it and it

wasn’t until YouTube emailed me and

said to claim my silver plaque award.

@chefchrisvaldes

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | Tanqueray

We spent an afternoon with Deborah

Czeresko at Brooklyn Glass making three

of her acclaimed and well-sought after

Forgotten Potatoes with her, and her assistant

Em. An acclaimed NYC-based artist

and designer, Deborah is best known for

her work with glass. She won the inaugural

season of Netflix’s Blown Away glass

competition show in 2019, where contestants

compete in glassblowing challenges

for prizes and the title of champion. Her

work challenges societal norms with elegant,

sophisticated and often whimsical

themes rooted in gender and feminism.

Her work has been shown in Corning Museum

of Glass and the Smithsonian American

Art Museum.

We love how she is such a deep thinker

and super creative in speaking is art and

metaphor. An extremely thoughtful and

determined creative, we were honored to

spend working time together to truly embrace

the elegant fierce fragility that glass

blowing presents at this top level. It was

truly exciting to see her in action and hear

her stories about past, present and future

projects.

We first met her and her lovely partner,

Three, on the eve of our January Cover

drop, where we enjoyed Diageo’s legendary

Burn’s Supper Night in NYC together,

complete with Haggis, Poetry & Song,

Bagpipes, and a medley of favorite Scottish

Whiskey’s Johnnie Walker Blue Label,

Oban Single Malt, Buchanan’s Blended

Scott Whiskey, and more.

ATHLEISURE MAG: You said glass was

your first love, what were those first moments

for you?

DEBORAH CZERESKO: It felt like a real

true love. Like when you just are instantly

attracted to something. It’s sort of fourth

dimensional on some undefinable plane

what you’re feeling, this kind of attraction,

because it combines all the things

you don’t know about yourself necessarily

at that time. Like when I was younger and

why was this material for me? It seemed

kind of mystical and magical [and] what I

didn’t know is the intelligence that I

had in connecting to it in a physical

way and in a conceptual way. I mean,

now I can intellectualize it, but then I

was just instinct-driven.

AM: And you knew it off the bat or

within, say the first month - or looking

back now, you’re saying that?

DC: Oh no. The moment I saw the

glass, hot glass, I knew this was for

me. So, first of all, you’re sculpting

a fluid. That’s not like sculpting

any other material. The stuff is flowing…

[i]t’s a weird way to think that

you’re actually sculpting a liquid. It’s

the weirdness of how you sculpt this

and the weirdness of the material itself.

The material seems otherworldly

when it’s hot, so it’s like lava. I was

really attracted to the fact that this

stuff seems so atypical and not stereotypical

as a medium, really. So it

definitely feels magical.

AM: So what does glass allow you to

say that other materials wouldn’t let

you do?

DC: Well, I touched on the fluidity,

and also it’s transparency. So that’s

something you can’t find in that

many materials. So anything having

to do with transparency and fluidity

and this moving from different states

in this particular way, in the middle of

kind of a binary - it’s not soft and it’s

not hard - it’s a fluid. So it’s constantly

moving and even in its perceived

state, when it’s cold it’s called a super

cooled liquid, so I think you can say

anything with glass they can say with

any other material, but with glass I

think the fluidity, and it inherently

brings fragility on one side and then

fierceness on the other.

And then at some point it becomes

permanent. So when you’re working

on it you’re able to go from A to B,

and then a number of stops, and then

you’re in control and you’re changing

things. But at some point you lose control,

right? At some point it’s beyond adapting,

like after placing it in the annealer. The

minute it’s in the annealer, you can’t then

take the glasswork and put it back in the

fire and remold it again right, so at some

point you lose control.

I would say if we were having a dialogue

with this material, it’s more like speaking

this material’s language. It’s not going

to speak our language, it’s not human,

and when you can’t be receptive enough

to learn about this material as it is [ultimately]

going to take control. It’s going

to dominate as dominant material, and

that’s one thing about it in its property.

It doesn’t look that way, it’s so demure in

a way when you just look at a glass thing

like a huge hunk of 100 pound glass could

look like an enormous ghost, but it’s this

massive thing that has these strengths

you can’t even see and it’s just demanding

that you sort it in a soft way to to be at

one with it, rather than collaborate with

it.

AM: So how do you approach a project?

What are some of the steps you take initially?

Generally what do major project

timelines look like?

DC: For my own artwork project or one

initiated by a prompt of some sort, like as

in the case of the large piece I did for the

public school called “Everybody’s Gotta

Eat,” in that case, I was told where the

piece would be going. So it’s going to a

public school for grades 1-6 outside of the

school cafeteria. And so, the other criterion

was to be significant and relevant for

100 years, and immediately that’s very

intimidating. How could anything I say or

do be relevant for 100 years, when the

world is changing so rapidly at this point?

I don’t know what demographic of person

is going to be there, or even if the

school is going to be a public school for

that long. Let’s assume it is, so then I have

to fit within those boundaries, but that’s

a pretty open criteria. So I start thinking

about the dialogue and the vernacular.

I’ve started to create with my own work

and how that can fit into that parameter.

In that case, I submitted an initial

idea and was asked to modify that

idea because they really wanted the

idea to be primarily glass. I submitted

an idea that had a lot of metal in it

because the project was so large and

had to take up so much space. And

glass is rather expensive, well so is

metal, but I tried to occupy the space

in other ways than just glass objects.

So I started to think in terms of those

limitations, and also financial in that

situation. So that’s a commissioned

piece.

Now, in the case of my own imagination,

without any limits, I’m thinking

about what I’m going to make all the

time. I never am not thinking about

those ideas and how what I want to

put forward conceptually can be connected

to some kind of form. And in

recent years, I’ve been doing realistic

forms, like eggs, for example, I’ve

become synonymous with the egg.

What kind of symbolism does that

have? Is it enough to just put that egg

out there? Do I have to do some kind

of action to the egg? And so, as I’m

going through the world, that’s how

I get my creative ideas. That’s when

I’m in the most, I think, creative mindset.

I’m just influenced by New York.

I’m in New York. It’s so beautiful and

filled with art, like we walk down the

street and we see graffiti and we see

shoppers putting their potato chips in

designer ways in their windows and

entire shops making beautiful installations

with their tires and hubcaps. I

just feel like that’s part of me too, like

my how I live in New York as that’s my

world. So I try to do the similar things

with the glass, like as if I were a storefront

in New York with food. I try to

tell my story here or what I think is

relevant. I’m more like a miner. I’m

mining for things constantly around

me.

So you kind of have that page open,

and it’s kind of like a piece of your

personality where you’re thinking of ways

for storytelling and expression that can

always happen through this medium.

It just feels good so like being in that zone,

I mean when I really connect, I really feel

like I have an idea that is meaningful and

just running on all cylinders, that’s when I

feel the best, honestly.

AM: Oh, that’s cool. How often would you

say that has happened?

DC: I don’t know. That’s more rare. It’s

like to really nail it. I think the piece that

would be the most iconic piece for me

would be the Meat Chandelier that’s in

the Corning Museum of Glass. I feel like

I nailed it there. Sometimes that gets in

the way of finishing a piece though, because

once I already feel like I did it, then

the assemblage becomes the hardest

part, because then the most fun part of

thinking I nailed it is over. So now it’s an

aesthetic and a construction problem,

rather than a conceptual problem. And

that’s a different energy process. And it’s

more like vacuuming. You have to make

sure we’re cleaning the dishes. You have

to make sure how to build something. It’s

a different kind of energy than creative

energy, I think with the installations because

there’s a lot of other problems to

solve, which aren’t right. The fun icing on

the cake part.

AM: So what part would you say is the

most fun? Is it thinking of it, making it, or

having it up where people can enjoy it?

DC: I think on both ends of the spectrum

here, like having it up and having people

enjoy it is really satisfying to know that

it’s done. And if I get to the point where

I’ve actually thought of something, I think

I like to have nailed it. That’s the most satisfying.

The making part, it’s not as satisfying

as those two things, honestly.

AM: Let’s talk about making it. So there, I

was with you and your assistant Em making

three Forgotten Potatoes at Brooklyn

Glass, and there’s a lot to it in setting it up,

making it, and constantly working

and re-working it. There’s a lot of

physical movement. So do you stretch

before you start and do you work out

certain areas to be more inclined to

doing that? Tell me about the athleticism

behind it, and also you started

out wanting to be an athlete?

DC: I think that was one of the things

that clicked for me in being attracted

to glass. I wanted to be in a physical

medium and I wanted to be in a creative

medium. I wanted to express

myself through my body, but not as a

dancer. So, because that is something

that was very intimidating to me, like

rhythm and dancing, but I knew I was

very physical. What material is going

to incorporate that aspect of me is

something I was asking without asking.

I would say I wasn’t as conscious

of it as I am now, but it’s obvious now

why I was really attracted to this material.

So challenging! It’s just like a

feeling that you can’t get anywhere

else really to work with glass in a variety

of ways.

So [about] the athleticism, I was

in high school sports and college

sports, and it’s interesting to have an

equal part athleticism and creativity

with what you are going to do with

that and how it is going to manifest.

What is that going to make you in

your life, and so I guess I found it by

mistake. So I do prep and I make sure

my body is in condition to work. So

I work out in a gym doing strength

training. Strength training is the best

thing for prepping for this type of activity.

I mean, glass can be easy physically,

but it depends what you’re really

going for here. If you’re doing a

large production and making a thousand

pieces in a day, that’s going to

be physical in one way, versus a really

large piece that weighs like 50

pounds. It’s going to be physical in

a different way. Or you could just be

a hobbyist and just make one thinga

day and not really need to prep your

body at all. But I don’t work every day. So

I don’t want to go in there after not working

and not be conditioned or ready to go.

So it involves a lot, especially in the heat.

AM: So what gym do you workout in?

DC: I just recently moved to Crunch South

Slope. It’s in Brooklyn, two blocks from

the studio

I’ve been training with a friend of mine,

one of my people I work with to make

glass. His name’s Alex Kruger. He’s a

trainer at Crunch. It’s really cool because

how often you get a trainer that’s also a

glassblower, so it’s a pretty special situation

right - he knows exactly what touch

points help you and how I can do the

workout and still be functional the next

day. We’re doing a lot of higher reps.

AM: What kind of music do you listen to in

the studio? Today we heard a lot of Buena

Vista Social Club, which we absolutely

love! So I was very happy. So what kind of

music?

DC: I do like dance disco. I like Purple

Disco Machine. They’re good. Groovy.

Anything that goes well in hot weather

actually does work well in the hot shop.

Something with good vibes, something

just open. Having good music, I think, is

important doing art. I’m also influenced

by my studio mate who’s over there. He’s

Colombian, and so he does a lot of Latin

beats and I like Celia Cruz, that came with

that. I think it’s just such a lovely rhythm

to work in glass with like and some people

come in and try to play things like heavy

metal and what not, but it doesn’t really

go. It makes the time pass much slower,

when you don’t have a good rhythm going.

AM: So what are some of the works you

would say you’re most well known for?

DC: I would say there’s three. The one

that sort of put me on the map, I think, as

an artist was the Meat Chandelier, which

is in the Corning Museum Collection. And

that started my dialogue with using food

and consumables and everyday objects

as kind of a vernacular that I talk

in with these objects. And that one

was specifically sort of a critique of

the hot shop that we work in and the

patriarchy in general, and this patriarchal

world of trying to enter in as

somebody other than someone of

the patriarchy. So it was a play [on

that]. I always like to put a little humor

in my work. So I see both sides of

this coin on this. Like so many people

have helped me of all genders, and

so many people have hated me of all

genders. So I’m kind of in the middle,

but it’s a place where physicality

matters and typically people working

larger pieces are guys, so it by it’s very

nature and we’re talking here specifically,

about sculpting glass, not in factories

and production in those situations,

it’s almost all men.

So, like when I went to Italy, there are

no women working on the pipe. By

pipe, I mean blowpipe. There’s maybe

an assistant helping somebody,

but that is really still separated as far

as genders go and glass making, outside

of the studio glass movement of

America and other countries. So this

is an art scene, which is different, but

it still has that aspect to it. Who gets

the jobs? It tends to be the guys, whatever.

It’s better in my world because

I’m an artist and it’s an art world, but

I’m also speaking about the world in

general in my work. So that is real.

AM: So what are a couple of the other

pieces you would say you’re most

well-known for?

DC: Another piece would be the

piece I just recently finished last year,

which was “Everybody’s Got To Eat,”

that is in the public school. It’s one of

my bigger works. And I feel like it was

sort of a sweet and delicate piece in a

way where it’s made for children, and

also in a way it’s made for everybody

because more than just children go

through a public school. People love

to eat, as do I, [but] maybe not at the

school cafeteria, but it’s 24 fruits and vegetables

from around the world representing

different worldly cultures. There was

a limit and how many I could make due

to the financial scope of the project, but I

tried to get different regions of the world

represented through their fruits and vegetables,

including things like New York, an

apple, and that represents school and an

apple. Then there’s things like an avocado,

which represents South America, but

also hipsterdom. So these vegetables and

fruits have dual meanings sometimes, and

who can see themselves in there because

they gave another task requirement of being

relevant for a hundred years. I mean,

it’s a tough one.

AM: I see it. I’m looking at it online now.

Wow.. That’s beautiful.

DC: And then it’s really kind of touching to

see - you can tell they’re handmade and

supposed to be inspiring to people to see

that you can make these things with your

own two hands in the world of AI and

Technology, and have these handmade

things in front of students. I think it’s really

meaningful to connect them to the

planet in some way, in their own bodies.

So all that’s in there. And make them feel

special that it’s there for them, right?

AM: So it seems like there’s a realistic

meets artistic formula that I’m looking at

through this project where there’s some

surrealism, right? But then some practical

vision of what it would look like. And

you’re balancing that in the piece.

DC: Yeah, I think that this idea of creating

a vernacular is really important to me as

an artist - like what is this piece and why

are you just putting a dragon fruit out

there?

AM: I like that one! Looks very challenging,

with all the green around it. Now that

I got to see all the intensity it took for the

sprouts of the Forgotten Potatoes. Wow, I

really like the corn too.

DC: Yeah, that was another challenging

one. See, this is a public school

project, so the budget wasn’t huge,

but it was a decent budget. But I really

needed four or five people per

piece. That’s a 50-pound corn, and

I had a team of three. So for glass,

that’s a reasonable-sized team. But

for that piece, each corn kernel was

brought in a wrap. So one person had

to bring all those wraps, whereas I

formed all the reps. So we divide into

teams, where one person’s bringing

the wraps; one person’s on the main

blow pipe reheating keeping the

piece hot doing all the forming; so If

we had another person at least, that

would have been helpful. But it really

wasn’t in the cards for that project.

AM: See, it’s good you said it was 50

pounds because from looking at the

image hung up, I don’t know if it gives

the sense someone would know.

DC: Well, to get the texture of getting

the corn kernels… I have to solve

some technical problems about how

I’m going to get all those kernels on

there without applying each one individually.

So we put on glass wraps

that are vertical wraps that are rolled

in powder color I divide out with a

tool. I then crimp the kernels into it

and it creates a personal style I think

you can identify that piece kind of as

something I made because I choose

to work in this style and this level of

detail a lot. I could spend the entire

day putting every kernel on individually,

but I do not need to do I so. One

of the maestros I studied with would

do that. His demos were excruciatingly

long. His name was Pino Signoretto.

He was my most influential

maestro that I studied with. And he’s

so detail-oriented and could work on

all different scales. I think he was just

an amazing, like, approaching God of

Glass, honestly. He could make things

other people couldn’t make at the

furnace, that is.

AM: So to get the corn, for example, looking

that way, did you study corn for a while

to look at kernels? And how long would

you do that for? Or is this something you

would look at really quickly and then put

your spin on it?

DC: Oh, I pull up images of corn. I mean,

they’re all over my desktop. Like when I’m

making a corn, I print them out. I bring in

corn to work from. I eat a lot of corn. I just

want to know about corn. You live your

work. I grew corn in my garden…

AM: So when you see corn now, do you

think of corn and that project?

DC: Oh yeah. That’s in my garden. I love

corn though. Bi-colored is harder to make

as the two colors for each kernel are applied

separately.

AM: So tell me about how the Egg series

you started. And being in your studio, I

saw a whole bunch of Eggs dripping all

over. So tell me about the Eggs!

DC: So the Egg pieces, I would say this is

the third piece that really defines me as

an artist’s third installation. But that happened

on TV. That happened on the finale

of the Netflix competition show Blown

Away. So the prompt there was to make

your ultimate art exhibit or something really

high there, like something amazing,

fantastic, unduplicatable, like just your

most amazing piece of art ever! So, with

these parameters where we had to fit into

that space and you only get so much time

to make it, I start to think about some

of the pieces I had previously made and

what aspects of those concepts I wanted

to focus on. So within that, the egg came

about because I had the Meat Chandelier

in the back of my mind - I knew it couldn’t

make a chandelier, but I could use the egg

as a metaphor for a female and aspects of

what it means to be a female in the world

of art into my final finale of the show. This

gender inequality, like my feminist side in

art, because I’m an artist and a feminist,

and I like to make food and glass - so I’m

like, how can I make this a meaningful

statement? So I started to think of

a classic art pedestal, so saying it’s

good finally taking over the art world

starting to become equal, or the egg

not aggressively, but oozing over and

in a different way creating a stand in

the art world that’s equal to males.

Then i also wanted to play on queerness

and gender bending and that’s

where the frying pan comes in. It’s

obviously everything’s glass, but the

frying pan is cast iron as very male.

But the egg, it was the primary character.

Without the egg, there would

be no installation.

AM: So what brought you to that

show? So you applied or you were

asked to join the competition show?

What was it like to be on the show

and win Blown Away S1 on Netflix?

DC: It was intense to be on it and intense

to win it. The structure was

where we had to create a new project

every three days and it was from

a prompt, like creating a floral, or

a biological with the human body

and moving through space. So they

would give us a prompt and then we

would have a little bit of time to come

up with an answer for that, and we

would be in our own hotel rooms doing

this. It’s a lot of pressure to have

to get on camera the next day and

produce. First of all, come up with the

idea before you go to bed that night,

and then present it the next day in

drawings on camera. So it was 10 episodes

of forced creativity in a way,

but what I learned about myself from

that is to actually function really well

in that regard when I have a deadline

and I have to produce.

AM: Yep. I know what you’re saying.

Urgency to Deliver - I’m going to deliver.

It’s like a diamond, right? Under

pressure, you’re going to produce and

maybe not the same every time, but

often you’re going to nail it really way

and often win!

DC: Yeah. When we first got on there, I

had [to look at] space to organize or deal

with, like space is a luxury. Time is a luxury

and I have it, and I’m like, Oh My God, why

am I not more productive when I have all

this time to get my Corning residency together?

Why am I not doing this in a way

that I’ll just get it over with? It lingers. But

if you told me tomorrow I’d have to get in

there and tell them exactly what to do, I

would be up all night figuring it out.

AM: Did you know of anyone else on the

show? Were you familiar with any other

competitor?

DC: Actually, I only knew one other person,

which surprised me.

AM: What was your experience on the

show as far as winning? Did your career

change after that? What were the effects

after being announced the winner?

DC: It was remarkable. Like the effect was

kind of like a wave. I got on the top of a

wave and it just took me. I wasn’t doing

anything. Part of the prize of winning

this was that the Corning Museum Store

would buy $10,000 worth of my work. But

it wasn’t necessarily art. The store sells

collectibles. So for the first time in my life,

I came up with a line of objects that I could

sell. People just kept writing me and asking

me. I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t catch

up. I couldn’t make enough posts on Instagram.

It was a lot! It was life-changing in

that I wasn’t able to consistently sell my

work like that beforehand. And it changed

the work I did to make a living from that

point on. So a lot of the work I did prior

to that was fabrication for other artists,

which I find that extremely demanding

psychologically and physically to do. You

put a lot of yourself into other people’s

work as opposed to your own work. And

it could be draining to you making your

own work in multiple ways. And then, I

also had a lighting line I did with a rep that

was called site-specific art, and we would

do custom high-end projects.

The show kind of launched during COVID

too, and that was an interesting time

to have this launch. Then I got opportunities

to show in galleries and

asked to do things I think I normally

wouldn’t have had as a result. It’s not

magic, you win a reality tv program

and still have to work really hard and

try to control my own life in some way

in a direction that I want it to go, but

there’s a magic to life, right - and what

door is going to open next I don’t necessarily

know!

I could do that like the project for

Mortlock whiskey through Diageo,

that was just out of the blue in designing

a whiskey pipette. So the brand

was Mortlock, and they specifically

have design projects going every

year. This was the fifth year. So it’s

part of their marketing and bringing

people together. They found me and

asked me if I could make something

for their design line and I’m thinking..

oh a glass or something - sure I’d love

to make a glass, but they’re like it’s

a pipette, [which is] basically an eyedropper.

I can make anything in glass,

but you want me to make this tiny

thing? So I suggested that they had

me make the pipette holder too to

hold the water as well as a set. It was

inspired by the the stills using copper

embedding copper in glass, and

in the case of the finished product I

rolled the hot glass in copper foil and

had a violent reaction under the glass

that bubbled and turned blue. When

it was hot, the copper looked black,

but the finished glass ended up being

blue. Yeah, it looked very pretty, very

elegant 120 sets.

AM: So one of the things you made on

this show were Forgotten Potatoes

on one of the episodes.. So tell me

about the episode. How did you came

up with that? And they’re continuing

in your studio and people are excited

to order and get them?

DC: So that was a botanical-themed

challenge. They came up with that

challenge because one of the first things

you make in glass when you touch it for

the first time ever is this thing called a

flower. It teaches you how to use the pincers

and pull the glass out and it ends up

looking something like a very rudimentary

flower. I was like thinking about potatoes

that sprout, and I really like them

because they represent to me, these like

unsung powerhouses. It’s not something

that’s typically considered beautiful as a

potato, yet here it is being this amazing

powerhouse! Like, yeah you got your typical

beauty which is a flower with its color

and all its proportions, but I see the world

in a different way - so many other things

that could be beautiful and are beautiful

and powerful and to me it represented

marginalized people as very super powerful

people that get disregarded and

overlooked. They were represented in

the Forgotten Potato and they are often

forgotten or overlooked or pushed down

and not allowed to shine, but the potato

comes through no matter what!

AM: We made three of those together,

which was awesome and I saw that you

put a lot of effort into getting the exact

hues and colors you wanted for the potato.

So what’s involved with trying to recreate

something that you created before

and trying to stay true to the system, rather

than creating a new thing as an artist?

DC: Well, the good thing about potatoes

and sprouting, they’re endlessly variable

- like consistently fascinating - they’re

not boring, so it’s not like making a production

line in that everyone’s the same.

Each one has a little personality and people

relate to them in different ways like

and people really do relate to the Forgotten

Potato or they relate to the metaphor

behind the piece heavily. It really gave me

a lot of faith in people in a way.

AM: And the sprouts were super cool. It

was noted that the sophistication and

quality of the sprouts is similar to fine

stemware. So it really gets to show off

both some of your superb skills and it also

gets to relate to and maybe be something

the owner gets to flaunt in a way.

DC: That they’re an art piece and

has something as fine as stemware,

there’s some people that might look

to use it as a conversation piece with

their guests. It’s challenging to make

when you’re opening that up and trying

to get it hot as it’s flopping all over

the place in the hot box. The hot box

is called what we have for our furnaces,

and then reheat the glass in glory

holes, many are now calling reheating

chambers. A challenging part of it

with young glass is timing that is really

huge here… so you got to know your

glass and and what temperature it’s

it’s at because it will self-destruct if it

gets too cold, and if it’s cold and then

goes back into the glory hole which is

super hot, it can shatter! In order to

become a maestro at this, you have

to make a lot of mistakes and work

on a lot of different projects to get really

good as a sculptor in glass.

AM: How do you generally decide

what to make if you’re selling glass

pieces?

DC: It’s not just selling, but having a

place to put it, because I don’t have

enough space in New York to just

make stuff. So we thought about that

as if I had a beautiful studio in upstate

New York that I could bring my work

and work on it, I would be creating

worlds. I think worlds with these, I

would probably make my garden like

that. [Presently] there’s a practicality

in that there’s the limit of space,

and glass is expensive, and part of it

is time making it.

AM: What’s the longest time you

spent on a project?

DC: Probably one of the ones we

mentioned already.. there was also

a show I did a couple years ago with

the Hannah Traore Gallery that took

a couple years to put together. I’m

known for it and it was involving

mushrooms and their mycelial network

that I i made in neon so the mushrooms

would communicate with trees which I

made also in the galaxy called Creatures

of Culture That was very popular recently.

AM: Oh, wow, that’s cool.

DC: So I made a tree out of mirrored mosaic,

like how it would look like a disco

ball. Then I brought in a thousand pounds

of glass soil, which was broken up brown

chunks of glass from a defunct factory in

West Virginia that I brought into the gallery

and put on the floor. That also had

a queerdelier, it’s like a chandelier, but a

queer chandelier because the mushrooms

are like non-binary beings - they’re neither

plant nor animal, so they have one foot in

each category, because they don’t have

photosynthesis they get their nutrients

through enzymatic digestion.

AM: So if glass could talk back to you,

what do you think it would say?

DC: Stop hurting me. That’s when you’re

working it too cold. It feels so painful to

the glass. You can see it like hates it. Okay.

you’re pushing too hard trying to just get

every working second out of the heat you

just did, and you just go too far it always

scars the glass, and it shows you it just

went too far! I think it speaks to me most

when it’s hot. So when it’s in this molten

state. So once the sand and whatnot is

heated together. Then it forms an identity,

a personality. Yeah.

AM: What would you say the most absurd

commission request you ever received

was?

DC: Oh, David Letterman, to make glass

soap for him. He wanted to use Christmas

gifts. Oh I thought this guy is hilarious, because

that’s the gift you give somebody

when you don’t know what to give them!

So he’s creating this glass soap, like when

you don’t know what to give someone,

you bring a housewarming gift or something,

you get soap and candles as two of

the biggest things. He was going to use

it as a charming novelty to hand out

to people saying, I normally would

give you soap, but now I’m giving you

elevated glass soap. I thought it was

hilarious.

He had me make other things too. A

tie. OK, then there’s the tie which he

still had hanging over there from his

son’s prep school tie when he was

graduating. So he had me make that

- then the tie broke - the tie was broken

by someone cleaning the house

and he wanted me to do something

with the tie’s broken shards to make

it into a new sculpture, so I edit those

shards into like a big kind of paperweight.

He is a fan of glass because

he went to an undergraduate school

that had glass in Ohio, and he really

fell in love with the material. He made

a documentary about making that

[Editors Note: “Clear Reception” is the

Documentary]. Also another thing - so

he has a duct tape cell phone holder

of different colors on it and it became

this big mass of duct tape and plaid

and he wanted that reproduced in

glass, which I was able to do. He gets

very attached to things!

AM: So what’s on your bucket list

now?

DC: Well, I’m heading up to the Corning

Museum. The next thing is I got

asked to be in the show in Venice, so

I have to make pieces for that, which

I’m calling the project Big Fruit. I’m

sticking with fruit. When I was thinking

of what to do in Corning, I wanted

to turn the fruit project into lighting.

AM: You had won a residency at Corning

from the show, right?

DC: That was years ago, but now I applied.

So I was two weeks in there,

the museum hot shop… they have

different hot shops there… I ended

up making car parts there, because

I was like let’s let me do something

that’s not fruits or vegetables... so I

made like a car mufflers with big plumes

of exhaust coming out of them and hubcaps

as the jewelry of the car. So my goal

was non-toxic masculinity and that was

represented by the car, so glass can transform

anything that I thought into something

gorgeous and beautiful.

AM: You worked on a cool project with

Cake Boss as well?

DC: Oh yeah. That was another TV program.

Yeah. Buddy Valastro - Cake versus

Glass. His production team found me because

he was doing a special for Christmas

time or the holidays. It was going to

be cake against other materials. And they

reached out to me because they wanted

to use glass. Glass was one of the mediums.

Set design was one of the meat.

Legos was one of the mediums. Toys was,

I think. So they reached out to me. And

they did a four-episode series, which is

Buddy versus, and I was the Buddy versus

Glass. Okay, I forget the exact prompt

now, but it was something about “The

Night Before Christmas.” And Buddy did

a cake where Santa Claus crashed into a

house. He does these huge elaborate installations

with armatures underneath -

AM: Yeah they’re crazy! Our jaws were just

dropped when we binged a Buddy Versus

Duff season recently when we were working

around the clock during on a staycation

at Coda Williamsburg, ironic no? So

much creativity, passion and skill for both

of them!

DC: I did a christmas cookie that was out

for Santa that got eaten by a mouse. So

it was a mouse that ate part of a cookie,

and the cookie thought the mouse was

in love with it, but the mouse ended up

eating the Christmas cookie, so it was not

true love. We had two judges. He was on

the left side of the stage and I was on the

right side of the stage.

AM: So what happened?

DC: I won. He was great [about it].

AM: What are some of your favorite

museums and gallery exhibitions?

DC: I like Friedman Benda Gallery. It’s

a furniture art gallery. Salon 94. As far

as museums go, my preference is the

Whitney in New York. The gallery I

showed in - Traore gallery. That’s cool.

Gotham was doing an ashtray exhibit

- they have a gallery in addition to

the store where they show some lifestyle

things like clothing, and also an

art gallery. [Editor’s Note: The Exhibit

is called “The Smoking Section.”] It’s

a really cool art gallery because they

do show things that maybe can’t go

anywhere else, like an ashtray show.

For that I used a traditional Venetian

style goblet that has a dragon in the

stem. It’s still there in their store.

AM: What are some of the things you

like to do in your downtime when

you’re not glass blowing or glass

working?

DC: I do yoga okay with Three, because

she teaches yoga and I don’t

think it would be as fun if she wasn’t

teaching. It’s great because that

[helps] the flexibility part, especially

as you get older, you have to keep

limber. And then skiing, we went skiing.

I’m a beginning skier, really, but

I’m enjoying it. That’s new for me.

Then dining and going to movies.

AM: How do you like having a studio

office at Brooklyn Glass?

DC: Brooklyn Glass is like a shop that

is really devoted to having artists

fabricate their work. So there’s two

shops near here. One is Urban Glass,

which is a non-for-profit artist organization

or arts organization. And then

there’s this one, which is Brooklyn

Glass. I like this one. Well, first of all, I

have a studio within this one. And it’s

really like a community here that’s a

small community that I can rely on to

talk ideas over and to help. And so it

just feels like more of a community to

me than the larger space down the street.

So I like that. And it’s just really focused

on professionals here. They have an educational

program, but it’s really only at

night. So during the day, it’s all professionals

working here, which is great. And

it’s just a good range of projects coming

through that you can see different things

being made and different people coming

in. They have several departments, including

neon, fabrication, hot sculpting or hot

blowing, and cold working the finishing

area studios where drilling and grinding

and cutting of the glass is done. So getting

special shapes outside of what you

can do in the hot shop. That’s here too.

It’s a nice small shop.

AM: It was great making some Forgotten

Potatoes together, we look forward to

some Eggs & Fruit another time!

@dczeey

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDIT | Paul Farkas shot

with Sony Alpha |

We caught up with Salt Hank’s owner, Henry

Laporte that is known for his restaurant

that serves primarily one dish, the French

Dip! We wanted to know how we went

to making culinary videos to starting his

restaurant and how he keeps it all together

as a business owner.

ATHLEISURE MAG: What was the dish

that made you fall in love with food?

HENRY LAPORTE: I love it, starting off

hot! It’s kind of an easy answer – salami!

Pretty much after my first bite of salami

nothing else has been the same sense

then. I would say that and I would also

say that I remember my first rib eye as

well. I think that I was about 6 when I had

my first bite of salami and it changed the

entire trajectory of my life! I mean salami

and cured meats!

AM: That’s such a great combo. What is

there not to love?

HL: It’s the salt, fat, all the nitrates – it’s

all there!

AM: How did you take your love for food

and decide that you were going to take

it beyond a passion, but to make it into a

business?

HL: Honestly, I think that once I had those

moments of clarity and the fact that it

was all I actually cared about, and it’s the

thing that made me the happiest in my

entire world, when I was eating these

insanely delicious bites of food, I don’t

know if there was ever an other path for

me. It never really struck me to go and

explore another business or real estate –

it was just food! I didn’t care about anything

else. I knew that I would be in the

food space.

AM: Once you realized that this would

be your business. How did you go about

growing it and then using TurboTax Business

as a means to streamline that?

HL: In the beginning, it was me and I was

a broadcast/journalism student in college.

would borrow the equipment from

the equipment room and film myself

making food videos. That quickly

when TikTok blew up, turned into an

actual thing that was gaining some

traction. Once I started getting offered

money, brand deals and things

like that, it turned into a thing where

I needed an LLC and I needed to file

for taxes which is something that I

had no clue how to do at the time!

Thankfully, TurboTax made it incredibly

easy at that time. I was still doing

it on my own, I didn’t have a bookkeeper

at that time, but once things

snowballed at that time to a bigger

situation, I hired somebody who was

an absolute genius at those sorts of

things. They are great and are integral

to the entire operation of what

I’m doing and I think there is a lot to

be said to how TurboTax Experts for

Business can help young entrepreneurs

to pave their way through that

entire complicated field of taxes.

AM: What have you learned in terms

of someone who is thinking of taking

their idea or passion and making it

into their business as you have done?

HL: Make sure you truly love it and are

doing it for the right reasons. Don’t

just take something that looks shiny

and chase it because you are comparing

your life to somebody else’s.

Don’t do it for the transactional residual

effect. Do it because you viscerally

care about it.

AM: You’re known for your French Dip

Sandwich. Why did this inspire you to

create a restaurant where it is the primary

item on the menu?

HL: This version of the French Dip

that we are doing now is one that I

have been in love with for 6 or 7 years

now. It’s a recipe that I have been developing

for that entire time. It’s also

a very prep heavy recipe. We’re basically

making French Onion Soup in

the back with the house made jus and

the house made carmelized onions

and all of that. Then that is all added

to the traditional French Dip. So it is

very prep heavy and once we realized

– I mean, we always wanted a limited

menu. People really fell in love with

the French Dip. What was the point to

do anything else and it was about just

mastering this! We wanted to make it

as good as we possibly could and to

keep the quality as high as we could

as well. We do not want to stray from

that!

AM: What about some food hot takes

or trends? Do you have any that you

want to share or that we should keep

an eye out for?

HL: Honestly, I’m somewhat scared

to give my hot takes as I hate to get

in trouble! If you don’t have sharp

knives, then you actually don’t care

about cooking!

AM: Agreed!

HL: I don’t like beets!

AM: Oh we love beets!

HL: I know, that’s why it’s a hot take!

Everyone loves them and I really get

the looks from people when I say I

don’t!

AM: We can agree on the knives

though!

@salt_hank

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | PG 215

Ed Anderson | PG 216 Hector Gomez

On April 19th, The 5th Annual Orange

Glou Wine Fair at Gallery Space LES

155 Suffolk Street will showcase 100

orange wines to taste from around

the world, highlighting up and coming

wine regions like Japan, Mexico, and

China, along with Spain and the US

this year. Launched by leading orange

wine expert Doreen Winkler, a natural

wine sommelier and founder of

Orange Glou wine club, it is America’s

only wine fair dedicated exclusively to

orange wines. A one-of-a-kind event

for orange wine enthusiasts, those

new to the style or anyone looking

for a unique NYC event this spring,

the Orange Glou Wine Fair is the ultimate

place to enjoy the full spectrum

of orange wines), meet winemakers

to learn more about this ancient style

of wine that has recently became so

popular.

This year’s event will expand to 4 sessions

throughout the day (11am-1pm,

1pm-3pm, 3pm-5pm, and 5pm-7pm).

Guests can explore the world of orange

wines, which are made using

centuries-old techniques where the

juice pressed from white grapes remains

in contact with the skins during

the fermentation process to create

unique, versatile and delicious wines

that range in color from pale gold to

orange to amber. All guests will take

home a signature Orange Glou wine

glass (value $15), included in the $45

tickets.

@orangeglou_fair

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDIT | Nina Scholl

We always enjoy when the tennis season

starts as we see our favorite starts hitting

global courts. We also know that it’s a

great sport that we can enjoy with family,

colleagues, and friends old and new! We

sat down with Kimberly Selden, Founder

of Black Girls Tennis Club to know more

about how why she created this organization,

how she is making sure that youth

and adults can into the sport and an upcoming

event that will take place at Roland

Garros.

ATHLEISURE MAG: Before we delve into

BGTC, I’d like to know more about your

background.

KIMBERLY SELDEN: My background is an

interesting path. I sit at the intersection

of a lot of different industries. I started

my career in fashion. I studied mass communications

with a concentration in PR a

minor in fashion merchandising. I moved

to NY right after college worked for Custo

Barcelona in PR.

I ended up working in production on the

management side. I worked on NBA All-

Star, and then went to creative, so I did

the whole freelancer circuit for different

award shows and live events. Starting

in production management and landing

on the creative side, working my way up

from executive producers, assistant production,

assistant production coordinator,

associate producer, segment producer,

and producer. I’ve played every single

role, and I started to transition from there

into the story side, and so I worked on a

Food Network show as a story producer.

I worked on Oprah behind the scenes as a

story producer.

During that time, I randomly was asked

to come to Niger in West Africa, about

two of my friends were there schooling

mission work – it was really random. So

they met someone who got a license for

a radio and television station. They naturally

reached out to me because I was the

closest one to that production world, so

we had a break for the show. I moved to

Niger for three months to start this radio

station, which led to a television station.

I ended up meeting the U.S ambassador

and I came back - was in

graduate school while on our second

season of the show and my thesis became

a real project, and I went back

to Niger with a grant from the US Embassy.

I got to speak at the US Embassy!

We distributed solar power radios

to villages. It was life changing to say

the least. I’ll say that was a huge turning

point for me where I started to

use this term, social impact, and just

realized the power of change.

I was doing a whole lot and in different

countries in Africa. One of my

friends had an Africa travel company,

so I was traveling with her. I have

worked on a number of campaigns

and projects over the years!

I was living in NY this whole time and I

moved to Virginia right before COVID.

In Virginia, there were courts in my

neighborhood and when I lived in BK

the whole 10 years I was there, there

were tennis courts in Fort Greene and

Clinton Hill. I always wanted to play

tennis but didn’t know how to get involved.

The Fort Greene tennis courts

were kind of intimidating when I was

in my hometown in Virgina Beach,

that’s how BGTC got started. I walked

past tennis courts everyday walking

my down and I thought, we should

start a Black Girls Tennis Club and

that’s how it started. So, my career

and my background have nothing to

do with tennis, but everything to do

with making a difference.

AM: And community!

KS: Our communities, and Black people.

Like I said before, to me, it all

comes together in a very unique and

unplanned way. In fact, we’re going

to Ghana in November, so even my

passion for Africa is coming into the

mix.

AM: Now that you have been running

BGTC for a few years, did you think it was

going to be what we’re seeing now from

it?

KS: Absolutely not. In fact, I was really

hesitant because we’re a non-profit

and when BGTC started, I really was in a

space where I wanted to build wealth. I

didn’t see a pathway to that, and I actually

wanted to build a boutique hotel like

I was ready for the next chapter of my

life either way, where I would be a little

more behind the scenes. But this is essentially

pushing me to the forefront. I’m a

Founder and I had no idea at all. Now, I’m

aware of the potential, but every day, I’m

still shocked that I’m in this seat and that

it has completely taken over right. I’m trying

to do other things and I’m still getting

pulled to really just focus on this, but I will

say, you know, even though I want these

other things, I I feel that my other wants

and desires are being met through BGTC.

AM: What is BGTC because there is an adult

track and then a younger track. And what

is the goal of the organization overall?

KS: We are a 501c3. I like to call us a Social

Enterprise. We have, free and low cost

youth programming and adult programming

and our mission is to liberate black

women and girls through play, and I say

that because we really focus on joy, wellness,

and community. Looking at my past

and my whole time living in New York,

if you asked me what my hobbies were,

I would have said - going out to eat or

shopping. I’m a recovering workaholic

and I know from life experience that having

a hobby is a luxury. I just know how

important liberation is. Playing sports is a

pathway to that, and I could go on and on

about the benefits of girls playing sports

economically just for their own wellness

and joy. I just see this as a catalyst to

joy, community, economic growth, and

health. I don’t want us to be a non-profit

that is viewed as they’re serving underserved

people only. You know, our youth

is expansive. Some are underserved, of

course and some aren’t. We have kids

that could go pro. We have kids that never

touched a racket.

AM: What is your role like? I always

say that the role of a Founder is one

that is growing and it doesn’t really

have a start or stop to it. What is your

role and what is a day-to-day or week

to week look like, for you?

KS: I see myself as the key vision holder

strategist and leading Partnerships,

and we’re figuring that out as an organization.

I’m technically Founder

and CEO. A lot of this, we’re figuring

it out as we go. We have tried things

that have worked and have tried

things that haven’t worked. My goal

is to raise enough money so that we

can have someone in place. Whether

that’s an executive director or whatever

that title is that can lead the organization

operationally, I know what

my strengths are.

I am an executor and I am a visionary.

My day-to-day I have a lot of calls. I’m

talking to a lot of brand partners. I’m

talking to our board members. Tennis

season has started and I went to Palm

Springs twice. My day. It’s a lot of

emails. I don’t even know the amount

of emails that I send per day. We have

a we use Monday, which is like a project

management tool. I’m always approving.

Between social media like

I’m approving Graphics, I’m getting

I’m sending decks to people. I’m giving

direction, I’m delegating.

I might be going to Indian Wells. I

have a call later today about an Arthur

Ashe documentary project, so

it’s a lot of exciting things. It’s a lot of

things that I’ve never done before.

AM: I know you have a few chapters.

You have the one here in New York,

and there’s others. Can you tell us

about these chapters?

KS: We launched in Virginia, and so

in Virginia, every year we do a free

summer camp and we have some

adult programming. We were actually

pushed to launch in New York because of

our Challengers event with Zendaya (Dune

franchise, The Drama, Euphoria). It’s really

exciting for New York, so we have yearround

programming in New York, because

we have indoor courts right, too. We’ve

had some programming in DC. We do Citi

Open every year in DC. DC is a great meeting

point because that’s a middle ground

for all our board members to come together.

Last year, we had an in-person

board meeting there.

I’m actually in La, so we had fun LA event.

We’re gearing up for La. I’ve been meeting

with, YMCA Crenshaw and Compton

United School District, so LA’s been on

us. I think I feel a lot of pressure from every

part of the country, as well as outside

of the country to launch. There’s a whole

back end that goes into it. If I look at our

pillars which are care, access, representation,

and exposure, there’s different reasons

to be different places.

Logistically and operationally, I just have

to move with care as well, and make sure

that we have what we need in place so that

our team you know isn’t overwhelmed.

And I want people to be connected and be

able to find people to play with, because

if I’m being honest, I still didn’t solve my

original problem which was I wanted to

play tennis more. So that’s where technology

comes in, and we’re working on

that as well.

AM: Well, for the New York chapter, what

are some upcoming events that are taking

place here that you can share?

JS: We have Pop Up and Play. We just had

one in February. We have another one

at the end of the month of at our indoor

ports at Sun East which is in Manhattan.

We’re up in the Bronx at Stadium Tennis

for Cardio Tennis. We have our Foundations

Clinic coming up, which is 4 consecutive

sessions that cover the basics

of tennis at Brooklyn College. We have 2

courts of that. That will be announced in

the next 2 weeks. We have Cardio Tennis

Pop Up and Play Foundations. We’re

going to have Sunset Saturdays coming

up. That’s going to be from May

through the end of August. I don’t

know what we’re doing for US Open,

but we’ll of course have activations

during US Open. So, we’ll have weekly

programming almost twice a week

in New York. It’s been growing every

single year, and we’re going to do a

Big Girls Day of Play in Brooklyn, May

31st. We’ve been wanting to do more

youth programming with our partners

and we always do Juneteenth at

Fort Green with The Layout.

AM: The French Open is coming up

and you guys are actually going to be

at Roland Garros, tell us more about

that.

KS: We are working with a tennis

travel company, and so this is a trip

that opened up that people paid to

go on. It sold out within 2 weeks. At

first, we wanted to start small, so we

had 10 spots, but we had to open it

up, so we have 20 Black women and

girls going to the French Open. May

23rd, through the 26, and this year is

actually the 70th anniversary. Of Althea

Gibson’s historic win at Roland

Garros. I’m excited. I’ve never been,

um.

A lot of people going on the trip

,they’ve never been. It’s a bucket list

item. It’s our first trip and we’ll see

how it goes. I’m thrilled, and I, I know,

it’s going to be an amazing time, and

I can’t wait to like be in community

with everybody.

AM: So they’re going and they’re also

having tickets to go to the French

Open as well?

KS: Exactly! It’s gonna be epic, so

that’s a pretty big deal.

AM: Well, are there other things that

you haven’t talked about that you

want to share?

KS: Something that I’m really passionate

about is what we do on Martha’s Vineyard.

This year will be our third year on The

Vineyard. Oak Bluffs is this historic Black

neighborhood on Martha’s Vineyard.

We’ve been working on a short documentary

project about Black tennis history,

and it’s such an epic story and the story. Is

it really documented in a significant way,

and so it all started because my friends

actually posted it in a Facebook group because

we were looking for our house and

people in the group saw BGTC, and they

all started chiming in, like, “oh my God,”

my mom used to play in the Mary Tucker

Invitational. Oh wow, my dad was in Oak

Bluffs.

Naturally, as a producer, my wheels are

turning. I’m like, we need to capture this.

I just started doing more research. Martha’s

Vineyard is beautiful, being like the

month of August is just amazing. You

know, a lot of the Black sororities and fraternities,

all HBCU’s have events. It’s just

a sight to see. Obviously, Ralph Lauren did

their Oak Bluffs collection, and so there’s

been a lot of attention drawn to this historic

island.

My first time going was just a couple of

years before we went as an organization.

It’s such a fun trip and so we do activations

we do about 3 events. This year, I

think we’re doing 3 or 4 events now and

I hope that we’re gonna be finishing our

documentary this year, and my plan is to

enter it into the film festival that happens

on the vineyard. So, we’re planting roots

there. This year, we’re actually working

with a group in Boston to bring a group

of girls down, for a day trip, and so that’s

something that there’s certain things that

I know will do every single year U.S open,

of course. Martha’s Vineyard, Citi Open is

a big one for us that I mentioned in DC.

We’re also doing Ghana which I hinted towards

earlier this will be in November and

we will take Taylor Townsend, who’s one

of our honorary board members. There’s

a new tennis club called the Accra Backyard

Club. That amazing architecture was

built by our artists, who has this incredible

tennis story that is just so inspiring,

so we all want to see it. And as

you know, my ties to the continent,

I’ve been trying to find a reason to

get us out there.

We’ve partnered with other orgs out

there. They just had a woman’s tennis

tournament that we’re gonna be covering.

We’re going global, and I see us

as a global organization.

Martha’s Vineyard, I’m really passionate

about and want to tell those stories

and I don’t want them to get lost.

It’s really cool because one of the

tournaments that went away the Oak

Bluffs Tennis Club and Tournament,

my now friend Gatsby Karam is bringing

that tournament back this year.

AM: Wow!

KS: It hasn’t happened in over 10

years. He got permission from the

family to bring it back and the first

person, they told him to contact was

me. So you know, we’re in cahoots

together to be in support of each other,

so I’ll be covering that. And to me,

that’s the perfect ending to the documentary.

@blackgirlstennisclub

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | Kimberly

Selden

THE ART OF

THE SNACK:

BERIMBAU

BRAZILIAN

TABLE

During NYFW FW26, we kicked off the season

by having dinner at Berimbau Brazilian

Table in Midtown. Although we were

there during the Winter, it is such a vibe

to be in a spot where it feels like endless

Summer, has great vibes, and an incredible

menu that showcases Brazilian cuisine

that is vibrant along with cocktails that

will keep you coming back. We sat down

with owner Mario De Matos to find out

about this restaurant, its sister location

in the West Village, and to know what we

should order on our next visit!

ATHLEISURE MAG: Mario, we had an incredible

meal during NYFW at Berimbau

Brazilian Table in Midtown. Before we

delve into the restaurant, can you tell us a

bit about your background, how you came

to the restaurant industry and why after

launching the original location in the West

Village that you wanted to open a second

location?

MARIO DE MATOS: My connection to hospitality

started very early in my life. My

father owned a small bakery and grocery

shop in Brazil, and as a kid I often helped

him there. During school vacations we

would leave the house at five in the morning,

which felt brutal at the time, but it

placed me right in the middle of customer

service from a very young age. My father

liked to keep me at the counter interacting

with customers. Because I was young,

people were naturally warm and patient

with me, and I ended up building many

relationships with the regulars who came

into the shop. Looking back, that early exposure

to hospitality shaped the way I understand

service and human connection

today.

In 2000, while studying law in Brazil, I came

to New York to visit my sister and study

English for what was supposed to be six

months. Instead, I fell in love with the city

and found my way back into restaurants,

working in pizzerias and neighborhood

spots across the city. I was very curious

about the industry and eager to learn, and

along the way I was fortunate to meet

mentors who helped guide me.

After nearly a decade of working

in restaurants, I began to seriously

dream about opening a place of my

own. In 2009 I had the opportunity to

open Berimbau with a partner, and

that was the beginning of my journey

as a restaurateur. Opening the second

location years later felt like a natural

evolution. The original West Village

restaurant has a very special history,

and the Midtown location allowed

us to introduce Brazilian culture to

a new audience while continuing to

refine what Berimbau represents today.

AM: Can you tell us about Executive

Chef Victor Vasconcelos - his background

in terms of where he trained,

kitchens he worked in, and how he

came to Berimbau Brazilian Table?

MDM: Chef Victor is from São Paulo,

Brazil. He began his career in 2001

under the mentorship of renowned

Chef Laurent Suaudeau at Chef Suaudeau

Escola da Arte Culinária, Brazil’s

first culinary arts school. He later

coached Brazil’s top candidates for

the Bocuse d’Or competition, leading

his team to first place in Latin America

and 15th place globally in 2017. After

moving to California, Chef Victor

earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand for

his former restaurant, Caboco, which

he opened with restaurateur Bill

Chait. At Berimbau Brazilian Table, he

brings his expertise home, crafting a

menu that elevates traditional Brazilian

cuisine through refined technique

and a contemporary lens. When the

36th St location opened, he began as

a consulting chef and quickly became

our Executive Chef.

AM: What is the meaning behind the

name Berimbau Brazilian Table?

MDM: The Berimbau is a traditional

Brazilian instrument used in capoeira,

the Brazilian martial art. For us, it

represents the rhythm, spirit, and culture

of Brazil. The idea behind Berim-

bau Brazilian Table is to create a place

where guests feel transported and welcomed

into a space the celebrates the

many layers of our home.

AM: What are the flavors, spices, and ingredients

that are indicative of Brazilian

cuisine?

MDM: Our cuisine is very diverse, but

there are a few ingredients that really define

it. Yuca is a staple that can be transformed

into many things (farofa, flour,

dessert). And cajá and tapioca as well.

AM: For those coming to the Midtown location,

what can you tell us about the vibe,

ambiance, and the interiors?

MDM: The Midtown location has the

same welcoming spirit as the West Village,

but with a bit more flair. Our furnishings

all draw inspiration from the organic

elements of Brazil, and the art features a

diverse group of artists from different regions.

We wanted the space to reflect the

richness of everything Brazil has to offer.

We try to curate an inviting, lively, and

easy going atmosphere.

AM: Are there differences between the

Midtown and the West Village location?

MDM: The West Village location is more

intimate, and Midtown is larger, more of

a culinary and cultural hub for Brazil in the

heart of the city. It’s designed to accommodate

group dining, business lunches,

and more elevated experiences while still

carrying the same Brazilian spirit.

AM: For 36th St, what are 3 items For the

Table that you would suggest that we

have in mind for Lunch?

MDM: I would recommend the Dadinho,

Pastel, and Coxinha.

AM: What are 3 mains that we should have

in mind for Lunch?

MDM: Picanha Burger, Galinhada, Milanesa.

AM: Tell us about the Executive Lunch.

MDM: Because we are located in Midtown,

we’re surrounded by offices

and hotels, so we wanted to create

something perfect for business meetings

or quick lunches with colleagues.

Our Executive Lunch is a two-course

prix fixe menu featuring starters like

Pão de Queijo or Broccolini, followed

by mains such as Steak Salad or a Feijoada

Plate. Guests can also add desserts

like Sorbet or Pudim de Limão.

AM: What are 3 desserts that you suggest

that we should think about to

end our meal?

MDM: The Bolo de Mandioca is one of

our classics, while Brigadeiro is a true

Brazilian delicacy. Also the Mousse de

Maracujá.

AM: For Dinner, what are 3 For the

Table options that we should have

in mind when coming in with friends

and family?

MDM: Camarão na Cahcaca, Ceviche,

and Mandioca da Casa.

AM: What are 3 Mains for Dinner that

you suggest?

MDM: Strogonoff, Moqueca, and Red

Snapper.

AM: Tell us about the Picanha Feast

as we saw people ordering this and it

seems very popular!

MDM: The Picanha Feast serves

about three people, and features the

top sirloin cap, a beloved cut of Brazil.

It’s grilled under open flames until

tender and then served table side,

where Chef Victor slices it then lays

it over farofa. Served with a side of a

baby gem salad, broccolini rice, and

hand cut fries, it makes for a delicious

experience.

AM: We also noticed that you have

vegan options in the menu as well. Can

you tell us about these dishes?

MDM: We always want everyone to feel

included at the table, so we made sure to

feature vegan options. Brazilian cuisine

lends itself well to plant-based cooking

because many of our ingredients are vegetable-forward.

For the Moqueca Vegana,

it features a tucupi and coconut milk base

with plantain and okra plantain, while our

Feijoada Vegana replaces pork with tofu

and market vegetables but keeps all the

traditional flavors.

AM: Tell us about the Brazilian Social Hour

and what would cocktail and 2 dishes from

this menu be that we should enjoy?

MDM: Brazilian Social Hour is from Mon-

Fri from 4 pm – 7 pm. It’s a time for guests

to unwind and enjoy our stadium seating

and Caipirinha Bar. One of my favorite

pairings is the Negroni made with Amazzoni

Gin from Brazil, great with Beet Tartare

and our Pão de Queijo with pulled

pork and bacon.

@berimbau_nyc

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | Serafina

Marketing

ATHLEISURE LIST: NYC + Hamptons

NEW YORK PILATES

New York Pilates opened in 2013, at a time

when Pilates was basically locked behind

private sessions. With locations in various

neighborhoods in NYC as well as in a

number locations in the Hamptons, it is a

destination that many people talk about

when they are hitting the studio!

Former ballerina and Celebrity Pilates

Instructor Heather Andersen created a

class-based format that made it easier

to book, easier to show up, and easier to

stick with, while still staying completely

true to the method. It made Pilates feel

more athletic, more part of your lifestyle,

without losing what makes it work.

Her husband Brion Isaacs comes from the

nightlife scene and designed the studios

to be spaces people want to be! They are

open, airy, clean, and honest, each one

reflecting the raw, individual nature

of their history and neighborhood. Always

timeless and never trendy - like

New York. Each location has its own

personality. You might find yourself

in Bob Dylan’s old rehearsal studio at

their West Village location or in a loftlike

apartment setting at their Bowery

location. Montauk is so beachy

and relaxed with it’s water views,

while Bridgehampton is elevated and

chic. What ties them all together is

their signature pink lighting.

When attending a session, NYP uses

traditional Pilates reformers. They

give you range, control, and so much

room to actually move with intention.

It’s giving you resistance and support

at the same time, so you can make

something feel insanely hard without

ever losing precision. And that precision is

where the results actually come from.

For those taking their first class, start

with your breath. That’s the foundation

of Pilates and what keeps you connected

to everything you’re doing. Stay with the

baseline version of each exercise. Don’t

rush to level up. It’s not about doing the

hardest option, it’s about doing it right.

Understanding the movement and dialing

in your alignment is what actually changes

your body.

And don’t worry about being perfect. No

one is. The goal is to feel the work, not

just get through it. It clicks over time, and

when it does, it’s kind of addictive.

We offer one signature total body class,

Abs Arms Ass, and it’s very intentional. Pilates

was always meant to be a full-body

system, not split up like a gym workout.

It’s one body, one flow.

They have some big Hamptons events

planned that feel more like full experiences

than just classes. They’re fun,

social, and a little elevated.

In the city, they keep things smaller,

more spontaneous pop-ups, little

moments, things you have to be in

the mix to know about.

NEW YORK PILATES

17 W 17 th St Ground Floor

NY, NY 10011

Check the website for additional

locations in NYC and the Hamptons.

newyorkpilates.com

@newyorkpilates

PHOTOS | New York Pilates

ATHLEISURE LIST: Saint Mary Parish, Antigua

CARLISLE BAY

We sat down with Spa Manager Michelle

Plummer to talk about Carlisle Bay which

opened in 2004 and is located on Antigua,

specifically situated on the idyllic southern

coast of the island. The Caribbean island

is renowned for its crystal-clear turquoise

waters, powdery white sand beaches, and

lush tropical surroundings.

The resort features 87 ocean facing suites,

each with a private balcony or terrace and

many leading directly onto the beach, ensuring

guests have convenient access to

Antigua’s shores. Suites are divided into

six categories. The Garden Suites are ideal

for couples or small families seeking a

tranquil option surrounded by tropical

gardens. These offer partial ocean views

and accommodate up to 3 people. Ocean

Suites are best suited for couples or

guests who prioritize scenic views. These

are positioned on a quieter area of

the beach and feature full, uninterrupted

ocean views. The Beach Suites

are available as Beach Balcony or

Beach Terrace Suites. Both layouts

feature two bedrooms and sleep up

to 4 guests. Balcony Suites offer elevated

views, while Terrace Suites

provide direct beach access and outdoor

lounging and dining space. The

Bay Suites are our Adults Only option

featuring oceanfront privacy with

butler service, a private bar, and a secluded

location near the jetty. Lastly,

the Carlisle Suites are our largest

accommodations. These 3-bedroom

villas include spacious living and dining

areas and accommodate up to 6

guests. Some are suited with kitchens,

as well.

There are a range of amenities for relaxation,

activity, and entertainment. Dining

is available across 4 restaurants and

3 bars, ranging from a diverse array of

cuisine types. The resort boasts a private

white-sand beach with calm waters and

non-motorized water sports such as kayaking,

paddleboarding, sailing, and snorkeling.

There is a large free-form swimming

pool, with both family-friendly and

adult-only areas. For wellness, the CARA

Organic Spa provides treatments, massages,

and beauty services, alongside a

modern gym and a yoga and Pilates pavilion

with regular classes. Sports facilities

include tennis and Pickleball courts,

a water sports center, and guided activities

like nature walks and fitness sessions.

Additional features include an intimate

private cinema showing kid-friendly films

and classics with popcorn and cocktails,

a library room with stocked bookshelves,

and lounge areas for relaxation, a kids’

club for younger guests, boutique shopping,and

event and wedding planning services

for special occasions.

Carlisle Bay is location in Saint Mary

Parish which is one of 6 parishes

on Antigua, located on the island’s

southwestern coast. It is quieter and

more rural than other areas. The parish

features scenic beaches with calm

waters and white sand, inland hiking

trails and lush rainforest areas, making

it one of the greenest regions of

the island.

CARLISLE BAY

Old Road

Antigua & Barbuda

carlisle-bay.com

@carlisle_bay_antigua

PHOTOS COURTESY | Carlisle

Bay

moves out and extends his lease.

She decides to sign up for a figure

class and to increase her artistic

side. While her husband figures

things out, she also spends

time with her best friend, Raffi

who is also her brother-in-law!

Of course she has feelings for

him as well.

NO MATTER WHAT

Dial Press Trade Paperback

Cara Bastone

In No Matter What, we meet a couple

who has navigated trauma and is looking

to find their way back to one another. As

Roz and Vin try to find their way back,

they have complications as her husband

As they work through their separation,

she finds that the opprtunity

to hav eher estranged

husband as a figure model may

be a way for them to see one another

and to come back together

again!

THURSDAY NIGHT TIKI

LOUNGE: 52 DRINKS

THAT BRING THE

TROPICS HOME

The Collective Book Studio

Jennifer Newens

In this cookbook, you have a

cocktail for each week of the year

in Thursday Night Tiki Lounge:

52 Drinks That Bring The Tropics

Home which is perfect for your

home bar. You’ll enjoy classic favorites

as well as twists! You’ll be

introduced to infused cocktails

that have fresh juices, spiced syrups,

rums, and a number of spirits!

We’re already imagining a Mai Tai,

Blue Hawaiian, Doctor Funk and

more. Whether we enjoy them

while watching or streamed

show or are inviting others, we

are prepared!

In terms of subsitutions, he gets creative

with plant-based spins (swap out

raw fish with pan-seared ripe avocado

for a delicious “tataki”, or using mushrooms

to create the best “escargot”)

and shortcut cooking techniques (like

searing shoyu-marinated tuna in a hot

wok or pan to mimic smoking.

You’ll be able to blend sweet, savory,

and tangy Hawai’ian flavors into every

day meals, all the while centering the

cuisine’s legacy of communal-style eating.

We’re excited to try Pork Belly Tocino

with garlic rice for breakfast and Stir-

Fried Olives with ginger as a midday

snack, to a pan-fried Lemon-Caper

Mahi dinner.

OHANA STYLE: FOOD FROM

HAWAI’I FOR YOUR FAMILY

Clarkson Potter

Sheldon Simeon

Everyday Hawai’ian cuisine is explored in

this cookbook by 2X Top Chef fan favorite

Chef Sheldon Simeon who shares his

flavors with us. In his cookbook, Ohana

Style: Food From Hawai’i, For Your Family,

he shares over 100 recipes that are

not fussy and perfect for substituting

ingredients with these traditinal dishes.

From a culinary standpoint influences

come from Native Hawai’ian, Filipino,

Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese

and more!

BORN TO BOWL

HBO Original

HBO MAX

We get sucked into bowling matches

when we happen to catch them on TV. In

Born to Bowl, we get to learn more about

this sport and some of the biggest people

in it in this docuseries. The fact that

Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan, The Perfect

Couple, Caught Stealing) is

known for narrating HBO’s noted

NFL docuseries Hard Knocks

focusing on teams navigating

their seasons. In addition, we

get to know about famous bowlers

and those rising up. We see

them going through their championships,

hear how they sustain

themselves as they work in their

sport and outside or it, as well as

the community of this sport.

SCARPETTA

Prime Video Originals

Prime Video

In Prime Video’s Scarpetta, this

crime thriller based on Patricia

Cornwell’s novels introduces

us to forensic pathologists, Dr.

Kay Scarpetta (Nicole Kidman).

We learn that she is returning

to her hometown as Virginia’s

Chief Medical Examiner who is

working on a murder investigation

while also focusing on cases

from the past which allows us to

navigate dual timelines.

In the dual timeline at the start

of her career 28 years earlier, we

see a cast of characters solving

an array of murders. Interestingly

enough, the character of

Pete Marino is played by Bobby

Cannavale (Boardwalk Empire,

The Watcher, The Irishman) in

the present day while his real life

son, Jake (The Offer, Aaron Hernandez:

American Sports Story,

Inside Man) plays the same character

from the 90’s. The cast is

rounded out by Jamie Lee Curtis

(The Bear, The Sticky, Knives Out)

as well as Simon Baker (The Devil Wears

Prada, The Mentalist, The Guardian), and

Ariana DeBose (Hamilton, Westworld,

I.S.S.).

You can stream the episodes of the first

season and S2 has already been ordered.

LOVE TRAPPED: OWENS V.

ECHARD

iHeart Podcasts + Glass Podcasts

Spotify

of the case to allow his team to see an

array of discrepencies that were taking

place. At the time that this case came

to light, fans of Bachelor Nation, Reddit

and more came together to get to

the truth and to expose a history of a

pattern of behaviour by his accuser.

When we wached Clayton Echard’s season

of The Bachelor, he was not one of

the favorites and many of his choices

left people scratching their heads. Like

many on this show, they moved on to settle

into their new lives. In Love Trapped:

Owens V. Echard, this 10 episode podcast

investigation details through his

own words, legal teams, and depositions

when he dealt with a woman who

is alleged to engage in a paternity fraud

scheme.

What makes this story interesting is that

it is Internet sleuths dug into the details

AM MAR ISSUE #123

Transform your PDFs into Flipbooks and boost your revenue!

Delete template?

Save as template ?