Today we’d like to introduce you to Khalil Bleux
Hi Khalil, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I am a third-generation San Diego native; raised in, or more accurately stated, raised by the Southeast Community. I exist in mosaic, masterfully pieced together with a little bit of every community member along the way who saw me as a project worth working on. Because of them, I am great. Because of them, I am grateful.
I am most thankful for two things: art and community. To these two things, I owe my life, and of these two things, I have made my life’s work. I was first called to the stage in the third grade and, true to Shakespearean promise, all the world became one. I am a child of theatre. I found a home in that space for the first time and have lived there ever since. I love storytelling and exploring all the many ways to tell a good story. I think that is why I liked theatre so much growing up, unlike other art disciplines, in the theatre I didn’t have to limit myself to being one type of storyteller, I could sing, dance, act, write, paint, sculpt, because in the world of theatre, anything is possible and everything is useful to help bring a story to life.
When I was 15, I got an opportunity to put my theatre skills to use off stage, my telling story translated into an early career in youth advocacy, which led to community organizing and social work so I have spent the last 20 years of my life in social services working to raise the places that once raised me.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Every story has its struggles. In fact, I’ve never heard a good story without struggle. Because of that, I am not ashamed of mine. I grew up a foster child and a ward of the court. I was frequently shipped around San Diego County without regard for stability, safety, or sanity. I was deeply affected and relied heavily on the refuge that the world of art built around me. the capacity that art gave me to be a curious and creative problem solver gave me a superpowered lens to examine and navigate my life’s challenges, and to generate joy and hope for myself. art empowered me to use imagination to envision different possibilities and use all of the tools and materials around me to create the world I wanted to see and exist in.
Ultimately mental health emerged as a priority for me. Along the way, I have lost family members, a teacher, two mentors, a few friends, a couple of clients, and nearly myself to suicide. Sometimes in life, you choose your work and career, and then there are those special times when your work chooses you. The combination of my lived and professional experiences shaped me in such a way that I became a safe container to help people hold their pain. I understood it uniquely and was passionate about supporting people to grow through personal circumstances as well as navigating the gaps in care from systems that due to lack of empathy and equity often reinforce hopelessness. I also had an embodied understanding of a truth that is often minimized, even to the detriment of humanity. And that truth is, when it comes to healing, hope and positive human development, art, and creativity are the ONLY thing that works. At some point in my careers, it just clicked. It was no accident that I arrived in this world as an artist. It clicked that neither my existence nor my experience was accidental. I had everything I needed to do exactly what I came here to do. I had a purpose and I knew that my performance in the world would help point people to thiers.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Agency 515; The Social Education Theatre?
I founded Agency 515; The Social Education Theatre, we are a creative youth development organization that focuses on life affirmation through AART. which in our space is an acronym for Attitudes, Awareness, and Relationships Transformation. Agency 515’s mission is to set the stage for young people and their communities to reclaim voice, power, and possibility for themselves through the transformative process of creativity and storytelling. We exist to realize a world where all young people live to tell their whole stories. A world where they are seen, heard, and supported to play a leading role in their own lives. We are here to activate spaces where young people have the safety and support to explore and develop their own Identities, a world where they each feel embraced and encouraged by things that they discover. We create life-affirming experiences and help develop pathways to wellness and liberation through arts-based social emotional learning. We offer tools that support young people’s social and emotional growth and share stories that promote hope and healing. The core of our work is mental health education and suicide prevention. Each of our programs and services is designed to increase agency by supporting young people to strengthen literacy and communication, build healthy and healing relationships and develop character, leadership, and artistry.
I think what sets us apart is that we are an intentionally intimate organization that is founded and completely operated by artists of color. We personally reflect the identities, cultures, and experiences of our people. This serves as a core driver of our work. All of our artists who lead this work have lived experiences and we are guided by a very deep and personal investment in the wellness and liberation of the people we see as our own. We believe strongly in the transformative power of story. Stories are what hold us and grow us. We believe that every young person has a fundamental need and basic human right to know and share their whole story. As a community, we have a fundamental need and basic human responsibility to listen and learn. At The SET, we offer a platform to share the wisdom of lived experience. We use theatre arts as a vehicle to move important conversations and grow relationships throughout our communities. We tell stories that powerfully break down silence and the stigmas that sustain issues of social, racial and relational inequities as they are. We plant seeds at the soul of the matter; raising community consciousness and encouraging collaborative actions that help transform the ways we connect and care for one another. Our works serve to reflect the core of who we are as human beings and the critical roles that we all play in both strengthening and supporting the connection, value and wellbeing of all people in our communities.
We offer suicide prevention trainings, tailored experiences that teach people to recognize the warning signs, asked the right questions and refer someone to the right resources for support. We host community training events that folks can attend or contact us to schedule a training event for their classrooms, offices and households.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I dont belive in luck. I believe in purpose. Purpose is poetry. Sometimes it takes a while to see how things in life are poetically lining up in your favor. Sometimes you don’t see how your experiences are expanding you until you look in the mirror one day and see wings. I believe sometimes, due to conditioning, we say “luck” when we mean “gratitude” because it relieves us from ownership of ourselves and everything we bring into the world. The idea of “luck” creates a cushion that says we arent fully responsible for failure. Artsits understand failure as a necessary component to creative process. We understand the purpose in it. I am an accumulation of failures that have forged beauty in unexpected places. That is art.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://aart.agency515.org
- Instagram: @515TheSET
