The Ritual to Beauty

In collaboration with Dominican writers and Miss Rizos Salon, we are excited to share the short film created by Shenny de Los Angeles and Maria Marrone. “The ritual to beauty” is screening this November 20th at Miss Rizos Salon in Uptown Manhattan.

Inspired by Shenny's one-woman show “What Happens to Brown Girls Who Never Learn How to Love Themselves Brown?”, this piece invites you to witness the meaning of beauty through three generations of Dominican women. We invite you to screen the film and join us in a conversation on the nature of your relationships with your mothers, the stories we've heard passed down about life before us, and healing generational wounds through our relationship with rituals.

A part of my intention for this event is to facilitate conversation about the journey to forgiving ourselves, acceptance, and witnessing our own magic; especially for folks who have also gone through the experience of chemically relaxing their hair. In making this film, I realized both my mother and grandmother had a lot of regrets in the process of relaxing their daughter’s hair. These are such nuanced experiences that I don’t feel are talked about through the lens of survival. Yall. We survived that! And it’s sacred to share out loud within our community how we’ve come out of the experience- alive!! This is also in celebration of Dominican women as we are a miracle to witness.”-Shenny

About Shenny: 

Shenny de Los Angeles is a Dominican-American interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn.  Her work focuses on healing generational trauma, inviting every hurt to free itself into joy.Shenny centralizes Dominican women/femmes in her writing; affirming the beauty in being alive. Her work has been featured at the Hot Docs Film Festival, Latinx Playwright Circle, Latina Magazine, Caribbean Writers, and The People's Forum to name a few! Currently, Shenny is an Artist in Residence at both Mabou Mines Theatre and Brooklyn Arts Exchange, where she is developing her one woman show entitled “What Happens to Brown Girls Who Never Learn How to Love Themselves Brown?” which will be performed live this December 2021! The process of working on this play soon became the inspiration for creating her short film "the ritual to beauty."