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ABOUT LINEAGE
Lineage’s 25 year history is that of a dance company that grew into a community cultural hub and performing arts center for Pasadena and the surrounding areas. Founded by Artistic Director Hilary Thomas in 1999, Lineage began as a dedicated group of artists committed to raising funds and awareness for local nonprofits with dance performances, and incorporated into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2007. In 2009, thanks to a connection to the Mark Morris Dance Group’s Dance for Parkinson’s program, Lineage’s dancers learned about the power of dance in managing symptoms of neurological challenges like Parkinson’s, and launched a series of free weekly dance classes for neurotypical adults.
The company acquired its first home in Old Town Pasadena in 2010 and began expanding its offerings of performances, community events, and dance education. As the lease in Old Pasadena expired in 2018, Lineage negotiated a long-term lease in a new, much larger, 6,200sf building in Northwest Pasadena–an area identified by residents as under-resourced in arts opportunities. After a year of intensive community outreach that confirmed that our presence was desired, Lineage completed a $650,000 capital campaign which transformed a long-abandoned property into a new community arts hub.
Now, Lineage is hosting dance and creative arts classes onsite six days a week, producing more than eight dance and theater shows a year, hosting partnering artist and organization residencies, and holding community meetings and events in our new home. Our thriving Artists in Schools program now works with over 350 public schools students in Pasadena to create a pipeline of dance in the Pasadena Unified School District. We’ve held many community events in our space, including city council-member and neighborhood meetings, and a climate-change concert. In addition, Lineage gives back to the community by providing a theatre facility for other nonprofits who do not have their own venue.
Here at Lineage we are focused on being a home for our diverse community to connect through the arts, and we achieve this through several pillars:
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“Dancing Through Life” and Dance for Joy programs where we provide free specialized acting, singing, and dancing classes for adults with Parkinson's, MS, Stroke, and other developmental disabilities.
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Our teaching artists program where we provide professional dance teachers at John Muir HS, Eliot Magnet, Pasadena HS, and Blair.
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Our company of artists who perform with local nonprofits, at community events, and in Lineage productions. These artists also teach classes, and lead our kids/teen summer broadway camps.
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Providing an affordable rental space to local nonprofits, and artists to execute their workshops, classes, and performances.
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Collaborating with local nonprofits and public figures to provide resources for the community. This summer we collaborated with La Cura to host a LA Climate Summit.
Lineage Performing Arts Center Cultural Equity and Inclusion Statement and Policy
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January2025
A Definition of cultural equity from Americans for the Arts:
“Cultural equity embodies the values, policies, and practices that ensure that all people—including but not limited to those who have been historically underrepresented based on race/ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizenship status, or religion—are represented in the development of arts policy; the support of artists; the nurturing of accessible, thriving venues for expression; and the fair distribution of programmatic, financial, and informational resources.”
https://www.americansforthearts.org/about-americans-for-the-arts/statement-on-cultural-equity
STATEMENT
Acknowledging that Lineage’s mission is to make the arts accessible to all and that our goal is to be a home for connecting through the arts, it follows that access to the arts through Lineage must be equitable, and that our plan to accomplish that mission must be inclusive. In addition, we acknowledge that cultural equity is necessary for the long-term viability of the greater arts community. As both individuals and an organization, Lineage recognizes and implements the life-long work that goes into making our organization a vehicle for positive change.
It is our experience that inequitable access to the arts harms communities and reinforces outdated systematic practices including, but not limited to, white supremacy, systemic racism, and the hetero-patriarchy. It is also our experience that arts organizations are able to undo some of the harm that inequity causes through the equitable distribution of resources, as well as uplifting the voices and stories of oppressed (or silenced/marginalized)groups, and identifying, challenging, and subverting harmful cultural norms and practices. We therefore affirm our commitment to equitable access to the professional, inspiring, creative organization that Lineage is, and to support artists and non-artists alike in equitable access to a creative life. Lineage does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, ancestry, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its activities or operations. We reaffirm our commitment to inclusive planning and equitable access through the following policy:
POLICY
To ensure that Lineage is continuously evaluating all of its programs and policies on inclusion, equity, and empowerment, Lineage will establish and retain a diverse Cultural Equity Committee made up of Lineage staff, board members, volunteers, and participants. Our efforts will include listening to the voices of diverse individuals who we serve through survey and focus group conversations
To ensure that this Statement and Policy are implemented, Lineage has created a Strategic Plan that includes this statement and policy; it includes evaluation and strengthening of our pay structures, hiring practices, season programming, and community engagement through an actively anti-racist lens.
To ensure inclusive planning, Lineage will actively recruit and support diverse board members, staff, volunteers, artists, and other collaborators, who represent the diversity of the communities we serve.
To ensure that Lineage’s programming responds to the needs of our community, Lineage will regularly survey our audiences to better understand who our work benefits. If the cumulative statistics about our programs do not reflect the diversity of our community, we will reallocate both human and capital resources and focus to better serve the community.
To ensure that Lineage is uplifting and providing a platform for those who are historically underserved and underrepresented, we commit to partnering with other organizations who uphold similar anti-racist values of moving towards inclusion and representation. We also continue to support organizations that are not fortunate enough to have a space for their art by allowing them to use our space at a reduced cost or even at no cost and also helping them with our own staff for their needs while on site.
We understand that this policy must be designed to grow and evolve with our understanding of our place within our community, so this policy and statement must be (reviewed, updated (as needed) and amended by future administrators and boards.(on an annual basis or as the policy needs to be reexamined, whichever comes first, as this is a living document.
ADOPTED BY THE LINEAGE BOARD on January 14, 2025
Getting To Lineage
Lineage is located at 920 E. Mountain Street in Pasadena, in the same building as the CVS on the corner of Lake and Mountain. Because we're so new, we recommend caution when using a map app to locate us by name.
We are located just blocks from the Lake Avenue stop of Metro L-Line.
PARKING
Free parking is located in the CVS lot - please ignore the 1-hour parking signs in the lot.
When leaving Lineage, please exit either onto Lake, or onto Mountain in the direction of Lake. We ask that our guests respect our residential neighbors by staying on major streets coming and going from Lineage.
