Author: Annelisa Stephan

I'm assistant director for digital content strategy and UX in Getty Communications. In this role I lead a team focused on web, user experience, and digital media that seeks to connect new audiences to old art. From 2010 to 2019 I also edited the Getty Iris. I have a B.A. from Yale in History of Art and an M.A. from UCLA in Germanic Linguistics, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin, Germany.

Be Free, Be Big

Reina Hidalgo and Asiel Hardison have been collaborating for 13 years—and dancing almost as long as they’ve been walking. Today they’re professional dancers, teachers, choreographers, and TV producers; Asiel is Lady Gaga’s dance captain, and you may have seen Reina on stage with Rihanna, Pink, or Missy Elliott.

They didn’t choose dance; it chose them. “I was always that one little kid dancing at parties and my mom was like, ‘we need to put her in something‘,” says Reina. Today their creative process “starts with the music inspiring an emotion from your body,” says Asiel. The space of the Getty enhances the process by inspiring them to “be free and big.”

Peek inside Reina and Asiel’s dance studio and take in the Getty air and landscape with them in this #GettyInspired video.

Connect with Reina Hidalgo

Twitter: @REINAHIDALGO521 | Instagram: @reinahidalgo521 | Website: www.reina-hidalgo.squarespace.com

Connect with Asiel Hardison

Twitter: @asielhardison | Instagram: @asielhardison

People and Ideas

my name is: Jim Cuno

i make: Collaboration

As a high schooler Jim Cuno was a football star. Today he’s president and CEO of the Getty Trust—which means he works with over 1,000 colleagues to make the world a better place through art, from conserving cultural heritage around the world to building our art and archives. What both roles have in common is an emphasis on teamwork.

There are two aspects to his job, Jim explains: people and ideas. “There’s a constant renewal of inspiration by working with these brilliant people,” he says of the Getty community, which includes our staff as well as visiting scholars and artists who enrich our campus life throughout the year. “I’m better working with them than I am alone.”

The other is thinking, reading, and writing. “Writing is like building something…the craftsmanship is a perpetual source of inspiration from one sentence to the next. It’s the doing things that makes it work for me.”

Meet Jim and hear what moves him to make a difference in the world in this #GettyInspired video.

Read Jim’s 2015 year in review »