SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — As Hurricane Maria roared over Puerto Rico in September 2017, Marena Pérez and Aureo Andino hunkered down inside their ballet studio. The couple by no means imagined that they, their daughter and Pérez’s dad and mom would stay there for 3 months, sleeping on pullout couches and counting on a gasoline generator.
The Class 4 hurricane flooded Pérez and Andino’s home with 4 ft of water. Unable to return residence, the founders and administrators of Mauro Ballet determined to open their doorways to the neighborhood, instructing a free dance class every afternoon.
“It grew to become an oasis for dancers in Puerto Rico,” mentioned Andino. However Mauro Ballet nonetheless struggled — the dance firm didn’t make cash for 18 months.
It survived partly due to assist from the Flamboyan Arts Fund, a $22 million initiative propelled by Lin-Manuel Miranda and his household, and funded primarily by cash raised throughout a 2019 run of Miranda’s acclaimed Broadway musical “Hamilton” in San Juan.
“Artists all the time get ignored of the dialog,” Miranda, an award-winning writer and performer whose parents have been raised in Puerto Rico, advised The Related Press. “We needed to verify they weren’t forgotten in reduction efforts.”
As an alternative of being forgotten, artists assumed important roles, serving to the archipelago grieve from Maria’s devastation and articulating the challenges Puerto Ricans confronted.
“You should use the humanities in so some ways to specific your emotions, and to heal,” mentioned Pérez.
The Flamboyan Arts Fund has supported 110 Puerto Rican arts organizations and 900 artists. Now the Miranda family and the D.C.-based Flamboyan Basis are committing a further $10 million to Puerto Rican arts and tradition.
Regardless of federal funding cuts to arts and humanities, the brand new section of giving is supposed to transcend emergency reduction — serving to arts and tradition thrive and even change into an financial driver for the archipelago.
“It simply provides us an excessive amount of again,” mentioned Miranda, 45. “You probably have ever loved the work that comes from this island and its descendants, to put money into that future is necessary.”
Hurricane Maria led to an estimated nearly 3,000 deaths, most of them related to the lack of power, clean water, and other services. Damages surpassed $115 billion, and energy outages lasted 11 months in some locations.
The destruction was so huge that Marianne Ramírez Aponte, government director and chief curator of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in San Juan, frightened the cultural sector couldn’t overcome it.
“It was a horrible state of affairs, however we have been in a position to show the significance of artwork within the social course of,” mentioned Yari Helfeld, government director of the neighborhood theater firm Y No Había Luz.
Helfeld acquired requests to carry out from remoted communities in Puerto Rico’s central mountains simply weeks after the storm. She was stunned to be requested for theater when individuals nonetheless struggled to entry meals and water.
“They mentioned, ‘You’re serving to heal the spirit,’” mentioned Helfeld.
Artists might additionally channel and contextualize the general public frustration over the U.S. territory’s sluggish restoration. Maria uncovered the implications of what many Puerto Ricans nonetheless contemplate a colonial relationship with the U.S.
After over 120,000 Puerto Ricans left the archipelago searching for stability, a wave of U.S. and overseas traders and distant staff descended, worsening displacement and costs.
Poetry, work and performances confronting these realities helped individuals “course of intellectually, emotionally, what had occurred to the nation,” mentioned Ramírez Aponte.
Artists like Rayze Michelle Ostolaza Oquendo expressed the territory’s hopes and disappointments.
“I’ve a dream, and it’s easy: to be allowed to be from right here, to die on this land and whistle just like the coquí, it’s not a lot to ask,” she wrote in her 2024 poem “Ser Puertorriqueño,” or “To Be Puerto Rican.”
Cash from the Flamboyan Arts Fund supported fellowships for Ostolaza Oquendo and different writers. It helped pay studio lease and wages, and restored a flooded wing of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico.
The funding bolstered the sector’s resilience, equipping museums and cultural facilities with photo voltaic panels and batteries, emergency meals and first-aid kits to proceed arts programming and assist communities after disasters. A sweeping effort to digitize 1,200 artwork items and artifacts throughout the archipelago grew to become a lifeline throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, when museums might proceed their programming on-line.
The Miranda Household Fund and the Flamboyan Basis deliberate to wind down the mission after granting all $22 million. As an alternative, they’re committing extra and inspiring donors to affix them.
“As a result of it’s been profitable, however largely as a result of it’s wanted nonetheless, we’ve determined to proceed it,” mentioned Kristin Ehrgood, who co-founded the Flamboyan Basis along with her husband Vadim Nikitine and serves as its CEO. “Funding for arts and humanities organizations continues to say no.”
President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts, Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Companies, all of which assist Puerto Rican establishments. The Puerto Rico Humanities Council noticed its 2025 normal working grant minimize by over half.
Ehrgood mentioned the 2 households need the brand new funds to additionally transcend emergency reduction, amplifying Puerto Rico’s expertise and even stimulating its economic system.
This month, Latin music celebrity and 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show headlinerBad Bunny accomplished a 31-concert residency in San Juan estimated to have injected $733 million into the native economic system on prime of a multiyear Amazon Music partnership that may assist native causes.
His latest album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is a celebration of his homeland that showcases native musicians and beloved musical style like plena and salsa. It additionally calls out the territory’s political status and fight against displacement in songs like “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii,” or “What Occurred to Hawaii.”
Miranda known as Dangerous Bunny’s method “sensible.”
There are extra artists who can carry these messages, in the event that they’re backed.
“To assist voices that talk on behalf of the island and inform the story of the island is a internet plus,” mentioned Miranda. “Puerto Rico all the time inform us what’s happening.”
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Related Press protection of philanthropy and nonprofits receives assist by way of the AP’s collaboration with The Dialog US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely chargeable for this content material. For all of AP’s philanthropy protection, go to https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
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