Kristina Hayes
The commercial campaign I worked on for Astellas aired during the Super Bowl...
but I wasn't in that particular spot...boo!!! Haha, oh, well! My feeling is this campaign will air for more than a minute so let me know when and where you see my spot/spots/face on the side of a bus like Carrie Bradshaw! Only instead of advertising sex in the city, I'm advertising MENOPAUSE...or rather talking about VMS (Vasomotor Symptoms like hot flashes) occurring during menopause. Who knows? I shot this a year ago and they're still 'holding me' so I might actually be in menopause by the time I see my spots and that's fine! This is a campaign to raise awareness and break taboos about all the things ladies experience when their "friend" leaves for good (also Astellas will be rolling out a new drug for the symptoms of VMS soon). As a self-proclaimed aging-advocate I'm proud to represent a powerful phase in womanhood that is rarely talked about. Let's keep the conversation going about our bodies and our booties and our boobies, ladies! Especially with the government taking joyrides in their ass-backward time-machines having TOO much say and control over what we do with them...yet again.
Click HERE for a link to an article about this spot being broadcast during the most testosterone-filled day of the year...the Super Bowl.
Devastating news about Star Ballroom, home of Milonga Las Estrellas.
My makeup artist, Dina, inventor of Dinair airbrush machine. We became fast friends and I made a few videos showing off her airbrush makeup and machine because it's BOMB! Click here to see!
In July 2021, I was fully vaccinated and ventured out of my apartment for a new work/dance endeavor with my friend, Lauren. Our goal was to help bring tango back to Southern California with Milonga Las Estrellas at Star Ballroom in Monterey Park after more than a year and a half of social distancing. This would be my first attempt at working in the real world since the shut-down (other than doing Zoom visits as Mrs. Claus at Christmas and working a one-day guest star on Apple TV's "The Morning Show" in 2020) and I was excited to help tangeuros/tangeuras embrace again. In fact, our first milonga (that's a dance social designated for tango) was called EMBRACE. My small business Waltz Through Life was no longer able to bring dance to assisted livings and dementia units due to Covid so I had the time and energy to give my whole heart to MLE,
We went on to organize and host milongas (also, cancel and reschedule them due to Covid mandates or personal concerns over new variants) and the owners/managers of Star Ballroom, Ming Wei Ma (Mr. Ma to me) and Maria Liang, were so accommodating, working so hard to help us by offering discounted rental fees, hands-on help and constant encouragement. Self-employed dance instructors and studios struggled to get classes going again because enrollment was at an all-time low. It is no small feat to keep a dance studio open, but to do it during a pandemic was a miracle.
The dance world, and most things, were getting back to "normal" moving into 2023, feeling like the pandemic was finally behind us. Then on January 21st, Star Ballroom made national news when a gunman walked in during a Lunar New Year celebration and shot and killed 11 people in what is now being called the worst mass shooting in California's history. Mr. Ma (72) who tried to stop the gunman did not survive. I didn't know the other ten victims personally like Mr. Ma, but they were all familiar faces. I remember their smiles, curiosity and their questions when Lauren and I would be prepping an event because of course that meant another possible chance to dance.
On March 13, the day before President Biden came to visit Monterey Park to address the nation about gun reform and reveal his new executive order implementing new gun laws, Maria took down Star's sign and officially closed the doors to the beloved ballroom she had built with Ma.
Mr. Ma was without a doubt one of the most positive people I've ever met. He spoke little English, but he knew the words "I love you" and he said them often to let you know you were appreciated and seen. He immigrated to Los Angeles from China many moons ago and lived his dream of opening a ballroom dance studio (one of only 3 legitimate ballrooms in SoCal based on size and quality of dance floor) and created a place for the community of Monterey Park to dance, sing karaoke and ultimately connect. Most of the students were Chinese immigrants and senior citizens who found friendship, purpose and refuge at Star. There are no silver linings in this story. Can there be when people are taken from the world in such a way? But I find solace in the fact that they died dancing, holding friends to music. Dance in peace.
For more info on this tragic shooting:
