In the summer of 2024, Mia Chong graduated from Northeastern with a master’s degree in Arts Administration and Cultural Entrepreneurship (AACE). As she celebrated this milestone, another life-changing moment came to fruition: the launch of the inaugural season of her dance company, EIGHT/MOVES. It was a full-circle moment for Chong. When she first enrolled in the AACE program, one of her primary goals was to start a dance company.  This felt like a natural next step in her work as a dancer, choreographer, and director.  

The AACE program gave Chong the insight she needed to figure out important parts of her business. Chong shared, “I definitely learned a lot in the program, but especially in the [culminating] Experiential Study course. It was really nice to have organized time to get advice and mentoring on what I wanted to do with my company.” Throughout the program, she worked closely with Mara Sidmore, Visiting Associate Teaching Professor of Theatre and AACE Program Coordinator, on what Chong described as “foundational admin work” like grant writing, event planning, and budgeting. The two worked together on grant applications for EIGHT/MOVES. 

“[Mara] really taught me a lot about being a clear communicator… [in] the grant applications you have 100 characters to say everything you need to describe this huge idea. She really helped me distill my ideas to their purest form.” 

Chong wasn’t expecting to win any grants in the first year of her company, but to her surprise, EIGHT/MOVES was awarded a grant for $10,000. That grant helped her meet her budgetary goals, a feat for any new business. 

The AACE program also helped Chong with one of the biggest challenges for any non-profit: fundraising. “I learned a lot about fundraising…I learned a lot about organically cultivating relationships with donors and finding the style of fundraising that works for me. [As a] small dance company, we’re not selling a product. [Mara] really helped me get in touch with the idea of sharing an experience with people, which is a major part of what my company is aiming to do. I had never thought about raising money in terms of also bolstering community, but that made a [big] difference with the way that I approached our first season of programming.” 

Chong completed her AACE degree part-time while working as a dancer for companies in San Francisco, CA. The part-time structure — in addition to asynchronous classes — made the program a great fit for her. In addition to taking classes and working, she was able to spend much of her time building the business plan for EIGHT/MOVES. Despite the asynchronous schedule, Chong expressed that she got to know her classmates well thanks to robust online discussions. 

To learn more about EIGHT/MOVES, go to https://www.eightmoves.org/our-team