Ashlieya featured in Regard Magazine sharing why creativity is more than performance

REGARD Magazine’s “10 THINGS” feature paints a vivid portrait of Ashlieya “Lieya” Mariano as a performing artist, studio owner, and nonprofit founder using the arts as a vehicle for deep emotional and social transformation in young people. Read the article here.

Who Ashlieya Mariano Is

Ashlieya Mariano, known as Lieya, comes from a rich performing arts background and channels that experience into mentoring youth through Dance Masters Performing Arts Studio. She expands her impact through Builders Of A Better World, a nonprofit focused on social‑emotional learning, creative arts education, and leadership development for underserved communities.

From Performance To Impact

In the interview, Lieya describes performance as inherently impactful because it transforms both the performer and the audience through honest expression rather than polished perfection. Her realization that the arts are about “expansion” and “capacity” came through many small moments—students standing taller, audience members feeling seen, and her own growth when embodying braver or softer characters on stage.

Confidence, Discipline, And Identity

At Dance Masters, Lieya frames confidence not as a personality trait but as a nervous system pattern built through repeated evidence that students can fail, recover, and still belong. She defines discipline as devotion and identity in motion—choosing alignment over impulse and practicing regularly as an expression of “Whole Wellness” for body, mind, and spirit, rather than mere obedience.

Transformations Inside The Studio

The article highlights powerful shifts when students move from “I hope I’m good enough” to “I understand how growth actually works.” Through repeated, supported exposure to performance, stage fright turns into regulated presence under pressure, which Lieya views as a transferable life skill that builds psychological resilience far beyond the stage.

The A.R.T.S. Emotional Literacy Framework

Lieya shares her A.R.T.S. framework—Awareness, Representation, Transformation, and Social Integration—as emotional literacy in motion. She argues that rehearsals train regulation, performance trains resilience, and collaboration trains empathy, making the arts one of the most efficient environments for developing emotional intelligence.

Why Arts Education Is Essential

For children in underserved communities, Lieya insists that arts education is infrastructure, not enrichment. Creative training, she explains, builds attention, impulse regulation, identity coherence, and social belonging, creating protective factors like mentorship and community that help youth truly thrive rather than just survive.

Redefining Leadership For The Next Generation

Lieya’s nonprofit centers leadership as “embodied, unwavering coherence,” where a leader’s internal experience, values, communication, and actions align. She emphasizes regulation, clear communication, and collaboration across difference as core skills for young leaders inheriting a culturally and ideologically diverse world.

Personal Drive Behind Her Work

Balancing acting, business ownership, and nonprofit leadership, Lieya says she is driven by human potential and the desire to build an ethical architecture that will outlast her. Writing, filmmaking, acting, and business allow her to metabolize the human experience into scalable structures, while nonprofit work ensures access is not limited by privilege.

Builders Of A Better World: What’s Next

Looking ahead, Builders Of A Better World aims to expand scholarship access, deepen program quality, strengthen community partnerships, and increase transportation and program options for youth. Lieya invites individuals to support through volunteering, sponsoring children, partnering organizationally, and funding operational infrastructure to sustain long‑term impact.

A Message To Unseen Young People

The article closes with a powerful message to young people who feel unseen: uncertainty is the beginning of discovery, and potential is expandable rather than fixed. By engaging in the arts and other disciplines, youth can safely experiment with identity, gather evidence of their capacity, and refuse to diminish their uniqueness in a world that needs their courage and creativity.