Staff/Apr 30, 2022
We have just included on our Nothern California Artistic Swimming Alliance (NCASA) webpage our first 'artswim' (artistic swimming) performance group based in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We know there are many artswim performance groups out there, but we chose to include the Aqualillies because they embody what we believe in: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). In the past few years, there has been great effort locally and nationally to become more inclusive in our sport and to showcase the talents of many ethnic, racial, and culturally diverse populations, which also includes athletes with disabilities (AWD). The Aqualillies recruited their first known AWD, Raquel Boales (pictured in the middle) who is from Northern California and competes with a local team, Bay Area Synchro, which primarily serves AWD. She also helps coach the AWD team and is the co-founder of the nonprofit, Artistic Swim AWD (Artistic Swimming for Athletes with Disabilities). www.artisticswimawd.org
Raquel is a pioneer who has worked tirelessly to bring together AWD from around the World back into the sport of artistic swimming in hope that it can be added as a future Paralympic Sport. Raquel is also multiracial and ethnically diverse and brings her mix and voice to represent many in this sport for DEI. Congrats to the Aqualillies for taking the steps to join our Northern Calif Artistic Swimming Alliance! For further information about the performance group and to inquire about bookings locally, nationally and internationally, please visit:
Synchronized Swimmers for events, parties, weddings & more... (aqualillies.com)