We had the good fortune of connecting with Simeon Den and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Simeon, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I wrote a lengthy answer to one of these questions and somehow it got lost or erased. I’ll search or write another one and submit by email?

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m joyfully aware that everything that I’ve done in the past has prepared me for the now: I went to college in 1968 majoring in Art, unintentionally started studying dance, and two years later intentionally became professional dancer in NY doing concert dance performances and Broadway shows.
In 1983 I moved back to Hawaii to visit and decided to stay for a while so I started teaching dance.
My success at teaching dance & theater prompted me to open a dance studio. In addition to running the school I produced dance & theater events, directed a dance company (choreography, performing, PR, etc.) and produced an annual Miss Island Goddess drag pageant. (“Start your engines!”)
Due to my HIV status I started investigating and studying alternative healing techniques and practices to treat symptoms attributed to AIDS. As a result of my studies in Ch’i energy work that is sourced from the healing protocols of the Shaolin Monks I was chosen by my mentor to become her teaching assistant and administered her classes and public speaking engagements.
When the HIV/AIDS meds became available in 1995 it became a revelation that I was not going to die! All well and good but I had not planned a future, financially or otherwise. I had to catch up. As fate would have it, synchronistically the director of the Broadway national tour of “The King & I” called me out-of-the-blue and hired me. (I had the done the revival on BWay with Yul Brynner and we were staging the original choreography that I knew.
I toured for two years and rather than returning to Hawaii I moved to LA and became a fine art & commercial photographer with a client base that included Cindy Crawford, John Waters, and Michael York. (www.PalladinoDenPhotography.com)
I retired 12 years ago and my husband Peter Palladino and I moved to Cathedral City outside Palm Springs, where we bought the historic house of the posthumously celebrated Modernist painter, Agnes Pelton, and started a non-profit to sustain her legacy. (Her retrospective last year at the Whitney Museum killed!) We reconstructed the gardens and restored the original brick structure built in 1938 and preserved it’s historic integrity in hopes that it will eventually be. included in the National Registry of Historic Homes. Under the umbrella of our non-profit Agnes Pelton Society, we have hosted neighborhood events to build community and acknowledge our diverse community of predominantly multi-generational Latinos and LGBTQ+ families. Events include music & dance performances, art lectures, childrens art classes, fiestas, marriage commitment gatherings, commissions for local artists to paint murals, and an annual Agnes Pelton Museum Day when we open the house to the public.
In my retirement I utilized all my past experience and opened the Simeon Den Art Gallery that was ground zero for a photo studio, theater space for dance & spoken word performances, classroom to teach children art, and gallery space for art installations; events that have been affectionately called “Happenings,” referencing the 1960’s gatherings..
Today, I teach, produce, and conduct wellness events– (www.SimeonDenWellness.com) at our Agnes Pelton House. To be on Purpose sharing the wisdom gained from my years of mindfulness and spiritual studies, I continue to teach yoga & meditation twice-a-week poolside at my house and a weekly OG Modern Dance class, both on Zoom.
As a result of everything I have done in the past, my current “career” is to conduct Sound Baths in the sculpture garden with Tibetan musical implements and the crystal “singing” bowls for balancing chakra energy.
The Universe has been complicit in my self-realizations. It conspires with me. I know that it only wants the best for me and I have to slap myself and remember that I often get in the way! I try to take my own advice that I teach my younger students–
Be fearless,
anchor myself in Gratitude,
and GET OUT OF THE WAY!
As I approach my 72nd year I continue to do what I have intuited from my very modest beginnings– conspire to live my life as a work of Art… in progress.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Visit the Salon Sea Drive through Joshua Tree National Park
Experience the sound bath at the Integratron !
Dinner at La Tablita or La Perlita for Mexican food
Cruise through the new Agua Caliente Casino (10 min walk from my house)
Hike to nearby extinct Cathedral Canyon Falls (how Cathedral City was named)
A dinner party at my house with my coterie of artist friends catered by me
Take my yoga/meditation class
Hang out in our living room, Peton’s painting studio, a trip back in time
Show-off Peter Palladino’s fantastic mosaics, which in time will be Legendary
Hike to the Indian Canyon falls in Palm Springs
Cocktails in my sculpture garden
Coffee in my meditation garden
Experience of my sound bath meditation with crystal “singing” bowls

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Peter Palladino, my husband

Website: www.SimeonDenWellness.com

Instagram: @simeon.den

Twitter: @Simeon_Yoga

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simeon.den

Youtube: simeon den

Other: www.AgnesPeltonSociety.com www.PalladinoDenPhotography.com

Image Credits
Peter Palladino

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