Help the InSpire Engine Family

We're Angelo and Ylsa.

Over the past two decades we have poured our blood, sweat and tears into building a life and career in the performing arts industry in Western New York.

We started off as a vaudevillian duo singing, dancing and telling jokes at local ice cream shops and our business rapidly grew to the point where we were producing, performing in and selling out full-scale productions.

In 2012 we bought a 150 year old cathedral and turned it into the Spire Theater, also known as the Inspire Development Center, an arts and culture Multiplex.

It wasn't without challenges but our business was really starting to take off, creating a gathering place for the community which is the one thing we know how to do best.

But then, the world was turned upside down and we were forced to close our doors for the foreseeable future.

So we piled ourselves and our 3 children Rya, Logi, and Kati into this 2005 Ford E350 shuttle bus and making it our tiny off-grid home on wheels

Be sure to subscribe to our channel so you can join us on the adventures ahead.

We post new videos every Sunday and Wednesday.

Our hope is to inSpire you to follow your dreams. If we can do it anyone can. We want to help build a community of dreamers who will love and support each other on their paths

Our family was traveling cross-country, living in a shuttle bus, making youtube videos about our journey. We were having engine trouble and found a mechanic in Espanola, New Mexico (H & A Automotive) who was working on our bus for several days. With the mechanic's permission, they camped in the mechanic's parking lot so they could start working on the engine first thing in the morning.

The Next morning we were awoken by pounding on the sides of the bus. We were surrounded by what looked like some sort of SWAT team. They demanded that we open the doors on the bus that could not be opened from the inside. We tried explaining through the windows that we couldn't open those doors but that we would come out and that we were unarmed and had children in the bus. In the meantime, they broke in through the mechanical double doors on the other end of the bus.

The officer now standing in our kitchen started demanding that we get out of the bus and denied us the opportunity to dress ourselves. Ylsa was only wearing underwear and a tank top. Angelo was not wearing underwear at all. Angelo asked if he could please put on some boxers and was denied his right to dress himself self. He said "I have rights" and he responded "I don't care what you think" At this point Angelo demanded loudly (to be heard outside of the vehicle) for a warrant (all the time with his hands up). The officer responded by punching me multiple times in the face saying show me your F***ing hands (Angelo's hands were up the whole time) and dragged him out of bed and out of the bus in front of our 6 year old daughter and 8 year old son.

Another officer later told us that they had a search warrant for the mechanic's shop but would not show it to us. They eventually told us that we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and left.

We reached out to multiple civil rights attorneys in New Mexico. No one has returned our calls. We were too scared to find a police department and file a complaint. We felt unsafe anywhere in the state of New Mexico and left as soon as we could.

Once we were safely several states away, we got our hands on the bodycam footage of the officer who actually broke in and physically assaulted us. It took months to actually be able to watch it and the footage we got on Ylsa's cell phone in order to make it into a Youtube episode for our channel.