Dani Reyes-Acosta is a runner, a snowboarder, a climber, and a filmmaker who is intentional about the why behind her adventures. She’s currently in the middle of making her first independent film series, called OUTLIER. The series tells the stories of boundary breaking Latina athletes as they explore their own identities and the great outdoors. Dani’s path to adventure film started in corporate America, but eventually she decided to quit her job and pursue a life of storytelling.
Dani Reyes-Acosta is a runner, a snowboarder, a climber, and a filmmaker who is intentional about the why behind her adventures. She’s currently in the middle of making her first independent film series, called OUTLIER. The series tells the stories of boundary breaking Latina athletes as they explore their own identities and the great outdoors. Dani’s path to adventure film started in corporate America, but eventually she decided to quit her job and pursue a life of storytelling.
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Dani Reyes-Acosta:
What is the mindset with which you're approaching any particular adventure or moment or step of an adventure? Like, what's the vibe? And is the vibe driven by someone's bad day at work? Or is it motivated by the desire to bag a peak, or is it deeply rooted in someone's need to prove themself?
Shelby Stanger:
Dani Reyes-Acosta is a runner, a snowboarder, a climber, and a filmmaker who's intentional about the why behind her adventures. When she's out in nature, Dani thinks a lot about self community and connection with the land. These themes fuel her mission to redefine sports media. She's currently in the middle of making her first independent film series called OUTLIER. The series tells the story's boundary-breaking Latina athletes as they explore their own identities and the great outdoors. Dani's path to adventure film started in corporate America, but eventually she decided to quit her job and pursue a life of storytelling. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production brought to you by Capital One.
Danielle Catalina Reyes-Acosta, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I have been so excited to speak with you.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
Thanks for having me.
Shelby Stanger:
So I want to start a little bit from this wild idea to quit a corporate job and pursue sports media and mountain sports, which are your biggest passions, and somehow you have made this beautiful career out of it. I would like to know the backstory. What were you doing in the corporate world when you quit and when did you decide to quit?
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
Gosh, after I got out of college, my friend Christy and I wanted to drive her old truck down through Central America, surfing along the way, and we were going to go work at this nonprofit and then start our own. And then, sidebar, I was going to go do this human rights work in Chile because I did my senior thesis on human rights in post-Pinochet Chile and all of this stuff. So very excited, 21-year-old things, and as life would have it, none of that actually worked out. And so I stayed in Southern California, got a job, so on and so forth. My first job was working with the tribal governments and the San Diego Association of Governments in San Diego.
So I worked on sustainable transportation development with the 17 tribal governments, and that was my first marketing sustainability job at 21, 22, what have you. And then flash forward, the economy crashed. My contract ends, this is 2008, and it was hard to find a job. I'm 23, where am I going to get a job? No one wants to pay a young person what they want to be paid, and I end up, I just put myself out there and I'm just sending resumes off through Indeed.com or whatever those websites are, and somehow got headhunted for a contract job at Nike. In my head, I'm like, I don't know even what my dreams are, but I know that this is a good thing and I should just take it. So I did. I rented a one-way vehicle and drove to Oregon and started at the job five days after they hired me. And in classic big corporation passion, I went into the deep end.
Shelby Stanger:
Over the next three years, Dani worked hard with the goal of moving into the action sports department at Nike, but that department closed and she said it was a challenge to move laterally within the company. At this point in her life, Dani was feeling a need to step into herself more authentically and go after her goals. She was craving change and wanted a big adventure, so she quit her job at Nike and hit the road.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
I bought a one-way ticket to Santiago, and in the months leading up to this adventure, I've been getting all the books and maps that I could about South America and Central America. I'd been reading, I'd been watching all these movies and so on and so forth, and just trying to just absorb everything I could because I didn't really have a community that was doing this. I was living in corporate land and there's nothing wrong with that. I had a great weekend warrior experience, but everything was pretty safe. There were a lot of, I don't know, kind of everything was a little bit boxed and consumeristic and this whole thing of just figure it out was a new and exciting venture. And about a week before I got on that plane, I realized that I had way too much gear to schlep around on buses. And so I took my fancy corporate bonus and I was like, I want to buy a car.
And the first month that I was in Santiago, I stayed at this wonderful hostel and at the time I had a camera and when I left Nike, I told everyone that I was going to go on this big adventure of not just finding self, but also documenting stories of other folks making a difference in the world. And I was like, "I'm going to become a photojournalist." And so my friends that ran the hostel helped me figure out some different places I could go and people I could talk to and helped me map out all these different routes for adventures I wanted to go on. And within that first month of making these friends and starting to find a little bit of this outdoor community going on these runs up in the hills near Santiago, I went on my very first, I remember my test adventure with this new car to this place called Valle de las Arenas outside of Chile.
It's one of the closest really cool places where you can have climbing and big mountains. And so I'm going to go test out my rig and see how the whole thing goes. So this is my first night in the Andes and there's this big wild river there. There's a mining operation there. In the space of 36 hours, I climb some of the hardest things I've ever climbed. I go on my very first backcountry adventure. I am part of a protest for the damming of this river. And then I have these very interesting conversations with folks from the mining operation. So all of the things that come from the extractive industry is an outdoor adventure and social justice are all kind of slamming into this very small amount of time on my very first foray into the big wide world. And those adventures have still stuck with me.
Shelby Stanger:
What do you do with this information, I guess, because it's a lot for one person, when you have these realizations and I am curious how you took this and what you decided to do with it because this had a really big impact on you?
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
At the risk of oversimplifying, I think what you do or what I did is figure out what are the things that can pay the bills? What are the things that can make me happy? What does the world need and what am I good at?
Shelby Stanger:
After her travels, Dani started looking at the outdoors through a more intersectional lens. She saw that nature isn't just a place to play, it's also habitat, resource, and even a source of livelihood. When Dani came back to the U.S., she bounced around between small mountain towns with her home base always in western Colorado. For work, she did a mixture of service industry jobs and freelance marketing projects. Even taking on roles as a pre-pandemic remote marketing leader. In the back of her mind, Dani wondered if she would ever be able to make a career out of storytelling, even in her determination to blaze a new trail for herself. There were plenty of moments of self-doubt.
So I'm curious, you kind of make it sound easy. You are a badass, but you've done all of these things like you quit a really gnarly job. You have these wild adventures. How did you deal with fear, fear of failure, self-doubt, what other people thought?
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
That's a great question. I think in that moment I was so in it. A lot of it was kind of like building the plane as you fly it. I mean, I had the incredible privilege of having a partner who owned a home, so I didn't have to deal with trying to find housing every six months. And the same person also was climbing 5.12, so I didn't have to learn how to place all my gear immediately. I could just pull on some stuff and follow him up there. And so a lot of the fear that I was working through... Because I kind of went from 0 to 60, right? And I think it's important to recognize the privilege that I had. If I was having to figure all of this out on my own, I think it would've taken a lot longer.
Shelby Stanger:
But there's something that nature does for you that nothing else does. What is that?
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
I think what it does for me is what it does for all of us, but I've tried to articulate it and put into words. I think nature can help us heal, connect, or grow.
Shelby Stanger:
In that spirit, Dani's been working on a film series that tries to capture how nature can connect and heal people, while also encouraging growth. It features footage of Dani and other badass women climbing mountains and backcountry skiing and snowboarding. For Dani, being outside has been a way for her to reconnect with her past, while still learning about who she is now and who she wants to become. She isn't focused on being the best climber or the fastest runner or the most impressive snowboarder. When Dani is outside, she's just thinking about being her true self. When we come back, Dani talks about how she started exploring the world of film and her latest project, OUTLIER.
Dani Reyes-Acosta is an adventurer and filmmaker who connects stories of identity, community and advocacy to the great outdoors. After quitting her job, traveling to South America and picking up freelance marketing projects, Dani started to explore the world of independent film.
Dani, you wear a lot of hats besides athlete. You're a filmmaker, you're an advocate, and I'm really curious, your wild ideas. You've managed to carve this path by being an action sports, an outdoor sports media professional, and telling stories and being an advocate. It's not like a job that was on LinkedIn that you could go apply for. You carved out this path, you made it happen. That was your wild idea. So I'm curious how you got into film.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
Great question. If we back up and look at the broader trajectory of this path, athlete, storyteller, what have you, it's all framed by this broader mission, which is to redefine what building community looks like or how we define community.
Shelby Stanger:
Well, tell me what that means.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
So what that means is looking at community in a way that's beyond just people. It's also nature, flora, fauna. It's beyond any individual understanding of I identify as a rock climber, this is my community, or I identify as a woman of color, this is my community. But it's really trying to open that aperture of how we define ourselves and be inclusive of the different identities and experiences that inform how we move through the world. So I had been working in all of these other different mediums, so I'd been writing. Social media is short form storytelling. And film in many ways is a way to convey a message that is so much more immersive, engaging and has a much longer half-life than any other medium. And so my desire to get into film was not deeply rooted in some desire to be a filmmaker. I'd worked in film before.
I worked on film projects at Nike. I worked on film projects after, primarily from a creative director standpoint, but none of these were documentary and none of them were adventure and outdoor film. But what pushed me down this path was that a contact of mine had given me the opportunity to submit a pitch, and I was living through the pandemic. This dark-skinned brown woman in a very rural community feeling totally disconnected. And I heard about this pitch and I was like, I think we need to make a film. And I think that film is about how we see ourselves in nature and our experiences reflected in nature, and I think it should be a ski film.
Shelby Stanger:
This pitch turned into OUTLIER, a three-part documentary series directed by Dani. Part one, which premiered in fall of 2022, is titled Trust. It follows Dani and skier Lani Bruntz as they negotiate backcountry conditions and face a deeply personal journey of self-exploration. Part two, which is in post-production right now is titled Common. This film follows Dani and two other athletes, Vanessa Chavarriaga Posada and Nina Aragon as they dive into their personal lives and navigate a huge snow adventure together. For Dani, spending time in the mountains with other Latina athletes was a dream come true. She'd never been on all-women expeditions like these before. This was also the first time Dani had been at the helm of a production this size. She's the director, producer, and creative visionary for all three films, as well as a main character.
You're in these films.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
You are the director, the producer, and the main character.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
I don't recommend it.
Shelby Stanger:
What was it like being involved in that way in front of the camera, behind the camera?
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
It's tough. It's really, really tough. And I think if I didn't have a supportive community, our crew, our team reminded me of why I'm doing this work in the first place. My fellow subjects are also just incredibly emotionally intelligent and supportive, and I think the idea of using the metaphor of backcountry skiing and snowboarding to ask these big existential questions might seem a little bit insane, but I think that's exactly why putting together a team of folks that can help you get things to where they need to be, whether I'm behind the camera or in front of it, is the kicker. All of these amazing folks who are in this, I mean, not just because of the job, but because they're vested in seeing outdoor media go this way of telling bigger stories.
Shelby Stanger:
It's really cool. I'm thinking about the traditional ski movie I see. I'm seeing someone huck a bunch of lines and go down some really cool tree runs and it's cool.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
It's cool. And yet.
Shelby Stanger:
But it doesn't leave me thinking about these big questions. The second thing is I've never seen a Latina in a snowboard movie in my life. This is very cool. Good job. And they've got these giant lives. They're not professional athletes, like full-time. One's getting a PhD. One is having a kid or raising a kid, or-
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
Another one's becoming a ski guide. Another one is becoming a full-time athlete and storyteller herself. I mean, one of the really cool things is sort of curating and elevating all of the different facets of what it means to be a woman. And you don't even have to be a Latina. What does this identity of being a woman even mean in these spaces?
Shelby Stanger:
You talk a lot about this role of community especially sisterhood, and I know what it's like to get a group of women together and it feels awesome. I have two sisters and I grew up teaching surfing to all women at Surf Diva, and I would like to know a little bit about the role of sisterhood and community in your life.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
So my understanding of sisterhood has been framed by my two younger sisters, and it's helped me understand that sisterhood doesn't always have to be perfect and shiny, and that oftentimes it can be a little bit messy, but that no matter what, you show up for each other even when you're really angry.
Shelby Stanger:
I am one of three girls. I deeply relate. I'm on the youngest side of that spectrum. You're on the oldest side of the three sisters and we are nothing alike. And if someone else talks smack about one of my sisters, I'll absolutely murder them. But if we talk smack about each other, it's fine.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
Yep.
Shelby Stanger:
It's messy, but we all have each other's back at the end of the day and it is really important. It's really cool that you have your actual sisters, but then you have this greater sisterhood.
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
And I think that bridging over to the broader idea of what is that greater sisterhood and how do we support each other? It's understanding that our friends and the people that we call our sisters can go through so many different things and shifts and changes, and no matter what, they're still our sisters. A true sisterhood is being able to see the depth and the breadth of who you are as a person and still saying, hell yeah, I love you. And whether that's watching one of your friends come out or watching one of your friends fight through injury or watching another friend become a guide or holding someone's hand as they battle the grief of losing someone they love. All of these things are fundamentally these experiences that make us human. And I think learning from others is one of the greatest joys in life, and it helps us navigate all sorts of things, whether that's work or how to get to the highest peak.
Shelby Stanger:
I want to know, since you have chosen this untraditional path, any advice to other people who want to go out and chase a wild idea?
Dani Reyes-Acosta:
That's a great question, and it's not one I think I have any formulaic answer to, but I think if there's one piece of advice I would give anyone, it's that you follow the path of least resistance. If something isn't working, and if it's really hard and it's costing you more time and energy and money and yielding literally nothing and you're not sure that this is a way that you should go about things, then it probably isn't. And you might want to consider a new direction. And that's different from doing something and finding a little bit of success and realizing you need to just double down and just send it and work a lot harder. I think society tells us that oftentimes we should do things because it's turnkey or it's easy or someone will help us. But the fact of the matter is, if you're going to chase a wild idea, you have to be willing to do really hard things and do it anyway.
And you can't expect that someone's going to come along and hold your hand and tell you how to do it or pick you up. You have to do it yourself, and then you have to look for other folks that are on this journey with you, because even if it feels really alone, I guarantee you, you are not alone. You just have to pull your head up out of the sand and remember that you're doing this thing that you said you were going to do, and then you'll look over and realize there's someone that they're doing it too
Shelby Stanger:
To check out what Dani is up to, you can find her on Instagram at notlostjustdiscovering. Again, that's notlostjustdiscovering. If you want to learn more about her film series, OUTLIER, and watch the first installation, go to outlierfilmseries.com.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hanna Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.