This work, interpreted and expressed in expository prose and poetic writing, emerged from my desire to examine, understand and reconcile my various identities and experiences as a Filipina American woman, artist, educator, organizational leader, and dissertation researcher. The study may guide current and future teaching artists seeking guidance in their practice, as well as educational researchers desiring creative approaches to interdisciplinary arts-based research methodology. The intent of this dissertation was to investigate and understand the work of community-rooted teaching artists who engage communities through cultural and performing arts traditions. A comprehensive literature review uncovered few qualitative studies on arts educators outside of institutional education. Almost none existed that were culturally or paradigmatically divergent from traditional dissertation studies in educational leadership, perhaps due to real and imagined barriers that often separate academia and grassroots cultural arts practice. Dance anthropologist Katherine Dunham's theories on Socialization and Intercultural Communication through the Arts provided the primary philosophical, theoretical and practical framework. Through interview experiences, participant observations and personal narratives, I approached the research process as a ceremony through which to reveal the experiences, values, and aspirations of four cultural arts educators in Sacramento, California. Our disciplines included Filipino American and African American theatre and performing arts, Afro-Cuban music and dance, Brazilian capoeira, and Mexican American ballet folklórico. Through a methodological approach that combined narrative inquiry and autoethnography, the primary research questions asked: Based on our narratives, what has inspired, challenged and sustained community-rooted teaching artists in our practice? What narratives might we create for evolving our practice for the future? The meta-narrative findings describe four thematic principals that together form an imperative informing our personal, creative and professional lives as teaching artists: heal, love, play and dance. As interconnected individuals in the narrative process, learning with and through one another's experiences, the study helped each of us articulate the purpose, impact and meaning of our individual and collective work, thus successfully fulfilling the intent of the dissertation."--Abstract, p. 1.