Katia Garza moved to Mobile after getting the opportunity to help with Mobile Ballet’s 2017 production of “The Nutcracker,” a one-project arrangement that turned into a permanent relocation and, ultimately, a Reader’s Choice Award.
Before coming to Mobile, Garza spent more than a decade based in Orlando with her husband, Israel Rodriguez — a filmmaker separately recognized this year as the Reader’s Choice Awards’ Best Local Filmmaker — working there as a ballet dancer and instructor. Garza was named Best Arts Educator in the 2026 Reader’s Choice Awards, recognition for her work training the next generation of Mobile-area dancers since putting down roots in the Port City.
The dual recognition for Garza and her husband in the same Reader’s Choice Awards cycle reflects a broader pattern in Mobile’s arts community, where the city’s relatively tight-knit creative scene has increasingly become a landing spot for artists who arrive for a single project and end up building lasting careers locally rather than moving on to larger markets.