The Latinx Movement Festival, led by queer Latinx dance artist Gabriel Mata, is a delicious blend of ancestry, queer sensuality, nature, and struggle. Bringing together 14 performers and companies from across the nation, with artists from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Canada, and the DC area and offering a range of free community classes for all, the event drew a large audience over the weekend in Washington, DC.
Gabriel Mata, a queer Mexican American movement artist, choreographer, and educator who has called DC home for seven years, aimed to create a festival that defies conventional definitions and embraces the fluidity of the term “movement.” In a conversation from his home, Mata shared his vision for the festival, discussing its various pieces and the concept of convivir (to live with) that he hopes the event will inspire.
“The Latinx Movement Festival doesn’t have a specific form or genre,” Mata explains. “It’s about expanding the contributions of the Latinx community through various expressions of movement beyond just dance.”
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Mata sees queer narratives and their intersectionality as a vital part of the festival’s identity. “There’s a lot of narratives and themes of queerness within the Latinx community,” he says.
The festival highlights the broad spectrum of queer and Latinx identities, challenging audience expectations and inviting engagement from a different perspective.
One of Mata’s formative experiences was visiting a friend’s house in his twenties and encountering a collection of Latina artists’ works. “I expected something, and I was blown away by the wide range of art that was created,” Mata recalls.
In a way, this is an example of the festival’s goal of disrupting preconceived notions and opening new understandings of what it means to have a cultural, sensual, and ancestral identity and how it all lives together.
Among the featured pieces is “Café con Pan,” choreographed and performed by Angel Ramirez and Tabata Vara. The commissioned piece touches on how cultural traditions, like sharing a cafecito with a friend or music, can ground our relationships and friendships in times of loss and joy.
Mata, alongside his trusted collaborator Amelia Estrada, touched on the strength of reclaiming one’s body concerning its sensuality, exoticism, and citizenship in “Salsa sin Salsa.” For Mata, a Mexican American, salsa conjures images of the condiment, while for Estrada, who is Dominican, it represents a dance form.
“What if it burns? ¿Como es que sabe? (How does it taste?)” Mata’s voiceover is heard as his seductive and mesmerizing movement travels through the stage. Is he talking about the condiment or his sexuality? It’s both; it’s all of it. “Salsa sin Salsa” exemplifies the festival’s broader theme: blending diverse ingredients and experiences to create a new type of conversation through movement rooted in a shared connection with “Latinidad.”
In “Nepantla: Magia Ancestral,” choreographed by Julio Medina and Salome Nieto and performed by Nieto, explored the experience of being a Mexican descendant in the U.S. and Canada, likening it to being a witch—othered and demonized. The concept of nepantla, meaning “in-betweenness” in Chicano and Latinx anthropology, reflects the feeling of being “ni de aquí ni de allá” (“neither from here nor there”) and the longing for ancestral guidance and connection.
This in-betweenness of identities is further explored in “Insecta” choreographed by Héctor Jaime and Carmina Márquez and performed by Héctor Jaime and Mark Galvan, which uses the gynandromorphism (an organism that is both male and female biologically and visually) found in some species in nature, particularly in the insect world, to express how sensuality, gender, desire, and identity can shift and change.
“Dame la Receta!” choreographed by Chachi Perez and performed by Genesis Castaneda, Chachi Perez, Jennifer Rivera, and David Velazco, features dancers and a drummer in a movement and rhythm dialogue that evokes how kitchens and backyards are places of celebration and expression. At one point, the dancers create percussion with kitchen items like pots and pans.
I couldn’t help but recall how collective banging on pots and pans is used as a form of resistance and protest in some Latin American countries and how, even in the most difficult of times, rhythm, music, and joyful expression remain constants in how we express ourselves as Latinx people.
“Nostalgia Pop – Excerpt,” choreographed by Primera Generación Dance Collective, uses video and animation drawing from popular Latinx culture, capturing memories of political unrest, iconic ’90s telenovelas “cachetadas” (slaps), and how staple pop cultural movements like the “Macarena” can be held and expressed in our bodies and the long-term impact to our identity and understanding of who we are.
Mata’s goals to build and strengthen the community are not just theoretical. He and his collaborators organized free classes for the public as part of the festival. These classes are inclusive, welcoming participants of all levels to explore their “movements,” cultural backgrounds, and bodies. Mata’s class, for example, “Contemporary Sabor,” blends modern dance with cultural movements from his own Mexican heritage and allows participants to take agency over form.
Just like Mata’s formative visit to his friend’s house in his twenties, I left the festival’s performance with a different understanding of what it means to be a Latinx queer individual living in America. An identity that is not defined by what others see or by how others want us to be seen, but one where being “neither from here nor there” in all of its forms – in sexuality, cultural identity, citizenship, gender expression, and beyond – is celebrated, expressed, and blended to create a tasty and seductive one-of-kind “salsa” I’m very eager to taste again.
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