Aztlan Dance Company

Allow me to give you a brief overview of the dance company (I’m copying from the program, I don’t know enough about the history to not mess it up).
«Aztlan has embarked on the creation of important and valuable dance that shares stories of the rich and diverse Hispanic experiences in the Americas… Aztlan works to create dance that is thought-​provoking, artistic, culturally relevant, and dynamically expressive.»
El Gran Circo is their current performance, but today is the last show. To see this show, you’ll have to hit up the Pecan Street Art Festival for excerpts. I went to the show last night and it was an amazing performance.
My friend Amy is one of the performers and until last night I never understood what kind of dance and why she is so passionate about this stuff.
As I said, it was an amazing performance. It was set in a Spanish circus, with the ringmaster dictating/​writing in his journal. The spoken word was mostly in English, with an occasional Spanish word squeezed in, all the music was in Spanish. The storyline is well laid out in the program, making it much easier to follow.
The dancers are incredible, as well as the choreography and the costumes. The women are very fluid in their movements, imitating jaguars, fish/​mermaids, and a child’s dolls. I was most impressed with the doll sequence, the women had to stand very still in really awkward positions for long periods of time.
The women pretty much made up the show, but the men were crucial in lifting, flipping, and physically supporting the women. I can imagine how much practice a muscle ache a performance like this must take.
They practice and perform in the Santa Cruz Center for Culture. This is a small, intimate venue. Although it’s tiny, it seems to be the perfect place to host this type of performance. The acoustics are great and you can see the stage from all over.
A couple complaints, though. I somehow managed to sit under a really, really bright light… but it was off during the production, so it was more of an irritant before and after the show. Secondly, there’s a concession stand which is WAY overpriced. I realize that this is a nonprofit organization, but after paying $ 13 to get into the performance, you’d think a tiny bag of Doritos would be less than $ 1. They also serve beer, wine, water, and other soft drinks.
This is a must visit to support the arts, I’ll definately be coming back!