2nd Annual Latinx Movement Festival at Dance Place. Photo by David Dowling.
The LatinX Movement Festival premiered at Dance Place in 2024. This second iteration featured performances by artists including Armando Ibañez, Felipe Moltedo, Corazón Folklórico DC, Joel Mejia Smith, Armani Colón, and Angel Ramirez.
Angel Ramirez’s “What if I never saw you again?” was a standout…The craft in [Moltedo’s] choreography and in the structure of the work showed…’Reflexiones at the Crossroads’…included some of the most creative, partnered work of the evening…
The movement of bodies through space has always been a political question: who gets to move how, when, and where? Today, the government is enacting a “choreography” of attack against its own people that it claims is legitimate because of how the bodies of some have moved. Choreography literally means ‘body-writing,’ a concept which stands diametrically opposed to an “undocumented” body. There was a particular resonance as the artists—undocumented or first and second generation citizens—occupied the choreographic space as their own. The curation of the festival also reflected the inability of the traditional, western concert dance format—a repeatable series of steps bookended in time between curtains—to showcase some aspects of that lived experience. It featured several films and multiple mixed-media dance works.
The evening began with a screening of Ibañez’s short film “Hola, Santiago” originally produced as part of the artists “Undocumented Tales” YouTube channel. “Hola, Santiago” was a moving, bilingual film capturing the moment a happily married, gay man receives a text from someone out of his past. An undocumented filmmaker based in Los Angeles, Ibañez was unable to attend the festival in person.
In the first act, Angel Ramirez’s “What if I never saw you again?” was a standout. Lithe, whippy, and athletic, the choreography transitioned between high velocity, contemporary vocabulary and a recurring image as the dancers slowly walked from opposite sides of the stage to embrace, before separating and falling to the floor. Ramirez and his partner, Elvis Navarro, were exceptionally well-matched. Their unison phrase work almost identically in sync, layered over an anxious, ambient drone and snippets of news reports about ICE abductions. The dancers embraced a final time before falling to the floor. As the lights faded, Ramirez went into a series of kip-ups, flinging himself from his back to his feet before falling to the floor again, unable to stand.
In the second act, the work that lingered came from Felipe Moltedo and his former student Max (an excellent performer, Max is only 15 so I’ll only use his first name). Moltedo (also the Assistant Artistic Director of Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company) was one of the most experienced choreographers on the program. The craft in his choreography and in the structure of the work showed. During the post-show talkback, Moltedo described how this was the second iteration of a work he had created with his mentor when he was 21. “I always wanted to do it again from the other side” Moltedo said, “I’m not interested in recreating the work, but in recreating the process to get to a product.”
“Reflexiones at the Crossroads” began with a square of light, thrown from the high stage right corner in a diagonal across the stage and framing the dancers and their silhouettes on the floor. The second section included spoken word. “I don’t want to choose… I don’t want to regret…” both dancers intoned as they pressed through an intricate gestural phrase. The third section was driving and aggressive, propelled on a track by Eminem. The dance also included some of the most creative, partnered work of the evening as Moltedo flipped Max over his shoulders. Taken as a whole, “Reflexiones at the Crossroads” felt like a mediation on the physical continuum of dance as an art form, wrought from embodied memory and the artist’s ephemeral place in it.
There were so many works on the program that it is impossible to unpack them all in one review. The evening concluded with “Corazón Huasteca,” choreographed by Alejandro Góngora of Corazón Folklórico DC. Dedicated to bringing the joy of participation in Folklorico dancing, Corazón Folklórico DC offers free classes for adults. Featuring eight performers, “Corazón Huasteca” was a riot of color and hard shoes, with a fabulous closer. It was also a reminder that dance is not only a performative art form to be experienced exclusively by sitting silently in the dark, but a participatory activity and a foundational practice of culture and community.
The Second Annual LatinX Movement festival took place on OCtober 10-11, 2025 at Dance Place 3225 8th St NE, Washington, DC 20017. More information about the festival is available here. For more information and tickets for upcoming events at Dance Place, please go online.
