Tijuana dance community is finding its voice

Yet Tijuana is also a magnet for visionaries of another kind – dance artists – and they have created one of the most vibrant contemporary dance communities in Mexico.

“No other city in the north of the country has so many companies,” says choreographer Henry Torres of Lux Boreal, a dynamic young troupe that moved to Tijuana from Mazatlán in 2003.

“People from Colima, Mazatlán, Guadalajara, and from Mexico City, too, come to Tijuana and see strong things happening in dance that don't happen anywhere else except Mexico City,” Torres says.

Lux Boreal is one of six Tijuana companies performing at “Cuerpos en Tránsito” (“Bodies in Motion”), a weeklong showcase that opens tomorrow at the Centro Cultural (Cecut). The program also includes performances by companies from Mexico City and Sonora, as well as lectures, films, activities for children and a showcase next Sunday for all of Tijuana's schools of dance.

Now in its 10th year, “Cuerpos en Tránsito” was created by choreographer Jorge Dominguez, then dance coordinator at Cecut. When Dominguez came to Tijuana – after being the dance coordinator at Mexico City's National Institute of Fine Arts – he found a promising but somewhat provincial scene. “I felt the local groups were a little locked up in themselves,” he says.

He initiated “Cuerpos en Tránsito” in 1999 and directed it for the first four years, with the goal of helping Tijuana dancers locate themselves within a larger arena. He's observed the results in greater confidence and artistry.

“The festival opened them to the national scene first of all, and second to a lot of international groups coming to Mexico,” says Dominguez, who is doing a solo on Tuesday in the garden at the Centro Cultural.

The international exposure has helped fuel an element of European theatricality in Tijuana dance companies, such as Gregorio Coral's Subterráneo Danza Contemporánea (performing Friday) – Coral did a surreal piece, inspired by the painter René Magritte, in San Diego's “New Wave Showcase” last year.

Dance created by Tijuana artists is also uniquely Mexican, Dominguez says.

“Mexican dance tends to be, much as we are, very baroque,” he says. “It's not the movement by itself but the movement with a dramatic charge that is compelling to us. American dance is more of the body itself, the power of expression of the movement. In Mexico, it's much more inclined to try to say something.”

San Diego ties

While Tijuana dancers may look to Mexico City and Europe for aesthetic models, there's also a history of exchanges with San Diego artists, including – in recent years – Tijuana troupes participating in Sushi Performance and Visual Art's mentoring program for emerging artists and in the “Blurred Borders Dance Festival” presented by the Patricia Rincon Dance Collective.

This year's “Blurred Borders” (May 30-31) includes Lux Boreal, the company that's most likely to put Tijuana dance on the international map with its complex, edgy choreography, athletic dancing and commitment to touring.
Lux Boreal performs often in San Diego, both in their own work and in dances by UCSD's Allyson Green, who regularly sets work on these impeccably trained dancers, graduates of Mazatlán's Professional School of Contemporary Dance and of the National School of Dance in Mexico City.

For Green, “Sometimes a company is about gathering the right people together, and Lux Boreal has done that. They really are a family of serious artists.”

Lux Boreal accompanied Green on an East Coast tour in 2006. They've also performed at Redcat in Los Angeles and are getting known on the Latin American festival circuit, with tours last year to Venezuela and Bolivia as well as throughout Mexico.

For their first hour-long dance, which will premiere next Sunday, they collaborated with Magdalena Brezzo, a Uruguayan-born choreographer who's won national awards for her work with her Mexico City company, Camerino 4.

Getting serious

Lux Boreal characterizes the growing professionalism of dance in Tijuana.

For company co-founder Torres, “In the past, it was kind of hippie-like, 'Oh, we are all happy, let's dance.' I think now there is another philosophy – that taking something to the stage is very serious.”

As dance takes itself more seriously, it's also gaining attention from institutions, the media and the public, says Minerva Tapia, who grew up in the Tijuana dance community – initially training at her mother's ballet school – then spent seven years studying with the National Ballet of Cuba, and recently earned a Master's in Dance from UC Irvine.

“I even have students from the department of philosophy asking to talk to dancers about dance and art,” Tapia says, whose thoughtful work (being presented on Saturday) addresses such themes as border issues and women's body image.

Tapia sees Tijuana dancers growing as advocates for their art form. “Before, Cecut would call a meeting, and my friends from other areas of the arts would be very clear about how they talked about their work, but the dancers would be a little more quiet. I was one of those. Now, they make me see that I talk too much,” she says with a laugh.

Tijuana's dance community is finding its voice at a time when there are a number of issues for it to address.

Mexico has a record of generous government support for the arts, but the state largesse has it downside. There is little tradition of – or tax laws encouraging – private giving to the arts, yet cuts in government funding have increased the need for private involvement.

And while a government-sponsored festival such as “Cuerpos en Tránsito” provides beautiful performance facilities and high visibility, it takes place only once a year. Dominguez says, “If you count the number of performances during the year, it's too little for a city like Tijuana.”

A 70-seat theater, La Alborada, is offering dance performances, but there's nothing like the San Diego scene with shows most weekends at a mix of larger venues, university theaters and hole-in-the-wall studio spaces.

Mario Peralta, who coordinates dance at La Alborada, wants to provide opportunities for emerging artists, but here, too, Mexico's traditional funding model is a hurdle, he says. “The funds are mostly provided to the big theaters. With private spaces, it's hard to get resources.”

Certainly, it's time for more spaces such as La Alborada. Every year at “Cuerpos en Tránsito,” Tijuana dance companies have drawn larger and larger audiences to the nearly 1,000-seat Centro Cultural, Tapia says.

“In the beginning of the festival, we knew the theater would be packed for international companies,” says Tapia. “Now, the local companies are having as many people as the international companies.”