If you think you know baile folklórico, you haven’t seen Ballet Nepantla.
Raised near the Texas border town of Edinburg, company founder Andrea Guajardo followed her ballet ambitions to New York. After finding success as a classically trained dancer, she rediscovered the heritage she previously took for granted and decided to expand upon it, founding Ballet Nepantla in 2017.
The company’s latest show, Valentina, features the whirling skirts and twirling rifles of traditional dances about the women warriors of the Mexican Revolution — the Adelitas — but it also tells a narrative through contemporary and classical ballet. The corridos, or ballads, sung by revolutionaries and embodied in folklórico picture the Adelitas as both the badasses they were and as feminine beauties desired by imperiled men.
$15-$200, 8pm, Friday, Feb. 28, Guadalupe Theatre, 1301 Guadalupe St., (210) 271-3151, guadalupeculturalarts.org.
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This article appears in The Burger Issue 2020.