Cultural Exchanges

The Yaxallitas

In honor of St. Patricks day, I performed a slip jig for a class of 8-12 year old girls.  They have been learning a River Dance inspired dance to an Alistair Frasier cut that their teacher and choreographer, Sterling Vasquez, created after watching a video of Michael Flatley.  It is a heartfelt but somewhat hilarious interpretation of Irish Dancing, and the first performance was appropriately last week, a few days before St. Patrick´s Day.  Sterling invited me to help refine the dance after we met salsa dancing several weeks ago, and although I´ve been going twice a week to volunteer in the class, I haven´t had the opportunity to demonstrate.  So Tuesday I took a few minutes to talk about Santo Patricio and why my whole family is out listening to Irish Music (or playing and earning money) on that day.  They were thrilled, and it was really fun to dance.  The photo above is from their performance last Thursday, in the municipal Theater.  Honestly, I certainly never expected to find a little Irish dance troupe here!