Calpulli Mexican Dance Company is one of New York City’s leading Mexican folkloric dance companies. A “calpulli” is a traditional Aztec community. Calpulli is a community dance theatre company that gets students dancing like professionals with world-class storytelling and stagecraft. It is as good as anything on Broadway. Really! ¡Verda!
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company in New York City
MAY
Count Basie Center for the Arts ~ Red Bank, New Jersey
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company “Puebla, The Story of Cinco de Mayo” is an educational journey about the origins of America’s celebration of Mexican culture; in The Vogel at Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, New Jersey; on Cinco de Mayo, Monday, May 5, 2025. There are two performances, one for schools at 10:30am (contact Calpulli for details), and for the public at 6pm (5:30pm doors). Includes a performance and dance party by Mariachi Huitzilin. From $17. thebasie.org 🇲🇽
Queens Theatre ~ Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company “Puebla, The Story of Cinco de Mayo” excerpts are in the Arts on Stage assembly at the Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens; on Thursday, May 8, 2025, at 10am and 11:45am. calpulli.org 🇲🇽
College of Staten Island
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company “Puebla, The Story of Cinco de Mayo” excerpts are at the Williamson Theater at College of Staten Island; on Thursday, May 8, 2025, at 3:30pm. Free. csi.campuslabs.com 🇲🇽
Calpulli “Puebla: The Story of Cinco de Mayo”
Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day, but it did play an important role in American history. The day is also important to many Mexican New Yorkers because people from the Puebla region are one of the biggest communities of New Yorkers with a Mexican heritage.
The show premiered at the Queens Theatre in 2019. It’s become an annual tradition at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey.
In the 1860s, France planned to capture Mexico’s economy and create a base from which to restore French power in the Americas. They planned to join the U.S. Civil War on the confederate side (the southern slavers). If they were successful, our history might be completely different.
At the time, the French army was the most powerful in the world. They were the U.S. Marines of their day. Mexico City is the capital of Mexico. Veracruz is the Mexican gateway to the Caribbean. Puebla is a town on the road from Veracruz to Mexico City.
In May 1862, the U.S. Civil War was still a toss-up. There was no clear winner. On the fifth of May (Cinco de Mayo), a small Mexican force defeated the great French army in the Battle of Puebla. This surprise forced the French to retreat and regroup. This delayed their advance on Mexico City. By the time the French were able to take Mexico, Union forces had gathered strength and begun the long defeat of the Southern forces. It was too late for the French to join the war.
So Cinco de Mayo (the fifth of May) commemorates the Battle of Puebla. It celebrates the fact that on this day, against all odds, a small group of devoted Mexican defenders defeated the most powerful army in the world.
In Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is only celebrated in Puebla. In the United States it has become a national celebration of Mexican American culture. It’s the busiest day at Mexican restaurants across the country. They can use the business. “Buen provecho.”
So go celebrate and now you know what you are celebrating.
MARCH
Long Island City, Queens
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company’s “Boda Mexicana” brings Mexico’s rich blend of Indigenous, Hispanic, and African traditions to life in a Mexican love story; on the Mainstage Theater at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, Queens; on Sunday, March 23 at 2pm. $35. calpullidance.org 🇲🇽
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company does a teaching presentation of excerpts from “Boda Mexicana” during public school hours; on the Mainstage Theater at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, Queens; on Monday, March 24 at 10:30am. $10 (1 complimentary ticket for every 10 seats), $8 (Title 1 schools ~ Title 1 documentation required). calpullidance.org 🇲🇽
“Boda Mexicana” is a story of eternal love that tells of a young couple’s courtship, engagement, wedding, and feast through Regional Mexican songs, dances, rituals, and traditions. Moving through time from the ancient Mayan past to the near present, “Boda Mexicana” travels all over Mexico from the Yucatan to Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, Aguascalientes, Veracruz, and Sinaloa, highlighting Regional Mexican traditions along the way. Tying it all together is the pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican belief that death is reality, and life is just a dream. Oh, but what a beautiful dream.
Boda Mexicana is a Deeply Multicultural Experience
“Boda Mexicana” is great dance theatre with world-class storytelling, stagecraft, music, and dancing that captures the beauty of the Indigenous, Spanish, and African traditions that blended into Mexican culture. The origins of some of the traditions showcased in the performance will surprise you.
There are courting dances with handkerchiefs probably derived from the Spanish fandango and seguidilla. It may look like the dancers are just twirling fabric around, but the way they move the handkerchief has specific meanings such as: “I like you,” “Not interested,” or “I like you too, let’s go.”
Mexican polleras, the colonial peasant dresses based on Andalusían Spanish peasant attire, are stunning. They are also used in courtship. Different regions have their own styles and colors. Many have beautiful embroidery whose traditions are native to both Spain and the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.
White dresses and suits represent purity, but also traditional campesino (farmer) clothing and the styles of Veracruz, Mexico’s Caribbean gateway where both Spaniards and Africans began their lives in Old Mexico. Mexico has deep Afro-Mexican roots through Veracruz. Zapateado (Mexican step dancing) comes from there. Colonizers feared and prohibited the African drum, so Afro-Mexicans began stomping their feet. They said, we’re not drumming, we’re just stomping, so they got away with it. Mexican guitars are often played in a percussive manner which also originates in African tradition.
The Mexican Baroque church on the wedding backdrop is a European style, but was built by Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, so it has its own unique features that are only found in the Americas.
What looks like a maypole dance from Northern Europe is likely influenced by the Danza de los Voladores (Dance of the Flyers). The voladores is a pre-Hispanic rain and fertility ritual in which dancers swing around a high pole on ropes. It represents the unity of the natural and spiritual worlds. In its wedding form, it represents the unity and fertility of the couple.
The Danza de los Viejitos (Dance of Old Men in masks) is a pre-Hispanic dance to the sun god asking for good harvests. It was banned by the colonizers, but survived in secret into the present day.
Some Calpulli dancers are classical ballerinas, so there is European dance technique in the show.
You might think that the Mexican cowboy dance is based on American traditions, but it’s actually the reverse. American cowboy traditions were learned from Mexican vaqueros, and back in the day, most American cowboys were actually Mexican.
Brass instruments and norteño music are based on Czech polkas and German walzes. In colonial times, there was a lot of Germanic immigration to Northern Mexico. They brought the accordion which has become an important part of many Latin traditions.
We’re just scratching the surface, but there is a world of culture embedded in “Boda Mexicana.” To learn more, you just have to see the show, and especially Monday’s teaching performance during school hours where Calpulli dancers will perform excerpts and explain their cultural meaning. In New York City, nobody does this as well as Calpulli Mexican Dance Company. They teach through storytelling which makes learning fun.
A Top Creative Team
Boda Mexicana’s creative team includes some notable artists. The story was written by Calpulli Co-founder Alberto Lopez Herrera (Time Magazine Great American Voice), with dramatic help from actor Roberto Lara. Music Director George Saenz is from Berklee College of Music which is famous for producing Latin jazz masters. Some of the dances were choreographed by Javier Dzul of Dzul Dance Company, who was raised in the jungles of Mexico as a Mayan ritual dancer before being brought to Mexico City and Cuba, where Martha Graham, the modern dance legend, brought him to New York. We have to mention Artistic Director Grisel Pren Monje because she gets amateurs to dance like professionals.
One last thing. This isn’t only a story of the union of two souls, it’s a story of two countries who are bound together, forever!
OCTOBER
Mott Haven, The Bronx
“Día de Muertos,” by Calpulli Mexican Dance Company, brings the Mexican family tradition to life; at Hostos Center in Mott Haven, The Bronx; on Saturday, October 26, 2024 at 8pm, and Sunday, October 27, 2024 at 3pm. From $25 🇲🇽
New York City Venues
- Count Basie Theatre in Redbank, New Jersey.
- Hostos Center in Mott Haven, The Bronx.
- Javits Center at Hudson Yards, Manhattan.
- La Guardia Performing Arts Center in Long Island City, Queens.
- Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens.
- The Town Hall in Midtown, Manhattan.
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company
Calpulli has a touring company; dance, music, and costume design programs; and teaching artists who do community outreach across Metro New York. The company was founded in New York City in 2003.
Co-Founder and Director of Arts-in-Education Alberto Lopez Herrera has been named one of Time Magazine’s great “American Voices.” He is a world-class storyteller.
Co-Founder and Executive Director Juan Castaño has built an impressive community arts organization.
Artistic Director Grisel Pren Monje gets community dancers to perform like professionals by mixing classical ballet and Mexican folk dance technique. A classical ballerina told us that Calpulli dancers perform like professional ballet dancers. Grisel is the heart of the company.
Musical Director George Saenz is a graduate of Berklee College of Music, which produces an endless stream of successful jazz and Latin music stars.
Calpulli’s logo is beautiful. It’s the corn and the sun, representing the people and God.
Repertory
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company has an extensive repertoire of many forms of Mexican and Mexican American culture. They are great teaching artists.
- “Cinco de Mayo Story” tells the story of why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo through Indigenous and folkloric dance.
- “Monarcas” celebrates the contributions Mexican immigrants make to the culture and prosperity of the United States.
- “Navidad: A Mexican American Christmas” is a Mexican nutcracker told through the eyes of an immigrant child who wonders whether she should celebrate Christmas through her family’s Mexican heritage, or in the American traditions of the United States.
Día de Muertos
The show is a love story that spans the boundary between the living and the departed. A loving couple falls victim to treachery and is separated, seemingly forever. The young woman enters Mictlán – the underworld of Aztec mythology – where the mesmerizing Catrina reigns as queen. But nothing gets in between true love.
Folkloric and classical music mix with vibrant dances, colorful costumes, makeup and beautiful set pieces to bring this beautiful love story to life. By the way, Mictlán is not the European hell. As in many Indigenous and African traditions, it is a paradise.
We saw the World Premiere at The Town Hall. Calpulli Mexican Dance Company is a community dance company, yet the production is Broadway-quality in every dimension. How they achieve this level of excellence with community artists and just a few professionals, is some kind of New York miracle. It’s a tribute to recently promoted Artistic Director Grisel Pren Monje.
Aztec and Mayan Traditions
Aztec and Maya traditions, in fact many ancient traditions around the world, practice ancestral veneration, and see life and death as two sides of the same coin. So the people don’t fear death.
Skull Catrina la Calavera Garbancera, the icon of the Day of the Dead, is a modern representation of Mictlancihuatl, the Aztec goddess of the underworld. She guards the bones of the dead, but there is nothing scary about her. We love her because every morning, she swallows the stars to make the day.
The Aztec celebration was a late summer festival. Colonial Spanish priests moved the festival to their own All Souls Day. Both traditions see these days as a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead are loosened. The departed can cross back over and visit, but only come if you invite them. That’s why we make ofrendas (family altars) for our deceased loved ones. The ofrenda is the invitation.
European Traditions
In classical European literature, Calpulli’s “Día de los Muertos” is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, although sort of in reverse. That makes sense partly because Aztec/Mayan and European concepts of the underworld are reversed. European tradition fears death and sees the underworld as some kind of hell. In Mexican Aztec tradition, death is reality and life is just a dream. The Aztec underworld is the equivalent of European heaven. We don’t fear death. It is the one universal experience in life.
Orpheus is the ancient Greek god of poetry and music. When his wife died, Orpheus missed her so much that he entered the underworld to find her. The boss of the underworld agreed to let her return, but only for half the year. When she is gone, Orpheus mourns and we face the cold sorrows of fall and winter. When Eurydice returns we experience the warm joys of spring and summer.
So happy Día de Muertos. On the Day of the Dead, may you always be remembered!
There is more repertoire at calpullidance.org
Information
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