Corazón Folklórico DC’s Alejandro Góngora creates an inclusive dance community
By hola | Published | No Comments
Founder and Artistic Director of
Corazón Folklórico DC
Alejandro Góngora, the founder and artistic director of Corazón Folklórico DC, believes in the strength of a community that’s there for each other through thick and thin.
Growing up in San Diego, California, Góngora briefly faced homelessness in high school. If it were not for the friends he had made in his Folklórico dance classes, he says he would have had a much more difficult time during such a challenging period.
When he moved to Washington, D.C. as a young professional working in the federal government, Góngora was in search of a Mexican presence. This drive to find and create a Mexican presence is what made Góngora want to start Corazón Folklórico — a non-profit organization that prides itself in creating an inclusive dance community for the residents of Washington, D.C. Furthermore, Corazón Folklórico is helping spread Mexican traditional culture by performing and offering free dance classes to local residents.
Hola Cultura could not help but be drawn to the community and commitment that Corazón Folklórico brings to their company of dancers and the community members that fill up their free classes. Góngora stresses that Corazón Folklórico is all about heart and creating a place where people can feel love and inclusivity.
How did you become an artist? And can you briefly share what inspired you to get into Ballet Folklórico in the first place?
I’ll start with the latter. I got into Folklórico a little bit late I would say, in high school. I had been exposed to a lot of presentations and performances growing up in San Diego; Southern California is full of Folklórico groups and performances for various reasons. As a kid, I would see Folklórico after church, I would see it for Cinco de Mayo festivities, and I would see it at community parks and events. It was something that was always present around me and always intrigued me for its movement, its music, the fact that my parents would get really excited, and it was so vivid and energetic. In high school, I had the opportunity to join a free club. I used that as an opportunity to do something I always wanted to try out and also to meet other people.
Becoming an artist I think took a little bit longer, I definitely would say I’m still learning to be an artist. I have found my own voice, but I think there’s always room to grow. It wasn’t really until college that I started to get opportunities, one as a director of my university group, Raíces de mi Tierra, UC Santa Barbara. In that position, I started thinking about how I could share the dances that I’d learned, but also integrate what I was learning in school into my sociology major. I had a gender studies and Latin American Studies emphasis. I had a lot of themes that were being presented to me while I was teaching my group. Themes of gender, gender identity, gender expression, how we portray women in history, the stories of the other and immigration. There were so many things I was exposed to, which helped me shape my artistic voice.
What made you want to start Corazón Folklórico?
There are a few different reasons. Moving to D.C. to establish my career and my home base, I yearned for a big Mexican presence. Being from Southern California, I missed a lot of elements, such as seeing Mexican food everywhere, hearing Mexican music everywhere or having an opportunity to dance Folklórico. I found that there are very few groups in D.C., whether they are on the outskirts of D.C., or not really in D.C., they’re all in another state. So geographic location kind of made a big difference and saying, “I think I could create a group here locally, where a lot of Latinos and a lot of people like me live.”
The second kind of incentive was creating Folklórico as a community because it is my second family. My home away from home was really important.
In high school, my mom and I faced homelessness for a few months due to my parents divorcing and the housing crisis in 2005, 2006, 2007 and on. It was in my second or my third year of high school, so I was applying to colleges, and this added stress was a lot. At that point, I was really close to my classmates that were Folklórico and my dance friends. It was with them I confided that, hey, my mom and I are going through this, and my friends let me stay with their family in their home.
So Folklórico always meant a lot. This is family when you really need them. These are the people I can grow close to. These are the people who are most vulnerable when you are backstage and everyone is changing and you’re running around. You almost have to act like one family, like, ‘let me help you with the zipper.’ ‘Oh, I got you with the hairpin.’ ‘Oh, that’s your sombrero.’ ‘It’s all wrong, let me fix it for you.’ So there are a lot of different family elements that I think are beautiful, in Folklórico and the dance community in general.
What were some challenges you faced on starting it?
I guess resources. I didn’t really have much, I didn’t even have costumes. I didn’t have a studio; I still don’t technically have a professional studio. I invested what I could, even though I didn’t really have much. But I believe in the community. I believed in the power of us as a team, that we can fundraise together and make our dreams of performing come true. So the challenges of not having an actual studio space are difficult. The Mexican Cultural Institute started off by giving us space in an empty office room in an empty building. And they allowed us to clean it up. And they allowed us to use the space for a few months, it was just temporary until they had another embassy use that office.
So when I couldn’t use that space anymore, we met at the public library and just rented a study room. Later [we were able to rehearse] at the Spanish Education Development Center, their bilingual, continuing education and daycare center. So when we performed for the Day of the Dead back in 2017, I realized that it had a big institute and a big facility, and I said, “Hey, I’m in this situation, where I don’t have rehearsal space. I can perform for your students and your families when you have events. But would you allow us to use the space during non-business hours, we all get out of work around six, and we have weekends available, I think our hours work.” So that was kind of a struggle to get us kind of off to like a home base where we can just have rehearsal. After that, we just started building our repertoire, buying costumes for different regions.
Now, my challenges are very different. My challenges are that I have so many people who want to sign up and take our class. Our enrollment has a waitlist. I have like 80 people showing interest to sign up for this fall, and I could only enroll 20. So now I need to grow my team, and I need to grow the organization so that I can have someone full-time managing the enrollment. That way, I can have people teaching more classes, so I don’t have to teach everything. But I would love to see the right organization continue to grow and prosper.
I explored your website a lot. There’s a quote that says dance and culture should be equally accessible to all. Can you expand more on that idea?
Yeah, I think that was alluding to what I faced in high school. My parents worked two jobs; they worked overtime and night shifts. It’s not that they didn’t want to allow me to dance or give me that opportunity. It’s just that they couldn’t. We’re just factoring in the fact that most dancers have to spend money to buy their dance outfits or their shoes. I just know that if a person wanted to perform, if they wanted to learn dance, they would do anything to give themselves that opportunity. Why charge them to be there if they’re already investing a lot in themselves to learn to dance?
So accessibility, geographic accessibility and socio-economic accessibility: being able to provide an opportunity to anyone, regardless of their physical ability, and the opportunity to learn is important. I have a student who is hard of hearing, and she’s joined the group and I’m learning as an instructor. She’s teaching me honestly how to be a better teacher, and how to convey what I want to convey in a different manner. I think there are a lot of things that we can learn from both the student and the teacher from these experiences. We put ourselves outside of who we are, and we have to help others. How can you be your better self? How can you become a better-evolved version of yourself? I hope I can do that through this beautiful experience of teaching.
In the next three to five years, where do you see Corazón Folklórico?
In the next three to five years, I hope the company will have a studio space. We’re all volunteers, so I hope there will be an employee or group of employees running the organization so that we can provide classes at different levels. I think that’s something that the company can do pretty soon. I just want to make sure that we have adequate studio space, and that the timing and hours available for after-school programs work for our company. And in theory for five years. I think it’s very possible. I just want to make sure that we’re ready for that next step to make it happen.
Want to learn more about Góngora? Tune in later this year for Hola Cultura’s new podcast, “Artistas in the Capital,” which will feature an expanded version of our conversation with him.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and concision. Corazón Folklórico DC stands for Corazón Folklórico Dance Company.
– Interview by Olivia Drey and the Arts & Humanities team
– Story by Olivia Drey
– Edited by Amelia Woolley-Larrea, Piper Russell and Yaretzi Chavez of the Copy Editing team
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