Watching the whirled go by at a multicultural dance festival
| Cambridge, Mass.
On an overcast day when air sticks to skin, people are dancing everywhere.
Standing in a parking lot beside a towering stone church, a young woman enjoys a moment away from the crowd. With only her breath as company, she glides through smooth ballet motions, her limbs flowing like water. Later, just a stone鈥檚 throw away, a dancer in a fiery red blouse shimmies onstage, matching the rhythm of a plucky tune in Spanish. Up the street, sneakers morph into tap shoes, as a man in a button-up shirt teaches people of all ages the first steps of a basic routine.
At the Dance for World Community festival, people step to music from nearly every corner of the planet, waltzing across language barriers and borders.
Why We Wrote This
This annual festival in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has performers 鈥� and attendees 鈥� waltzing across language barriers and borders. The idea that dance is for everyone, regardless of ability, infuses the festival.
鈥淒ance has an inherent power to unify people across different groups, different cultures, different backgrounds,鈥� says Jos茅 Mateo, whose eponymous dance school produces the festival each year in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 鈥淒ance is always present, and it鈥檚 a language that has an appeal one might say is universal.鈥� When he launched the festival in 2009, Mr. Mateo saw it as a way to bring together Greater Boston鈥檚 dance community, whether they pirouetted to orchestral sonatas or stepped to hip-hop. He wanted to change the narrative around ballet specifically, he says, a genre that many people see as haughty and limiting.
Today, as the festival shuts down a street near Harvard University, Mr. Mateo seems to have done just that. Throngs of people gather to watch troupes perform ballet over the hum of violin strings, twirl to Hindi music in traditional Indian dress, and even stomp to heavy metal.
But it鈥檚 not just professionals getting their bodies moving. Here, anyone can be a dancer. The idea that dance is for everyone, regardless of ability, infuses the festival.
鈥淚 always wanted to do dance,鈥� says Sara Zhao, who was pulled onstage during an Indian dance routine. Her young children dance at Jos茅 Mateo Ballet Theatre School, and she says she鈥檚 鈥渓iving vicariously through them.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 just really cool to see all the different ways that people can move their bodies to the music. It鈥檚 really expressive and fun,鈥� she adds.
