'We Dance United': Aztec Dance Troupes Preserve a Proud Heritage for Bay Area's Latinx Community

This week, communities across California celebrated Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, with processions and ceremonies honoring the loved ones they've lost. In San Francisco’s Mission District, festivities kicked off with Aztec dance troupes blessing altars on 24th Street.

“You were born in these traditions and this is what's going to surround you to the day you die,” said Chabela Sanchez, who performs with Danza Azteca Xitlalli and has danced in events like these for more than 30 years. “You will be surrounded by the ancestors and prayer in this way. So we're going to bless you with the ceremony.”

For some Mexican Americans, Aztec dancing helps them feel connected to their Indigenous roots. But if you see a performance and notice a crucifix being held or a guitarist strumming religious hymns in Spanish, those are European symbols and traditions.

“So even though there's a Catholic image behind it, there's that syncretism of why it had to be,” said Sanchez. “To be able to survive and be preserved.”

Syncretism, Sanchez explained, is the blending of two contradictory religious traditions. To keep dance traditions, Aztec performers trying to protect their Indigenous spiritual roots often concealed them under the guise of Catholicism, which helped divert unwanted hostility from Spanish colonizers.

These days some Indigenous people with roots in Latin America still practice some aspects of Catholicism as well as Indigenous traditions, and many Aztec troupes reflect a melding of those two religious traditions in their ceremonies throughout the year.

Xilonen ceremony

In addition to Day of the Dead festivities, Aztec dancers perform at ceremonies throughout the year. During the summer solstice, drummers and dancers are key to the Xilonen, or the ceremony of the young corn, which is a coming-of-age ceremony for Latinx teenagers.

“It really is kind of an Aztec quinceañera,” said Sanchez. “Our girls run from ages 13 to 17.”

At this summer’s Xilonen in the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco, different dance troupes, each in their own matching Indigenous regalia, performed at a local park as part of an event hosted by Danza Azteca Xitlalli. Five teens in white knee-length dresses donned colorful feathers on their wrists and crowns made of corn husks, as Aztec dancers encircled them.

The Xilonen ceremony is one of many annual cultural milestones hosted by an Aztec dance troupe rather than by a family or a church.

Dancing nonstop for 30 hours

At least five Aztec dance troupes in San Francisco perform their own ceremonies throughout the year.

It can be a big commitment for the dancers, who sometimes get called at a moment’s notice to support a birth or death ceremony.

“One of the kids that grew up here on the street died,” said Louie Gutierrez, director of Danza Azteca Coyolxauhqui, who lives in the Mission. “So they wanted to do a ritual for them, burn some sage, some copal.”

For a typical ceremony, performers may dance for 30 hours with breaks for prayer and food. There’s one annual event in December — a Catholic tribute to the Virgin Mary — where Gutierrez and his dancemates dance nonstop for an entire day.

Dancers show up for these marathon late-night events and practices while juggling full-time jobs. Gutierrez runs the popular La Reyna bakery in the Mission. But showing up for his community as a dancer is an unpaid gig.

Generals and captains

Aztec dance groups are organized in strict hierarchies. Here’s how it works: Each dance group has a sergeant who reports to a regional captain, and the captains report to the highest-ranking position in Aztec dance: an Aztec dance general. That person is usually someone living in Mexico.

Sanchez's husband, Roberto Vargas, also a longtime Aztec dancer, explained how the strict militaristic order of command helps everyone dance in unison.

“Danza represents the cosmos, and the cosmos has an order,” said Vargas.

The Aztec dance higher-ups — the generals in Mexico — set the rules and the tone on how dancing should be performed and on which events dance troupes are allowed to participate in. For a long time, Vargas said, the elders have shied away from participating in political events or protests.

“They don't want to align themselves with politicos because somebody could be cool one day and the next day, not cool,” he explained. “So you can't be affiliating with people who are wishy-washy, so it's sort of like the spiritual mission is more important than any political [one].”

A history of violence against dancers

Another big reason why many Azteca dancers have avoided protests is because historical violence has been etched into their memory.

Vargas remembers the Tlatelolco massacre in the days before the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico. Eyewitnesses say government forces opened fire on student protesters, killing hundreds. The tragedy and its aftermath had a chilling effect on student activists and cultural performers.

“Over there [in Mexico], they have memories of once again people being killed,” said Vargas. “You risk your life standing up against the government.”

That comes on top of historical violence against Indigenous people — including dancers — since colonization.

“During the early years of bringing the danza out to the public, people were getting attacked and jailed and killed for practicing these traditions,” explained Vargas.

But in the U.S., Sanchez said, many dancers see performing as an inherently political act because they are reclaiming their Indigenous cultural identity.

A number of troupes, for example, performed at the Indigenous Peoples Day Sunrise Gathering last month, an event that challenges centuries of colonization and genocide with a gathering on Alcatraz Island that features both Aztec and Native American dancers.

“The point of dancing is to bring health and well-being,” said Gutierrez, adding that dancing has helped him focus his energy in a positive direction. It’s a huge part of his quest for a healthier lifestyle and of his spiritual journey.

Gutierrez and Sanchez are always keeping an eye out, scouting for the next generation of dancers to carry on this tradition. They know it may take a while for younger dancers to fully understand how vital they are to the community.

When you see a Danza Azteca performance and you feel pulled in by the dancers, Sanchez said, that’s your heart being conquered. You want to be a part of it. She recited the motto that guides all Aztec dancers: "Union, conformidad y conquista."

Loosely translated, it means: We dance united, we dance together.