Meet Alfonso Cervera | Assistant Professor of Dance & Choreographer & Dance Activist Performer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alfonso Cervera and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alfonso, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
Collaborating with Primera Generación Dance Collective (PGDC) and Show Box L.A (SBLA) has helped expand and implement new programming that can reach artists of different backgrounds and identities. The work we do as an organization highlights BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists so that we can build a community that represents what the Los Angeles demographic actually is. PGDC is a dance collective that began in 2015 with the founding members of Alfonso Cervera, Rosa Rodriguez Frazier, Irvin Manuel Gonzalez, and Patricia Huerta. We wanted to bring our stories and background to the forefront where we would be able to exchange our Mexican American experiences navigating academic spaces and also euro-centric dance spaces to the wider community. The question became, how can we build and exchange the knowledge we have acquired being professional choreographers, performers, and educators within the field of dance, and share it with a wider audience? Being passed down SBLA from the amazing Meg Wolfe, we were able to follow their legacy of providing equitable programming of artists from various mediums, but to provide a different perspective in which we would create a bi-annual festival titled (de) Color-Es.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Something that sets me apart from other individuals is the dance technique I teach which is called Poc-Chuc. Chuc is a technique that began to cultivate itself during my graduate studies at the University of California, Riverside. It was here that I wanted to pose questions and acknowledge how my lived experience as a Queer Mexican American practitioner of various dance techniques was informing my movement and choreographic choices. Poc-Chuc is an idea, an imaginative platform that allows Mexican Ballet Folklorico, Afro-Latin social dances, and Release Technique (Modern Dance) to weave and create a conversation of work that revels between various politics and socialities of tradition and contemporary dualities. It’s a strategy that allows for movement invention, the transformation of the self-using Latine Queer Techniques, and my lived experience to bring Mexicanidad into a space that pays homage to family and forms. It’s a form that I have investigated for about seven years now and it has been a tool that has helped to build community, create relationships across demographics and identities, and to create works that fit those communities during that time. It’s a style of work that differs every time something is created as a solo, duet, or ensemble.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Urthe Caffe is probably a cliche but I really do love this spot. Every time I go I honestly try to get something different because their menu is amazing. With that in mind, I do also love me some TACOS from our local street vendors who serve you the closest thing we can get from Mexico being in the city.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would have to dedicate this shoutout to Primera Generación Dance Collective because, over these past years, they have been my family and artistic co-collaborators in creating dance, festivals, and curatorial programming that offers representation, and a safe space for me to exchange my thoughts and ideas. Each of us brings something new to both the collective and the non-profit we run so it’s always exciting to know that I have a foundation and rooted home with them.

Website: https://acerv002.wixsite.com/alfonsocerveradance

Instagram: fonzy110990

Image Credits
Alfonso Cervera for all imgages