As the stage lights dimmed momentarily and turned back on, an assembly of dancers spread out all across the stage, each proudly holding a large flag representing their heritage or ancestral nationality. The myriad of large, colorful flags accompanied the dancers as they draped them around their necks and smoothly incorporated them into their movements. The waving and graceful swaying of the flags, almost like a matador’s muleta, accentuated the light but rapid footwork of the dancers, giving a closer look at each individual nationality represented on stage — Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia, among others.
This piece, which centered on salsa, was part of a collection of Latin dances I saw at Más Flow’s dress run before the opening night of their spring show “Barrio Mío.” I attended the final behind-the-scenes rehearsal of campus’ premier Latin dance company, characterized by their high-energy performances and faithful homage to raising the visibility of Latin performing arts.
Between their dramatic, sharp leg movements in tango and confident hip swing in reggaeton, I watched filler videos, each clip ending with a slide that listed the dance style of the following piece. Though brief and thus easy to overlook in the moment, those ending clips showed the breadth and richness of Latin dance. They helped me appreciate the moves executed with swag in dembow, the cohesive energy that flowed through the dancers’ movements to the beat in cumbia, and the simple, repetitive steps that embodied a lot of suave in merengue.
This conscious effort to inform the audience about the particular Latin American dance style depicted in each piece of the show aligns with the company’s effort to highlight the vibrant Latin American identity of its members.
Victoria Caballero Quinn ’26, president of Más Flow, affirmed this intention to channel everything that makes the company what it is today onto the stage.
“We are marked by our cultures, our rhythms, the people that surround us, and our upbringings, and there’s no way that we can disassociate that from dancing. We thought about getting that here and amplifying that on stage, through lights and costumes, and through our small community that we built here, which is not small anymore,” Caballero Quinn said.
Artistic director Angela Hernandez ’27 corroborated this sentiment, stating that they “really wanted to encompass what [their] cultures embody — the fruitfulness that comes with it.” She added that “it’s very colorful, vibrant, happy and just a celebration.”
The show included dances like baile del palo, which spotlighted Afro-Caribbean culture in the Dominican Republic, and parts of the choreography emphasized the lyrical power of the Afro-Dominican music that played throughout the piece.
Nicole Torres ’26 commented on her experience helping choreograph festejo, an Afro-Peruvian dance.
“As a Peruvian-American, co-choreographing festejo for Más Flow was an incredibly meaningful experience … to introduce a piece of our culture that hadn’t been showcased before,” Torres stated in a written comment.
Más Flow has committed to making itself visible on campus and fostering a welcoming environment for all those who share Latin American heritage or who wish to learn more about the community. As part of this initiative to elevate their presence within the student body, they have hosted many events to show how they celebrate Latin dance, culture, and joy. This included commemorations that honored Afro-Latino experiences, and a cumbia workshop for which they invited a dance instructor from New York.
The title of the show, “Barrio Mío,” shone through in the fillers, which showed how the people in a place can help turn it into an intimate barrio where they feel welcomed.
Catherine Ruiz ’26, vice president of the company, explained that the fillers revolved around the idea of multi-generational homes and families, and the realities in which they reside.
“I think that was part of the focus of making it relatable for our audience and our members and bringing that to the greater community,” Ruiz said.
“Our fillers do a very good job of showcasing the daily lives that we live and the experiences that we’ve all had in very small ways. ‘Barrio Mío’ showcases the way that the neighborhoods that we grew up in, or neighborhoods that we visited through our childhood, kind of represent this small piece of who we are, even in the sense of like a diaspora,” explained Alanna Perez ’25, assistant artistic director of the company.
The filler videos also helped set the context of the performance within a familiar environment for Princeton students.
“We not only wanted to showcase these realities, but we also wanted to bring them in close contact with the reality of living in Princeton,” Caballero Quinn added. For example, she told me that one of the fillers was filmed at Lupita Groceries, a Mexican grocery shop located 15 minutes away from Nassau Street.
These relatable scenes, grounded in the realities of everyday life, also extended to the pieces. In the beginning of the salsa and merengue pieces, dancers paced around the stage dressed in casual attire to represent a diverse crowd of ordinary people going about their daily lives: having conversations with one another, going to work, talking on the phone. This casual-looking crowd then collectively hypes each other’s energy so as to gradually break away from their mundane actions and into the first choreographed movements of the piece.
As the show came to a close, I wished the pieces at the end, such as Haitian kompa, Puerto Rican bomba, and Cuban rumba, were not so rushed, but I thoroughly enjoyed the show’s authentic portrayal of the diversity and vibrancy of performative arts that constitute Latin American culture.
Russell Fan is a head editor for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’ He can be reached at rf4125@princeton.edu, or on Instagram @russell__fan.
Please send any corrections to corrections@dailyprincetonian.com.
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