If you’re headed to APAP|NYC this year, look out for the La Mezcla crew and follow up with Sharon & Vanessa over a proper east coast bagel! ☕🥯
Learn more about Ahualulco, a new work in development by Vanessa Sanchez, and La Mezcla’s touring productions, including limited slots of a 2026 remount of the internationally toured production, Pachuquísmo, and recently toured Ghostly Labor & Rhythms of Resistance: Music and Dance Concert
2025 with La Mezcla! This year we celebrated our 10th anniversary, hired our FIRST managing director, premiered our “Rhythms of Resistance” concert, had touring engagements in 4 cities, hosted 11 Connecting Communities with Artists workshops with Master Artists, held development residencies in San Francisco & New York City, GOT AN OFFICE SPACE, AND MORE! We couldn’t have done it without you all! Gracias to the community for all your support this year, we are so excited for what’s to come in 2026!
Join us on Saturday December 13 for a special Connecting Communities with Artists Son Jarocho workshop with Maestro Claudio Naranjos Vega and La Rama + Community Fandango in the neighborhood! RSVP required due to limited capacity!
Son Jarocho Workshop with Claudio Naranjos Vega La Rama + Community Fandango Claudio Naranjos Vega has participated in “Los Vega” for 25 years to date. He has contributed as a musician (requinto instrument and guitarra de son), composer and arranger, and as of 2020, director of the group. Los Vega has performed in a large number of cultural and artistic festivals in the country and abroad; such as China, the United States and Canada. They have participated in different film recordings, such as for the theme La Bruja from the Oscar-nominated, movie Frida.
As of 2022, Mr. Claudio has been working at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts as the Music Specialist for Mexican Music in Son Jarocho. During his time at the East Bay Center, he has given classes to over 1,000 students and led a Resident Company called Son de la Tierra. In 2023 & 2024, he received two grants from Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA). He recently participated in recording for a CD called “Caminos” in which he led a Son Jarocho version of a track. In 2024, Mr. Naranjos was invited to perform in Washington D.C for a Day of the Dead event at the National Portrait Gallery where 7,000 people attended.
El Ahualulco is a new multidisciplinary dance and music work in development by choreographer Vanessa Sanchez, exploring the cultural, historical, and rhythmic connections between Veracruz [Mexico], and Cuba. The work layers traditional Mexican Son Jarocho rhythms and Afro-Cuban folkloric movement with original tap dance choreography, tracing the intertwined histories of African and Indigenous resistance across the Caribbean. Following bi-coastal development residencies in NYC and SF, we are excited to share this work-in-progress showing with the community! RSVP required due to limited capacity!
Saturday Dec 6, 2025
12pm Doors | 12:30pm Showing with Q&A and Reception
Brava Theater Studio in San Francisco, CA
Suggested donation $10 | No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP Required due to limited capacity!
Friday November 21, 11am-12:30pm at Brava Theater. With LIVE drumming accompaniment!
Bernard Brown is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, educator, curator and artist-citizen working at the crossroads of Blackness, Queerness, and belonging. As artistic director of Bernard Brown/bbmoves, he choreographs for stage, specific sites, film, and opera which has been presented across Africa, Asia, North America, and Europe, including The Getty, On The Boards, Dance Camera West, Dance Camera Istanbul, American Dance Festival’s ADF Movies by Movers, the Oscar-qualifying African Diaspora Cinema Festival, Seoul International Dance Festival, Royce Hall and US State sponsored tour to Centre de Developpment Choregraphique La Termitierre, Burkina Faso, West Africa. His concert dance performance credits include Lula Washington Dance Theatre, David Rousseve/REALITY, Doug Elkins Dance Company, Jazz Antiqua Dance and Music Ensemble, and founding member of TU Dance. Other stage credits include “Letter to a Man” with Mikhail Baryshnikov, “Treemonisha” (choreographer and performer), Los Angeles Opera’s “Aida,” titular role in Nike’s “12 Miles North: The Nick Gabaldon Story,” and the Kennedy Center’s Masters of African American Choreography, as répétiteur and performer. Commissions and residencies include institutions such as The Music Center, Dance Italia, The Wende Museum, the City of Los Angeles, danceBox (Kobe, Japan), South Chicago Dance Theatre, Dance Mission Theater, Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins University, UCLA, among others. A first-generation college graduate, he is an Assistant Professor of Dance at UC San Diego, a Certified Katherine Dunham Technique Instructor, Cultural Trailblazer for the City of Los Angeles, and a California Arts Council Established Artist Fellow. The Los Angeles Times has called him “…the incomparable Bernard Brown…”