Animales Animados has become an annual aerial and live music party spearheaded by Gatas y Vatas organizer Monica Demarco. In 2015, it teamed up youth and adult performers in Albuquerque’s Tiguex Park on a summer afternoon. Minutes after the show concluded, the sky opened up and a torrent of rain washed over the city.
Incorporating performers of all ages—and live musicians and aerialists—for a show isn’t something that happens enough. Too often, and sometimes even automatically, we segment performance by age, and it limits the people who are able attend a show or how the show is perceived by its audience. Animales Animados shattered those assumptions in a radical way in 2015.
It takes a huge amount of rehearsal and donated equipment and time to make this showcase happen as a benefit for Gatas y Vatas. The gift is an honor. Thanks, especially, to AirDance New Mexico, a Gatas y Vatas sponsor, for helping us all literally and figuratively, get off the ground.
Photos by William Blackshear