dance
collective
Primera Generación
Primera Generación Dance Collective (PGDC) is a collaborative group based in L.A/Riverside, California and formed by Alfonso Cervera, Rosa Rodriguez-Frazier, Irvin Manuel Gonzalez, and Patricia “Patty” Huerta. PGDC focuses on the visibilization of Mexican American corporeality, joy, and loss through movement-based exploration, process, and performance. The collective grounds their works in rasquache (tacky) play and resourcefulness, generating work that speaks to their Latine, working-class experiences. Utilizing a hybridization of text, satire, song, and movement, the collective fuses together their eclectic aesthetics to expose el “desmadre” (messiness) that is embedded in being first-generation, Mexican Americans, reclaiming iconography and "low-brow" art to spark Latine futurity. PGDC has performed at REDCAT, HomeLA, FLACC Festival, Mission Dance Theater, Highways Performance Space, El Teatro Campesino, Human Resources LA, BlakTinx Dance Festival in Arizona and L.A, and NAVEL. In 2020, the collective took over leadership for Show Box L.A, a non-profit organization that works to center and manifest trans-communal collaborations, creations, and networks between QTBIPOC artmakers in the LA region and beyond.They are the recipients of the 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Grant. Follow PGDC at @primerageneraciondance + @showboxla
nostalgia
pop
Performances
NOStalgia POP (Touring w/ Primera Generación Dance Collective 2024-Present)
Cervera claims 50% co-authorship. My role was co-choreographer, sound designer, applying for grant applications, and applying to festivals. (4 choreographers, 70 minutes -Full Length)
Description: PGDC’s second evening length work. With eclectic, multilingual, Latinx aesthetics, Los Angeles and Riverside-based Primera Generación Dance Collective exposes “el desmadre” (the messiness) that is their first-generation Mexican American experience. Rooted in popular Latine music, movement, and moments, their newest evening-length multimedia dance work, NOStalgia POP, pays homage and cheeky critique to the recuerdos romanticos that link Latine bodies together. A collage of ‘80s pop en Español, the “Latin Explosion” of the ‘90s, and millennial Mexican core weave together with media depictions of gente Latina. Four captivating dancers tell the story of how messy, fruitful, joyful, and painful the development of an ever-growing Latin Pop culture memory has been and the ways in which mainstream media shapes and is (re)shaped by Latine nostalgia.
2026 Venue: CECUT, Cuerpos en Tránsito/Muestra Internacional de Danza, Tijuana, Mexico (**Invited**)
2025 Venue: Robert Moses' Kin Theater, New York, NY (**Commissioned by Dance Magazine**)
2025 Venue: CounterPulse, San Francisco, CA (**Commissioned by Bridge Live Arts**)
2024 Venue: REDCAT NOW Festival, Los Angeles, CA (**Juried Selection**)
2024 Venue: Latinx Movement Festival, Dance Place. Washington, DC (**Juried Selection**)
2024 Venue: BlakTinx Festival, Tempe Center of the Arts/Phoenix, AZ (**Invited**)
2024 Venue: Joshua Retreat Center, Joshua Tree, CA (**Commissioned by Latina Dance Project**)
With eclectic, multilingual, Latinx aesthetics, Los Angeles and Riverside-based Primera Generación Dance Collective exposes “el desmadre” (the messiness) that is their first-generation Mexican American experience. Rooted in popular Latine music, movement, and moments, their newest evening-length multimedia dance work, NOStalgia POP, pays homage and cheeky critique to the recuerdos romanticos that link Latine bodies together. A collage of ‘80s pop en Español, the “Latin Explosion” of the ‘90s, and millennial Mexican core weave together with media depictions of gente Latina. Four captivating dancers tell the story of how messy, fruitful, joyful, and painful the development of an ever-growing Latin Pop culture memory has been and the ways in which mainstream media shapes and is (re)shaped by Latine nostalgia.
"NATIONAL ENDOWMENT OF THE ARTS RECIPENT"
"DANCE MAGAZINE TOP 25 TO WATCH"
Nepantla is a series of movement-based explorations and rasquache (resourcefully tacky) play, used to reflect, generate, question, and re-imagine the Mexican American experience. Highlighting Gloria Anzaldúa’s theorization of nepantla, a messy in-between space, the collective oscillates between brown memory, re-membering, sorrow, and alegría (joy) to manifest the affective embodiments that locate and situate what in-between-ness looks, feels, smells, sounds, and tastes like. In doing so, Primera Generación Dance Collective strategically navigates culturally iconic images, stories, songs, stereotypes, and rituals to visibilize the harsh realities, imaginative potentials, and pleasure of mexicanidad(es) in the U.S. and beyond.
Performances
2023 Culver Center of the Arts, Riverside, CA
2022 Dance at Odyssey, Odyssey Theater, Los Angeles, CA
2020 NOW Festival CalArts REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA
2019 FLACC Festival: Bones & Bridges, Dance Mission Theater, San Francisco, CA
2025 “25 to Watch Live: A Night of Electric Talent and Community,” Dance Magazine, 05.01.25
2024 “NOStalgia POP: A Transformational Journey,” LA Dance Chronicle, 07.24.24
2023 “LA Times Entertainment: Things To Do...,” by Steven Vargas, LA Times, 04.26.23
“Dance Collective Teaches Moves to UC Riverside Students,” by Sarah Hofmann,
The Press-Enterprise, 02.16.23
2022 “Review: Primera Generación Dance Collective at the Odyssey Theatre,”
by Tam Warner, LA Dance Chronicle, 06.24.22
“How Primera Generación Dance Collective Brought ‘Nepantla’ from Screen to Stage,”
by Steven Vargas, LA Times, 06.23.22
“Performance Review: Party at the Dance at the Odyssey Festival,”
by Benn Widdey, Culture Spot LA, 06.21.22
2021 “Smash Cut – LA BlakTinX Alumni Dances Made for Camera 2021,”
by Jeff Slayton, LA Dance Chronicle, 06.29.21
“'Mapping Our Stories' Film Series Elevates BIPOC Histories of Santa Monica,”
by Clara Harter, Santa Monica Daily Press, 04.12.21
“MAPPING OUR STORIES…,” by Christine Suárez,
LA Dance Chronicle, 03.31.21
2020 “Mixed Reviews for Week Two of REDCAT's Virtual NOW Festival 2020,”
by Jeff Slayton, LA Dance Chronicle, 11.07.20
“BlakTinX Dance Festival: Dancing on the Edge – Program Two,”
by Jeff Slayton, LA Dance Chronicle, 06.24.20
2019 “Tiempos Desmadrosos: Dancing Latinidad to the Beat of Grief: FLACC Festival,”
by Jose Alfaro, Queequeg's Left, 12.17.19
“Various Artists – D.I.R.T. Festival, storm SURGE edition – San Francisco,”
by Claudia Bauer, DanceTabs, 03.13.19
“Field Notes: Dire Times Inspire Powerful Art and Resistance,”
by Jeff Slayton, LA Dance Chronicle, 02.11.19
2017 “The Best Things We Saw in Phoenix in 2017,”
by Lynn Trimble, Phoenix New Times, 12.18.17
“Phoenix's First BlakTina Festival Packed an Emotional Punch,”
by Lynn Trimble, Phoenix New Times, 06.24.17
2016 “Dance Card: Showcase for Contemporary Latin American Choreographers,”
by Andrew Gilbert, 11.29.16
“Fourth Annual BlakTina Opens at the Bootleg,”
by Jeff Slayton, See Dance News, 09.16.16
“The Dancing We Carry: Thinking with Orlando,”
by Jose Alfaro, Queequeg's Left, 06.23.16
film and short works
2021 “Rasquacherencias” Our LA Voices, Grand Park, Los Angeles, CA (virtual performance)
“Rasquacherencias” Bootleg Theatre & Latina Dance Project Present *Smash Cut*,
Los Angeles, CA (virtual performance)
“low riting” Suárez Dance Theater Presents *Mapping Our Stories*,
Santa Monica, CA (virtual performance)
2020 “Cuartroentena” BlakTinX Dance Festival: *Dancing on the Edge*,
Los Angeles, CA (virtual performance)
2019 “intentcity/cambio/Ni Fú, Ni Fá” Cosumnes River College,
Sacramento, CA
“intentcity” Dancing Diaspora, Pieter Performance Space,
Los Angeles, CA
“recicla tú madre!” D.I.R.T. Festival, Dance Mission Theater,
San Francisco, CA
“Primera Generación Dance Collective” UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance,
Young Auditorium, Whitewater, WI
“intentcity” *Field Notes: Dances in Dire Times*,
Miley Memorial Playhouse, Santa Monica, CA
2018 “intentcity” Riverside Trolley Dances,
Matthew Gage Middle School, Riverside, CA
2017 “Ni Fú, Ni Fá” Black Theatre Troupe,
Phoenix, AZ
2016 “Cambio” FLACC Dance Festival,
Mission Dance Theater, San Francisco, CA
“ahí tá” (de) Color-Es,
Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA
“Ni Fú, Ni Fá” BlakTinX Dance Festival,
Los Angeles, CA
“Ni Fú, Ni Fá” BEHOLD! Queer Dance Festival,
Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica, CA
“Cambio, Primera Generación” Studio Series,
REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA
2015 “Cambio, Primera Generación” CMDC 3rd Anniversary Showcase,
Los Angeles, CA