EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – A University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) dance organization is trying to make its way to the Borderland’s heart.
Desert Dance “Heels Dance” workshop. Photo by Luisa Barrios – KTSM
Desert Dance is a student organization that is implementing new strategies to bring dance events, workshops and fundraisers not just to the UTEP community, but to the Borderland community as well.
KTSM spoke with the president of the organization, Gabriela Muñoz. She is a junior majoring in dance and linguistics who’s helping the Dance Department grow and be seen.
Muñoz said that during the spring semester, the department hosts several workshops with different dance genres.
In past years, those workshops were only available for UTEP students and some of them were even a requirement for certain dance courses.
This year, that has changed.
The department decided that they wanted to stop limiting the experience by expanding those workshops to non-students as well, welcoming anyone to attend and dance.
Each workshop costs $10 for non-students/non-members and $15 for those who want to become a Desert Dance member. Muñoz said you have to be a UTEP student in order to be a member.
For Desert Dance members the workshops are free.
On Friday afternoon, March 29, the last workshop of the season was held.
Led by UTEP student Daniela Duarte, the Heels Dance workshop was a different, energetic experience for attendees.
Desert Dance “Heels Dance” workshop. Photos by Luisa Barrios – KTSM
As the name suggests, the dance involved making the routine in heels from beginning to end.
Duarte began her heels training in 2021, making it one of her favorite dance styles and supporting an outlet to continue exploring her feminine strength, read Duarte’s workshop description on the Desert Dance Instagram account.
Despite the complexity of the dance, Duarte made sure to keep attendees safe and comfortable at all times.
Providing water breaks, continuously asking if everyone felt OK, and even changing some parts of the choreography if it was too complicated for attendees are some of a few examples of how Duarte made everyone in the room enjoy the experience to the maximum.
Desert Dance “Heels Dance” workshop. Video by Luisa Barrios – KTSM
Muñoz said that the purpose of expanding the workshops to non-students is for the community to have a safe, open space with access to dance opportunities such as Duarte’s workshop.
“I feel like dance is such a big part of our culture and as a Mexican myself, I’m now realizing that. Not just folklorico and traditional though, we have a high hip-hop demographic here, not just at UTEP but in El Paso,” Muñoz said. “A lot of people are so interested in just taking dance workshops and I think that at UTEP is a little bit hard because people don’t know where to go and they get lost. But in general, people are so interested and I feel like if we provide that for them, a lot of people will be able to go, and it will be a very fun experience for everybody. Hopefully these workshops will be able to build more revenue and higher demand.”
Muñoz concluded by saying the Dance Department is working to bring these workshops to the fall semester for the first time, hoping to have more visibility and share the art that is dance with the community.
You can learn more about Desert Dance here, or follow them on Instagram.
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