We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hilda Lucía Estrella de Lev. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hilda Lucía below.
Hi Hilda Lucía, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
When I was a child I was taught to do the best in my studies and I was pressured to have good grades. We had economical reasons for it and I saw it as my way of contributing to our household. I got used to give my best in what I considered to be my contribution into our lives. When that weight got lifted I could not feel comfortable with myself if I didn’t do my best in wherever I decided to invest my time in.
When I discovered that dance is the pasion and path I will follow, there was not doubt in my mind that I will put all my best into it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a Mexican Folklore dance teacher and a group director. I have been dancing folklore since I was 8 years old. When I was young, I was not interested in having my own dance group. When I moved to USA I got so homesick that I looked for a place or comunity to dance – but when I found none, I decided to start teaching. In doing so, I found others homesick like me. Little by little we started to peform and Alma Mexicana was born.
Dance is an amazing art form. There are many different types of dance – social, academic, tradicional, therapeutic, etc and it can get into many different levels. I try to balance between technique, comunity, culture, and development of skills in each of my students. One of my goals is that they learn and enjoy themselves when dancing.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
– Perseverance – Discipline – Love
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
In my perfect world, I would be able to collaborate with musicians and be able to get shows when all of our performance will be played with live music. Also, I would love to have collaborations with other styles of dance, like contemporary or even other folklore groups from other contries and make contributions to one another, not only in dance techniques but also in history and experience.
Lastly, I would love to collaborate with people with physical challenges, and work on ways to bring the joy of movement into our lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.almamexicanaatlanta.com
- Instagram: @almamexatl
- Facebook: AlmaMexicanaAtlanta
Image Credits
Mariana Banfi (the picture with a lot of trees in the back ground), Boon Vong (The picture with the from the back of the stage showing shoes, kids couple and audience), Leo Lev the others .
