Texas Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival Takes The Stage

Texas Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival Takes The Stage March 27 – 29
The sixth annual festival will be presented at Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH).

HOUSTON (February 15, 2026) – The Pilot Dance Project, a 501(c)3 non-profit arts organization with the mission to empower and transform communities through innovative dance and performing arts experiences, is proud to announce its 6th Annual Texas Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival. Created to elevate Latinx choreographers and identity, the Texas Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival returns to the Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston for a three-night roster in Matchbox 2. This year’s festival features twenty-two original dance works representing local, regional, national, and international artists. The sixth edition of this community-driven program is supported by a Festival Grant from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance and a Groundwork Grant from Dance Source Houston. 

Highlights of this year’s festival includes a new repertory work set on The Pilot Dance Project by longtime company member Dorianne Castillo. Her “Veil of Marigolds” is a narrative scene of artist Frida Kahlo’s liminal existence between life and death. University Houston dance professor M. Gabriela Estrada returns to the festival with “Calladita…,”a choreographic manifesto that reclaims silenced women’s histories through embodied performance, transforming a single lived moment into a collective, transcultural testimony. Celebrated Chicano artist and dance faculty member of Emory University Julio Medina brings to Houston his “El Brujo,”  inspired by transformation, magic, and witches in Mexican folklore. El Brujo is a product of marginalization, and how it has sometimes felt to be a Mexican descendant in the United States: othered and demonized. 

Choreographer Robert Andrew Smith returns to the festival for the fourth year in a row with Deconstructing Adonis, an exploration of the construction, performance, and eventual unraveling of masculinity through the body. Nationally recognized dance artists Armani Rey Colón and Gabriel Mata of Washington, D.C. bring Brownness Num. 3.2. The work embodies the multiplicity of queer and Latine/x identities, centering artists whose bodies, histories, and aesthetics resist erasure in the field of contemporary dance. Cynthia Garcia, also a perennial participant, returns with a new work, “Lazos del Alma,” a duet that explores the spiritual and physical bonds we make with others throughout our lives. This piece uses a woman’s braid as symbolism of soul ties, along with movement influenced by Spanish flamenco dance to symbolize the fire and passion that can come from such deep connections. 

The Texas Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival is a program devoted to dance artists at all stages of their careers. This year’s line-up was curated to represent the broad range of Latinx heritage and identity, and includes choreographic voices from across the United States and beyond. “This is one of my favorite programs to produce because at this point it feels like a family,” says Executive and Artistic Director Adam Castaneda. “So many of the artists who get on the roster then become perennial favorites. This year we made a conscious effort to include a significant number of first-time participants while also honoring those artists who look forward to presenting at the festival year-after-year.”

The full line-up of artists is below, and information regarding the performances will be available on The Pilot Dance Project website and social media pages. Tickets for the performances will be available for purchase through the MATCH Website. 

ABOUT THE PILOT DANCE PROJECT

The Pilot Dance Project is a professional Modern dance company based in Houston under the executive and artistic direction of Adam Castan͂eda. In addition to producing his own work through the company, Castan͂eda commissions new dance works by some of the region’s most celebrated choreographers. The company’s annual season includes a robust festival program, including the Texas Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival, the Houston Fringe Festival, and for the first time in 2024, Bayou City Dances, a showcase of the city’s most prolific dance companies at the Miller Outdoor Theatre. The Pilot Dance Project has received funding from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Mid-America Arts Alliance, Houston Endowment, Bunnies on the Bayou, EmcArts, the BIPOC Arts Network & Fund, the Morales Foundation, the Woodlands Arts Council, Dance Source Houston, and the Midtown Management District. 

Sixth Annual Texas Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival Official Schedule

Friday, March 27, 2026 @ 8pm
M. Garbriela Estrada 
Adam Castan͂eda/The Pilot Dance Project
Julio Media (Atlanta, GA)
Andrew Robert Smith
Melanie Garcia & Cecilia Gomez
Jaruam Xavier (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Andrea Vasquez-Aguirre Kaufman

Saturday, March 28, 2026 @ 8pm
The Pilot Dance Project/Dorianne Castillo
Armani Colon & Gabriel Mata (Washington, D.C.)
Lexi Robles
Jai Alexander
Deeper Than Dance/Mariah Henry
Soren Rivero
Bonnie Alonzo-Hansen & Emily Rushing (Austin, TX)

Sunday, March 29 @ 6pm
Cynthia Garcia
Mark Aguilar
Paty Lorena Solorzano
Kristina Prats
Camila Maldonado
Ana Karen Gonzalez
Estefanie Valle Cruz
Claudia Orcasitas

###