View the full episode transcript.
Angelica Medina’s first memories of dance are from when she was five years old doing steps to a Selena performance on TV. Her wife, Jahaira Fajardo, remembers being a New York club kid in her late teens, when she thinks of her earliest dance experiences. That’s because dancing felt very heteronormative and exclusionary, and as a lesbian growing up in a Dominican household, dancing seemed just not okay for her. Now as adults, Angelica and Jahaira are co-founders of In Lak’ech, the first queer salsa and bachata dance academy in the U.S. and they are out to create dance spaces that build inclusivity.
The two met while dancing in 2014, and noticed that something was missing from their experience in Latin dance. “I always felt like I could only bring a certain percentage of myself into those communities and a part of me had to be left at the door,” Jahaira says. She wanted to lead during partner dancing but found that people weren’t very open to female leads. She found acceptance for leading in the Queer community, but it felt worlds away from the Afro-Latin dance community.
During a break while training for a competition, Angelica and Jahaira went for a walk. Angelica asked, “Why don’t we start our own community? Why don’t we start our own dance company?” and the idea for In Lak’ech was born with the goal of bringing both communities together to provide a space where everyone is welcome. “Leading and following have nothing to do with gender, you know, and so essentially we normalize a space where you can show up as your authentic self,” Angelica says.
Encouraged by their students at the academy, the duo went on to create the Queer Afro-Latin Dance Festival. It’s now in its 6th year and is a space where queer and trans dancers can just exist and be themselves. The festival’s offerings have now expanded to include panel discussions on issues like anti-blackness and body positivity and how that affects dancers. Musing about dancing in the community they’ve created, Jahaira says, “Just being up there on stage is a powerful statement in itself, right? – of like taking up space, like a tribe kind of feeling, of like we’re showing up or we’re here to stay. It’s a really empowering and powerful experience. “
The next Queer Afro-Latin Dance Festival takes place in San Jose, June 14-17, 2024. Visit queerafrolatindancefestival.com for more information.
Episode Transcript
Jahaira Fajardo, guest: Did you want to tell folks what In lak’ech means?
Angelica Medina, guest: In Lak’ech is a Mayan phrase and it means you are my other me, ‘Tu eres mi otro yo. We are a reflection of each other.’ And so it’s a beautiful message we love to share with the community and that message is very much embodied in our dance classes and all of our events.
[Music]
Sheree Bishop, host: Hey listeners, my name’s Sheree, and I’m a production intern on Rightnowish. I’ll be your host for this episode! Today, I spoke to Jahaira Fajardo and Angelica Medina. They’re the co-directors and founders of In Lak’ech Dance, the first queer Salsa and Bachata academy.
Nothing brings people together like some food, some music, and some good dancing. When I’m in a place where I feel like I belong, I know I can count on a friendly smile and an introduction to help me feel included. When I went to a class at In Lak’ech Dance, that’s exactly what it felt like, warm, inviting, and filled with kind people.
Angelica Medina: Yes, it’s nice to dance alone at home and, you know, be in your element but I think there is power. There’s like another element of like community collective healing that happens when you are surrounded with people who can share that same feeling of joy.
Sheree Bishop: It’s hard to find community when your options are limited, and even harder to build it yourself. That’s the thing, you might know what you’re looking for, but you don’t have a community unless other people are looking for it too. Jahaira told me that when In Lak’ech started, both of them underestimated how many people would be interested.
Jahaira Fajardo: Oh my God. That was so incredible, because we had our first audition August 2nd, 2017, and we thought, oh, you know, maybe we’ll have like 4 couples (8 to 10 people). 58 people showed up to our auditions! And we were blown away by the reception. We were like, ‘Okay, our people want this, you know, queer and trans people want to dance.’
Sheree Bishop: In Lak’ech has only grown since then, thanks to the dedication of the couple at its center. Angelica, who keeps her hair dyed a deep, vibrant purple and her wife, Jahaira, who wears gauges and often sports large cornrows. Like any passion, turned hobby, turned profession, Angelica and Jahaira started as dancers, and as a couple, before In Lak’ech Dance was established.
Sheree Bishop: How did you both meet?
Jahaira Fajardo: Yeah…
Angelica Medina: Bailando… dancing, of course.
Jahaira Fajardo: We met dancing. Yes. Um, yeah, we, we met in San Francisco at a bar called The Neck of the Woods. It was like a dancing…
Angelica Medina: …social night. And, yeah, I had seen Jahaira dancing, and I went up to her towards the last kind of part of the night, and I was like, “Do you want to dance?” And she almost said no. [laughs]
Jahaira Fajardo: It was late and I was tired. And it’s interesting because in these spaces, the last thing I ever think is that anyone’s going to see me or these are very heteronormative spaces that we’re in. So I never go with the mindset of that. I’m going to meet someone or that I’m going to, you know, anything like that. So I was very surprised when she approached me.
Angelica Medina: Yes.
Jahaira Fajardo: And so we had a nice dance.
Angelica Medina: Yes! It was very lovely. And then at the end of the night, she asked me not for my number but for my name. [laughs] And I’m glad she got my name and she remembered. [laughs]
Jahaira Fajardo: She said Angelica. So the next day I went searching on Facebook. I had a nice dance, so why not connect? And she was very surprised that I found her and…
Angelica Medina: I mean, I was trying to make it clear that I was into her [laughs]. So I hope I made that clear. But yeah, she did message me the next day and it was. Yeah, beautiful connection. From there we started dating and the rest is history.
Jahaira Fajardo: Yeah. That was nine- nine years ago, my goodness.
Sheree Bishop: Sometimes couples can’t work together. So, how did you two discover that you could?
Angelica Medina: Um, I guess. Competing together, performing together, learning the choreography together, to then choreograph together. I think that process made it so, for me, so that I know that we could… Okay, we can hear each other’s perspectives and thoughts and ideas, and it’s definitely not easy. I mean, I don’t think any coupleship or marriage or any type of partnership is easy. And I still feel like we do really well together. I think one thing that helps is like, enjoying each other’s presence.
Jahaira Fajardo: Yeah, it’s nice that we like each other. [laughs]
Angelica Medina: We were just saying that, walking here.
Jahaira Fajardo: I know, we were just saying that. We do spend a lot of time together and we work out together, we eat together, you know, we run a business together and, I was just telling her I’m so happy that we like each other because, you know, it could just be the work thing. But yeah, we and like she said, it’s definitely not easy. And sometimes we have to, you know, have support in order to keep the balance between our… our marriage and our partnership.
Sheree Bishop: I wanted to switch it up a little bit. What is your earliest memory of dancing?
Angelica Medina: Yeah, I would say me being five years old and dancing to Selena in front of the TV. Yeah, it’s pretty simple.
Jahaira Fajardo: You know, for me it wasn’t until I can say that I was about 18 that I, that I became kind of like a “club kid” in New York City where I grew up. And so I used to listen to, like, and dance to a lot of house music, techno music. And I sort of, you know, I was 18, 19, so I was going to all the clubs. I never really thought about it, but that 18 is probably… 19 is probably my earliest memory of me dancing so.
Angelica Medina: What about your videos from home being 15, 16?
Jahaira Fajardo: That too, that’s true. We always had, you know, growing up in a Dominican household, we always had parties. I think I always kind of like attributed dance to my sister because she was such a dancer and I was, “oh, that’s not from me.”
And I also felt because I think because I was a lesbian [laughs], that it is just not okay for me, you know? And I just was like, yes, we had parties, but, you know, I didn’t identify as like, oh, this is my chance to dance. I was always very shy and didn’t want to dance and wanted to hide my body. Um, but yeah, it wasn’t until I got a little older.
Sheree Bishop: What did you notice was missing from the Latin dance community that led you to founding In Lak’ech?
Jahaira Fajardo: Oh my gosh. I was very blessed because when I asked… when I met my dance directors, they didn’t even blink an eye when I told them that I wanted to lead. And in 2013, ten years ago when that happened, um, there were, I want to say, maybe including myself, 3 female leaders in the whole latin dance scene that we knew of, at least in the United States.
Jahaira Fajardo: The heteronormativity of.. of the Latin dance world did feel very limiting to me. Um, uh, and I always felt like I could only bring a certain percentage of myself into those communities and a part of me had to be left at the door.
Angelica Medina: It’s not very open also for female leads, right? Doesn’t give like that opportunity or even a choice. I feel like a lot of classes are so rigid and they assume gender and then they place the dance role up on that. There’s a lot of assumptions made.
[Music]
Jahaira Fajardo: I remember one day we were walking the lake and we were in the middle of training for a competition. Our very first one. And Angelica was like, “Why don’t we start our own community? You know, why don’t we start our own dance company?”
Angelica Medina: Yeah, we wanted to start In Lak’ech so that there could be that integration of the Afro-Latin dance community with the queer community because it was very separate, you know. And so we wanted to, yeah, really bring both communities together and really provide a space where we can lead by example, where we can, you know, be inclusive and everyone is welcome. Um, and it was something that was so special and hadn’t been done before, you know. And to create that in Oakland was also really special. And so… and we’re still doing it. Yeah.
Jahaira Fajardo: It really grew also out of the desire that we just… we knew the joy, the benefits that we get from Afro-Latin dance. It’s our culture, it’s who we are. We love it. And I also understood why there weren’t very many, you know, queer and trans people going. The water was cold, it was frigid. And so In Lak’ech was born to kind of make the- the water a little bit warmer and say, let’s try it, you know, invite the queer and trans community to… to partake in this… in this art and this activity.
[Music]
[Chatter and conversation]
Sheree Bishop: In Lak’ech hosts their classes at The Orange Room in West Oakland. When I went there, it felt like being invited into someone’s home. String lights lined the ceiling, long maroon curtains were draped over comfy, velvet couches. Everything about it was warm! Yellow lighting, cozy heat, and the sound of old and new friends greeting each other.
Once everyone arrived, class got started. The dancers sat on the floor and, when it was their turn to show everyone what they’d learned, everyone paired up based on how they preferred to dance: either by leading or by following.
[Clip of Jahaira giving advice in a dance class]
Jahaira Fajardo (in clip): Also, sabor ya la música un poquito it just.. Sometimes it just feels like the next thing, the next thing, the poor follow is like, you know ‘what’s next? What’s next?’ So there’s just times that… am I wrong, follows? Don’t you like just a moment to just like, breathe a little bit, and you know what I mean? Like it’s nice, you know?
Sheree Bishop: Even though I’d just met everyone, people introduced themselves to me, we danced together, and we ate together. I knew that I’d found a pocket of community that wouldn’t pass judgment about how I carry myself, how I dress, or in this case, how I like to dance. We’ll talk about inclusivity, how the Queer Afro Latin Dance Festival was founded, and more, right after this.
[Bachata music plays in the background while Jahaira shouts ‘Ah! Ah!’ in time with the beat]
Sheree Bishop: Okay, let me be honest, when I got to the studio, the first thing I noticed was the food. A white folding table was set up in the back, stuffed with cookies, crackers, cheese, soda, you know, party snacks.
During the class, everyone took turns dancing in pairs. They moved their hips to music, pulled off tight footwork and even tighter turns, and then Angelica and Jahaira gave them advice and tips.
[Clip of Angelica giving corrections]
Angelica Medina (in clip): …Y’all understand the timing, understand the body movement, the isolation. And then y’all can also, like, let go and have fun! Like, yes! All those elements so, beautiful job. [students applaud]
Sheree Bishop: At the end of the class, the room broke up into social dancing. The playlist was ready, the snacks were laid out, and everyone had the opportunity to mingle, chill, and dance as they pleased.
As it turns out, I’d showed up on a day when they were culminating an 8 week beginner series.
Jahaira Fajardo: We always like to end the series with a celebration, let’s all eat together. Let’s all dance.
Angelica Medina: We do however have like, a social dance component at the end of each class where we do rotate in social dance with each other. It’s a social dancing series. So we want to practice that feeling of improvising with another human being, right, and connecting with them.
Jahaira Fajardo: I mean, it feels so good. You were there, you felt it. It’s like, oh, now we get to, like, intermingle and get to know each other and and we don’t know what’s going on in people’s lives. You don’t… we don’t know if people are alone, if they don’t have a community or what kind of situation they’re in. So this really is an opportunity for people to tap in, and connect, and be seen, and appreciated. We always like to end our class reminding people that they are loved, you know.
Angelica Medina: Beyond measure.
Jahaira Fajardo: [laughs] Yes, You’re loved beyond measure. [laughs]
Angelica Medina: Like a little prayer. [laughs]
Sheree Bishop: You know, everyone’s used to Latin dance, having this very strict boy-girl type of model. And so I was wondering what steps do you take to make Latin dance an inclusive experience?
Angelica Medina: We have community agreements that we kind of go over at the beginning of each series, um, with our students. Um, and that really, like, helps us ground in there. Like we talk about consent, we talk about sexual harassment, we talk about not making assumptions. Leading and following have nothing to do with gender, you know. And so essentially we normalize a space where you can show up as your authentic self.
Jahaira Fajardo: We never want to say that it’s like this difficult thing. We actually would love it if other dance companies kind of followed suit in that even if there are not, a queer and trans dance company but to just, like, allow people to show up however they want, they can lead or follow.
Being who we are as human beings, Angelica and I, we could never reject someone based on something that they can’t control. We would never be able to do that. So we made it open. We are an inclusive space um, and yes, we are queer and trans, but we are inclusive. Yeah.
Angelica Medina: Yeah. We center queer and trans folks, you know, and we welcome allies and we always let them know, you know, ally is a verb. It’s an action, right? You- we call you our allies. You don’t identify as an ally. Right? And so just making that clear because it can- it can the dynamics do shift, right, where when it’s exclusive versus inclusive.
Sheree Bishop: How does it feel to separate the leader-follower aspect from masculine and feminine? ‘Cause even outside of dancing, I feel like especially leaders, people are like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a masculine thing.’ And so like, yeah, I was wondering how it feels to have an environment where that doesn’t necessarily… those things don’t have to be linked.
Jahaira Fajardo: Hmm. Yeah, it. feels liberating to me. It feels like as human beings, like we are so… there’s such a spectrum that we encompass. And so I feel that to allow folks to show up. However, if you want to come on Wen- the first Wednesday of the month and you want to lead, that’s great. You want to try to follow the next week. That’s also amazing. You know, we are there to support that.
Angelica Medina: We love folks who switch. We encourage switching in our classes. We do teach one role at a time because it is more beginner level. But yeah, we… we do want to create that.. that culture because it can be… because it is binary, right? There’s the lead and follow. It’s easy to still get caught up in those dynamics and those roles. Right? Of the leader is more masculine presenting and the follower is more of a femme presenting…
Jahaira Fajardo: Which we kind of fall into right with me presenting more masculine.
Angelica Medina: Exactly. Are you someone who tends to take on leadership roles and you’re always like, you know, leading a team or leading that. So maybe in dance you want to kind of step back and you want to just allow yourself to follow and relax and see what the benefits are for that and then vice versa, right? If you feel like you don’t, you know, take up as much space, then you can do that here and try taking that leadership role and try being a leader regardless of your, you know, gender expression. So we do… we do kind of frame it in that way. And I think I always say dance is life. Life is dance, right?
[Music]
Angelica Medina: …They’re not separate. They’re together. Like how we show up in dance is, how we show up in life. And so I try to make those connections for our students.
Sheree Bishop: You know the saying, art imitates life? Well, not everyone gets to have that representation, or to see themselves in the art they love the most. It’s one thing to make art, to sing, or to dance. After that, though, we need spaces to share art with each other.
In Lak’ech brings a queer-inclusive space to learn Salsa and Bachata with the community, but the Queer Afro Latin Dance Festival offers its participants a chance to perform for a much larger audience.
Sheree Bishop: Speaking of the Queer Afro-Latin Dance Festival, tell me about that. Your students helped create it, right?
Angelica Medina: It gets very tricky for our community, you know, um, because we’ve experienced…
Jahaira Fajardo: And it has happened several times. Sorry to interrupt but it happened several times where our students were harmed and harm was caused at these festivals.
Angelica Medina: It really came from them to want to create a space where they didn’t have to experience the transphobia and homophobia in these festivals. And so they were like, Let’s create a festival, let’s do it. And it was so incredibly… I’m like, I don’t even know how we did that because we started In Lak’ech in 2017 and then we had a festival in June.So less than a year we had created a festival, you know.
And it was so special, like even it was started really small, started at Trilliant Dance Studios. And then we went to the Asian Cultural Center in Oakland and it was just, like, so intimate and so wonderful. And then from there it just started growing, um, we had a lot of energy from our students and our community to support us. And so now we’re going to do our 6th annual! [laughs]
Jahaira Fajardo: Yeah, in 2022, we, we moved into a hotel, so we definitely grew in size and… Wow, what an opportunity for us to create an event where queer Black and brown people can come and participate in something that comes from them, and heal from it and get all the great stuff from it that we didn’t feel like we could before.
Um, and so that is in a nutshell what the Queer Afro Latin Dance Festival is. We reach out to different queer and trans artists from different parts of the globe. We’ve brought people from Europe, Mexico, Canada.
For 3 days, there’s all kinds of workshops. During the day, there’s like three pool party- a pool party every day of the weekend! Extravagant, beautiful showcases celebrating queer and trans Afro-Latin dancers. And then we dance till five in the morning, and we do that for three days.
Sheree Bishop: As teachers and dancers, what specific moment had the most impact on you?
Jahaira Fajardo: One moment that to me stands out forever is at the 2nd annual Queer Afro Latin Dance Festival. The workshops are happening at the moment and Angelica and I are walking down the lobbies just kind of making sure that everything’s okay. And there’s this little… adorable little gay boy like on the floor, um, changing his shoes or something, changing their shoes, and um. And they, like, grabbed my arm and they were like, “I have to ask you, is this how straight people feel every day of their lives? The way we feel here in this weekend?”
And that to me, like I have never been able to forget that. And, you know, I didn’t even know how to answer that. Like, immediately I choked up because it was like, my gosh, like, we live with this every day of our lives. Like Angelica said, dealing with microaggressions, dealing with like, is it okay? The way I look, Is it okay? Can I… can I ride that line? How much of myself can I really be? You know? And he brought that all to the forefront with just that simple question: Is this how straight people feel every day? And I said, “I imagine so.” [laughs] You know [laughs]. You know, but it was just very powerful for me.
Sheree Bishop: How would you describe Queer Joy?
Angelica Medina: Um, I think, Queer Joy is an act of resistance.
[Music]
Angelica Medina: I think our community has, you know, really any community who’s gone through oppression and deep layers of, you know, microaggressions on a daily basis, right, Like, Like there is, I believe that oppression does get stored in the body. Any type of trauma gets stored in the body. And so the fact that we can experience it is us like resisting that oppression. It is like that. It is an essentially fighting back, right.
Like, and I think queer joy is also amplified when it is also done in a way that is ceremonial and it’s in celebration of our resistance. Right. Um, and our sacrifices and just existing and being ourselves. Like I feel like queer joy makes life better, like makes this world a better place, you know, like Black and brown joy, queer joy, trans joy, like all of that is so essential to our healing, not only as a community, but in the world.
[Music]
Sheree Bishop: I’d like to give many, many thanks to Angelica Medina and Jahaira Fajardo. The haven you’ve created with In Lak’ech and the Queer Afro Latin Dance Festival is one this community needs. I hope that In Lak’ech gives back to you all the joy that it’s given to the queer community in Oakland.
Regardless of your experience level, if you’d like to take classes at In Lak’ech, check out their website at inlakechdance.com. In Lak’ech is spelled I-N L-A-K, apostrophe, E-C-H.
The Queer Afro-Latin Dance Festival takes place every summer. If you’d like to learn more, head to queerafrolatindancefestival.com
Don’t forget to follow In Lak’ech on instagram at, you guessed it, @inlakechdance.
This Rightnowish episode was hosted by me, Sheree Bishop.
Chris Hambrick is our editor.
Christopher Beale is our engineer.
The Rightnowish team also includes Pendarvis Harshaw, Marisol Medina Cadena, and Xorje Olivares.
Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldaña, and Holly Kernan.
Rightnowish is a KQED production.
Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on NPR One, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
