La Jornada: El Inbal will celebrate Dance Day with a marathon of 160 activities

The DID Inbal Marathon 2026: Pluriversal Dances will take place on April 25 within International Dance Day, with more than 160 free-access activities, in venues such as the Forest Cultural Center, the Scenic Pavilion, the Scenic Creation Laboratory, Plaza Ángel Salas and the National School of Folklore Dance. Simultaneously, the celebrations will extend to the other 31 states of the country through DID Inbal in Territory.

The celebration will begin at the Guillermina Bravo Dance Theater at 10 a.m. with a Contemporary Gala by the National Dance Company, reported Alonso Alarcón Múgica, National Dance Coordinator of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal). The program will include the pieces Love, Fear, Loss, from the Brazilian Ricardo Amarante; Deja, by the Mexican Édgar Zendejas; Vertigo, by Sonia Jiménez, from Mexico, and really, by the Spanish Nacho Duato.

“We talk about dance within the institution being diverse, pluriversal; you dance, but you also think, you study, you prepare study plans, you have contact with all communities. It is intergenerational,” said the art historian at a press conference.

This second megamarathon has the purpose of guaranteeing “the right to free bodily expression without censorship, respecting the diversity of bodies, forms of movement and cultural expressions, as well as the voices of minorities and vulnerable groups.” Plaza Ángel Salas, for example, will have a varied program that ranges from folkloric, classical and contemporary dance, to moving theater and talks.

The paths of the Scenic Pavilion will offer surprise interventions to spectators. At the Toña La Negra Forum there will be dancing to the rhythm of danzón and huapango, to close at 8 p.m. with a great closing dance animated by the La Necedad salsa orchestra, Alarcón Múgica pointed out.

A party of empathy

The Contemporary Dance Production Center (Ceprodac) will present the program at 7 p.m. at the Dance Theater Between light and shadow, dialogue of creators, composed of the works Lobos, by Bárbara Alvarado, and black moon, by Beatriz Madrid, indicated Cecilia Lugo, artistic director of the Center. “We dancers know that dance is celebrated day by day; however, in this marathon we are going to find ourselves in an atmosphere of celebration, empathy, with a view of inclusion and diversity that makes us all participate,” he noted.

For its part, the José Limón National Research, Documentation and Information Center will pay tribute to its founder in 1983, the dancer, choreographer, researcher and promoter Patricia Aulestia, who is also the initiator of the International Dance Day commemorations, indicated its current director, Ofelia Chávez de la Lama. Investigating dance is also taking care of your memory and expanding your senses, he added.

The artistic selection of the DID Inbal 2026 Marathon is the result of a national call that received 376 applications, of which 90 projects were chosen.

Haydeé Boetto, deputy general director of Inbal, recalled that the institution promotes the decentralization of support for the production, circulation and dissemination of works through a series of calls. One of them is Performing Arts at School, currently open, which recovers the old and emblematic Inbal school theater program, which “has been decisive in the training of many generations of artists and non-artists,” he said. It has been restructured to include dance. The program has two aspects: school to theater or dance, and theater or dance to school.

Another call is Escenarios IMSS-Cultura, which recovers the network of theaters of the Mexican Social Security Institute that is located throughout the country. Boetto announced the upcoming opening of the national dance call Danced Knowledge, which will select up to 100 projects that will be awarded a cash prize.

The programming of the DID Inbal Marathon 2026: Pluriversal Dances can be consulted on the social networks of the National Dance Coordination, such as Instagram and Facebook.