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Every October, for 14 days thecapital of San Luis Po to sí be -comes a true repub lic of the

dance by hosting the Lila López In ter - national Contem porary Dance Fes tival(FIDC). It involves the most avant-gardein dance and has become con solidated asthe most important ritual of the movementin Mexico and Latin America. The offering to Terpsichore, the goddess of

dan ce, takes place in two cultural spaces parexcellence in the city of San Luis Potosí: thePeace Theater and the Raúl Gamboa Cul tural

Center, belonging to the Potosí Fine Arts In -s titute.The festival has evolved to the point that it

is no longer considered just the patrimony ofthe state of San Luis Potosí, but of all of Mex -ico. This is not pretension: the FIDC is a fun-damental part of our country’s contempo-rary dance scene.

Acquiring this kind of prestige wasnot easy. To understand its importance,we have to look at the work of Lila del

Car men Isabel López Patiño (1933-2001), af fec -tionately known among dancers nat ion wide as“Maestra Lila,” a visionary of her time. She foughtto make the festival a space where dancers andchoreographers from all over the country couldstay abreast of new developments and wherethey would have the means to express themselves

* Head of information for the San Luis Potosí Minis -try of Culture.All photos are previously unpublished, from the 1964 San LuisPotosí Ballet. Courtesy of the SLP Ministry of Culture’s PressDepartment.

The Lila LópezInternational Contemporary

Dance Festival

Juan Carlos González Islas*

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by presenting their own choreographies. Her en -thusiasm paid off when the festival was founded.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF A DANCE PROMOTER

Lila López was born July 8, 1933 in Mexico City.When she was nine, she entered the MexicanElectricians Union Children’s Ballet, directed byMagda Montoya. In the early 1950s, the talent-ed youngster entered Sergio Franco’s group, withwhich she toured New York, performing at diffe r -ent venues, including the Modern Art Museum.She studied at the Martha Graham School andwent to classes taught by Yeichi Nimura at theBallet Art Studio. She also studied with XavierFrancis, Guillermo Arriaga and the National Balletof Mexico. She ventured into Spanish dance withÓscar Tarriba and taught in Mexico City at Alfon -

soArau’s Studio, attended by popular stars of thetime.In 1954, Lila participated as guest teacher in

the Modern Dance Ballet Quintet, directed byMag da Montoya and Ricardo Silva, with whichshe toured several cities in Mexico. In 1960, shejoined the Official Ballet of Contemporary Dance,under the auspices of the National Fine Arts In -s titute (INBA).In 1961 the INBA hired Lila to give modern

dance classes at the Potosí Fine Arts Institute.Three years later, she founded the San Luis Provin -cial Ballet, which years later was to host the FIDC.

THE FESTIVAL IS BORN

The FIDC’s immediate predecessor was the cho -reography Lila López promoted at the First PotosíCultural Fair in August 1977. The Modern DanceExperimental Group, under the auspices of Ama -lia Hernández’s Choreography Workshop, partic-ipated.At first, the fiesta was called the National Con -

temporary Dance Festival of San Luis Po to sí, and

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it took place in July and August, with the supportof the INBA, the state government and the PotosíFine Arts Institute. Beginning in 1981, the numberof dance groups from all over the country whocame to the festival grew.In 1990, during the 10th National Contem po -

rary Dance Festival, it became international, as itcontinues to be. In 2001 Governor Fernando SilvaNie to decreed that Lila López’s name should beadded to the festival’s title, in homage to her in -valuable work.López always had the support of her inse p -

ara ble partner, painter Raúl Gamboa Cantón,and of her dear friend and closest collaborator,Car men Alvarado. It was Alvarado who took res -ponsibility for organizing the twelfth and thir-teenth festivals when Lila López was no longerthere to do it.

AN EXAMPLE TO BE FOLLOWED

On the basis of the solid organization and dis-semination of contemporary dance by the FIDCin our country, other states have begun to orga-nize their own festivals. The FIDC is consolidat-ing its work as an example to be followed: todaythere are more than 30 festivals throughout thecountry that use the operational model that Maes -tra Lila implemented from the very start.In its 26 years, the FIDC has hosted more than

450 choreographers who have presented about1,400 dance pieces. The workshops held duringthe FIDC have involved more than 1,600 students,while about 145 Mexican groups and 70 foreigncompanies have attended. In addition, the FIDCincludes other artistic activities like national pho -to graphy and visual arts contests organized aroundthe theme of contemporary dance. Since 2004,the FIDC has been held in October in order toattract more internationally renowned compa-nies and insure its prominence nationwide. Thegoal is, as Maestra Lila would have wanted, tobecome one of the world’s most important inter-national festivals.